The Vault (Video 2001) Poster

(2001 Video)

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4/10
The Vault just won't keep you in...
barnthebarn27 May 2008
'The Vault' is better than several of the films created by the Full Moon Pictures and Tempe Entertainment partnership. Unfortunately being better than the norm does not make it particularly good. James Black is a good actor, here playing a teacher taking a group of kids to collect useful stuff at an old school about to be demolished. Also being director, Black sometimes puts cheap scares above developing the story and this is the films main failure. The cast (some also from 'Killjoy') are again pretty good but are given a dud script, some truly ridiculous character development (or not), and a horrid set. The latter does look like a school but the whole story presented around this building that looks quite modern and isn't terribly interesting either fails to enthral, scare or entertain. The building has a bellowing guard who regularly warns the kids about the danger and in the best bit of the film (which may say something) catches a dude doing graffiti saying "Do you believe in the devil?", dude replies: "I believe in a good arse whipping". Shame this whipping didn't spur the filmmakers to try a little harder!
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2/10
No atmosphere, no scares, no good.
loomis78-815-9890348 March 2014
Warning: Spoilers
A teacher (Lyde) takes a handful of students to an abandoned school that is marked for demolition. The school at one time was a prison for slaves and Mr. B wants the kids to have a chance at saving some history. As soon as they get in the place they find themselves locked in. So what is the first thing they do? They split up to investigate. An evil spirit of a dead slave is imprisoned in a vault in the school and is of course unleashed. Cheesy effects and uninspired deaths follow in predictable fashion. This Full Moon production lacks any zip at all and the story just sits there instead of doing something. Even low budget supernatural movies can deliver some scares but they usually need atmosphere and this movie has none.
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This could be the worst "movie" of all time
mf11238 October 2003
I'm embarrassed to even admit that I saw this movie. It was poorly made in every way. the picture, sound, acting, directing,etc. should have all been kept in the vault. What a piece of S%*T this is. How does something like this even make its way onto the shelf at Blockbuster? I have nothing at all good to say about this "movie." I want to go kill myself just knowing that I wasted a few dollars and hours on it. If you're walking through the video store and you see The Vault ... and you think ... well, that looks all right... maybe it's creepy ... what else is there to rent ... DON'T DO IT! There are a million other movies to rent. I've said my piece. This "movie" gets 0 out of 10 and that is generous!
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1/10
About as scary as an After-School special adaptation of an RL Stine book.
y2mckay3 February 2002
This is the danger of picking up something you've never heard of before at the video store , simply because the cover looks cool . ..

It's hard to know what demographic this movie was made for. It's like some ghetto-style Blair Witch Project Lite, with an African-American cast set in an abandoned school. It is supposedly about a history teacher and a group of students who go into the school to retrieve any historical memorabilia before it gets torn down, but end up finding something horrifying in the basement. Sounded like a good premise on the cover description, except that the story is woefully bad and completely unfrightening. It is far too poorly written and executed to satisfy any serious horror fan. It certainly has the production values of an After-school special, and could have been a good scary movie for kids, except that it has far too much profanity and gore.

I blame the writer/filmmaker James Black. His cast could be accused of bad acting, but the truth is these kids probably could have turned in some decent performances if they'd had a workable script and some good direction. Instead, they run around spouting cliche'd lines, trying to act too hip, and arguing with each other about everything. Likewise, the school where they shot this film could have been a great location for a scary film - except that they filmed everything there in the DAYTIME!! Hey, first rule of horror films, James - all the best ones take place at night. It looks like they probably shot the whole thing in one day, as a matter of fact. And the back-story of why the basement is haunted is completely ludicrous, historically inaccurate, and even a bit propagandist.

So, in short. Stay away from James Black films. Stay away from Full-Moon films. And especially, stay away from The Vault.
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1/10
One interesting plot device doesn't make a decent movie yet.
Vomitron_G11 July 2011
Complete rubbish. The kind of film where the director went like "I've got an idea for a movie...", and regardless it being an interesting idea or not, they just go ahead and make it with little to no money while giving the whole thing not much thought, ending up with a useless (very) low budget affair. It's lousy filmmaking at best. The plot throws a bunch of people (all blacks) in an abandoned building that's haunted by terrible acts from the past. Nothing worthwhile happens during the movie's 70 minutes running time. One kill was amusing (a guy gets half his head sliced off by a piece of window glass, bad SFX included). Everything else: plain boredom with painful acting. It's along the lines of 'Death Factory' (2002), if you've ever tried watching that one. I'd label 'The Vault' a supernatural slasher. To be filed under: not worth watching.
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1/10
Hilarious!
africe17 August 2019
If this movie were listed under comedy I'd have given it a 6. But since it is a horror I give it a 1. The acting is terrible and the effects weak as hell. If you want a good laugh I suggest this film
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6/10
Hilarious for all the wrong reasons
jrj202011 February 2008
This is not a film you should watch alone. Not because it's hideously scary, but because it's so laughably bad. I watched this with a group of friends, and we weren't expecting anything great but it was SO bad it became entertaining.

The plot is questionable at best, the acting shoddy and the production terrible. Take the comedy security guard for example... there's a part where he starts talking in time to the music, as if rapping. Its absolutely appalling! The whole plot is just plain rubbish, plenty of loopholes in the plot, plenty of shoddy special effects. I especially recommend you check out the lighting... some scenes which are set in the basement are brilliantly lit while others in first floor corridors are dark with a blue hue about the place. I could honestly believe it was shot on a £100 video camera from argos using Ikea lighting.

So all in all, absolutely awful. I've given it a 6 however because I recommend watching it with friends if you all want a laugh! Oh if you do watch it make sure you look out for "Zachary" near the beginning - priceless!
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another horrible full moon/tempe production
JBoze31315 July 2001
Well, this one isn't as horrible as Horrorvision, but it sure is close! Nothing works in this film. The look is very low budget, which is the case, but there are many ways to make it look better; the acting isn't very good, the story is much too simple, and much too boring, some scenes defy reason, I could go on for days. I want to like Full Moon films, but I just can't. The film, it looks as tho they spent exactly one day on the script, one day on filming, and one day on editing..maybe even less. Black is a first time director, I think, and you can tell...he worries less about storytelling, and more about style, and using cool tricks that do nothing but take away from the plot. The scenes are too drawn out, and there is very little suspense. Some of the acting is just plain bad, some is decent at best.

Another problem with this movie is the back story with the slave trade. I don't know a lot about the slave trade, but I'm gonna take a wild guess and say, despite what the movie claims, they never delivered slaves from Africa to California. That fact took away from the seriousness, then you have this horrible guard character who goes on and on about the history of the place, despite the fact that there's an evil spirit loose in the building. I could go on for a while, but I won't. This movie is just bad...Full Moon productions is just bad, and it's a shame, because I think they could go a lot better.
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