Ex-con Schillinger (Ryan Francis) has been out of the big house long enough to start up his own business as a removal man, and has just hired two more employees, also prison alumni: tough Imani (Morgan Alexandria) and her friend, soft-spoken new father Carlos (Bryce Fernelius). All three have pasts they would like to put in the rear-view mirror of the moving van. But an offer from a creepy old man (Michael Flynn) with a German accent to do a quick overnight cash job will expose each person’s dark secrets and vulnerabilities, including piquing their perfectly natural curiosity when he tells them to shift everything in the mansion but stay out, per the title, of the attic. And the basement for that matter, but presumably director Jerren Lauder and his producers agreed Stay Out of the F**king Attic and Also the Basement wasn’t such a snappy title.
Of course, the employer’s command sets the movers in motion and it all comes out: Nazi pasts, monsters, and one unfortunate mover’s eyeball in a particularly gruesome interlude. Strictly in terms of generating jumpscares and gross-out moments this is efficient enough as a cinematic machine, but the script credited to four different people including Lauder hasn’t got a lot of finesse or subtlety. Even for allowing that horror films set in spooky old houses are supposed to be full of dark shadows and blackness, this is especially gloomily lit, so viewing on laptops is not recommended. Tension relieving laughs are few and far between, except for unintended guffaws that might be generated when one character skins part of their own anatomy; but the actor does such a poor job of expressing pain it looks like they merely stubbed their toe.
• Stay Out of the F**king Attic is released on 11 March on Shudder.
