Movie Review: “The Hoarder” Owns A Dark, Sinister Secret

A young woman enters an underground storage facility, where she soon finds herself trapped and stalked by a killer.

Director Matt Winn takes an average, everyday business, in this case, a storage facility, and turns it into a living nightmare. I’m sure many of you have owned one of these, some are spaces in an outside structure, while others are typically inside a large building, some encompassing several floors. The latter is where the majority of “The Hoarder” takes place and to great effect I might add. When Ella (Mischa Barton) discovers that her boyfriend is renting a secret storage unit in a facility downtown, she immediately assumes that he is hiding something from her so with the help of her best friend Molly (Emily Atack), they break into the place of business to satisfy Ella’s ego.

Once there, after exiting on the wrong floor, unbeknownst to both Ella and Molly, they enter a habitat of nightmares. In the shadows, Molly is quickly attacked and killed by an unseen assailant, leaving Ella to race back to the elevator. As it makes its way back up however, it stalls and Ella must crawl up the elevator shaft to the ground floor where she meets a group of people who, like her, have stayed past the closing time and are now trapped inside. In order to make it till morning, everyone must trust in each other and hope that whatever is in the basement, doesn’t figure out how to make its way upstairs.

There are some genuinely disturbing images and the film incorporates a constant atmosphere of dread and apprehension, from beginning to end. Director Matt Winn takes full advantage of his location, utilizing every shadow from every nook and cranny to make full use of his authentically conceived horrors. Mischa Barton is solid as the film’s central character and the supporting cast do well in their respective roles. While the finale is overly predictable, thankfully, it doesn’t take too much away from the rest of the movie, a satisfying and enjoyable scarefest. You’ll never look at your storage unit the same way again.