Terror in a 10×10: Storage Facilities in Horror Movies

The sun has just sunk from the sky and it’s dusk at your storage facility. You’re alone, on a routine trip to your storage unit, but you don’t feel like you’re alone. You hear the footsteps of someone nearby. A shadow moves on the wall. You get the sense that you’re being watched. The footsteps are headed in your direction, but still, you don’t see anyone. Shaking, you grab what you need, pull down the roll-up door on your storage unit and take off. Later, in your car, you realize that the footsteps belonged to your storage facility manager who was simply just making his nightly rounds. There was nothing to be afraid of after all, so why were you?

Storage facilities have long played a role in horror movies, acting as the perfect setting for monsters both real and supernatural to stalk their prey. While modern storage facilities certainly work hard to make you feel comfortable, don’t blame yourself if you get the goosebumps the next time you visit your storage unit. Treat yourself to a marathon of these horror films featuring storage facilities and see if you ever have the guts to visit your unit before sundown again.

The Hoarder

This 2015 horror flick features none other than Marissa Cooper—er, Mischa Barton—as a suspicious girlfriend trying to figure out if her boyfriend is cheating on her. Naturally, this leads her and a friend to a storage facility where they’re trapped with a group of strangers, all of whom find themselves being pursued by a bloodthirsty creature that’s creepy enough to make you glad your storage facility doesn’t have 24 hour access.

Self Storage

If you like your terror with a dash of laughter, à la the legendary Scream franchise, you’ll enjoy Self Storage. The premise of this movie is equal parts ridiculous and dark. Basically, the dull-witted son of a storage facility manager throws an after dark party on the property complete with sex, drugs and yes, storage units. Little does he know, his father (played by Eric Roberts in all of his villainous glory) is using the facility as a front for his illegal human organ harvesting business. Blood, gore and hilarity ensue.

Blood Shed

Groan-worthy name aside, this 2014 self storage horror movie stands out because it was literally written inside of a storage unit. Director and writer Patrick Hasson knows a thing or two about how creepy storage units can be because he used to live in one. Hasson created Blood Shed based on his own experiences of listening to (but never seeing) the things that go bump in the night at a storage facility. The resulting film about a homeless man at a storage unit being haunted by a shadowy figure feels even eerier given the source material.

Storage 24

A military cargo plane crashes in London, so naturally a group of people end up locked inside an underground storage facility (don’t you hate when that happens?). From there, things just get worse. As they attempt to free themselves, they realize that they’ve got company. An alien lifeform has escaped from the crashed plane, as alien lifeforms tend to do, and now they must kill or be killed.

The Silence of the Lambs

If ever there was a horror film responsible for that chill running up your spine every time you visit your storage facility alone, it’s this one. The Silence of the Lambs is the OG of using storage facilities to terrify us. In the movie, Dr. Hannibal Lecter cryptically tells Clarice to “look deep within yourself.” The sleuthy detective follows the clue to his storage unit in a facility called Your Self Storage. She breaks in and finds some pretty standard serial killer stuff: mannequins, bird statues and of course, the embalmed head of one of his former patients. This 1991 film was the first and only best picture winner in the horror category, a real triumph for fans of scary movies and self storage facilities alike.