Action Movie Fanatix Review: Stash House

Every Villain Has His Day

Starring: Dolph Lundgren, Briana Evigan, Jon Huertas, Sean Faris

Director: Eduardo Rodriguez

2012  |  99 Minutes  |  Rated R

“This is not an accounting error, there are men out there trying to kill us!” – Amy Nash

Any action fan was excited when After Dark Films announced their After Dark Action series of movies.  The movie I was most excited about was probably Stash House.  Any movie with Dolph Lundgren in it is going to jump to the top of any list for me.

Dave Nash (Sean Faris) surprises his wife, Amy (Briana Evigan), with a new house for her birthday.  They soon find out that the house was a good deal for a reason when Dave finds a stash of heroin.  Two hired guns, Ray Jaffe (Jon Huertas) and Andy Spector (Dolph Lundgren), arrive at the house looking for the drugs and the other secrets of the stash house.

First things first.  This couple is F’ing annoying.  At the beginning they are this bland, cutesy, perfect couple.  The guy’s making a lot of money.  They’re moving into a huge house.  “Hey honey, for your birthday I got you a bike, a bike rack that I am too stupid to install properly and a drug dealer’s old house.”  Then, as soon as the shit hits the fan, the wife turns on him.  True Love.

Dave instantly resorts to sniveling like a little girl instead of finding a way to save his wife.  She instantly blames him for ever moving away from Ohio (not sure what state they are in now).  They were so bad that I found myself rooting for the villains.

Finally Dolph shows up and things look up… a little.  Andrew Spector is muscle-for-hire for some drug kingpins and he is getting up there in age.  He’s on his way out of the business.  Dolph is the only shining light of the entire movie.  He’s the only badass here and the only actor worth his salt.

Stash House wasn’t exactly fitting for the After Dark Action name.  Would have been better suited for an After Dark Thriller or After Dark Home Invasion series.  This just isn’t much of an action movie.  It is Dolph and this other little schmuck terrorizing a couple who might just be better off dead.  And worse yet, it’s never really very exciting until the very end.

Pretty much all the action outside the house is shown through the eye of this black and white night vision camera that wouldn’t have been such a bad effect at first but after seeing it for every single frickin’ scene filmed outside the house – it’s just downright ugly.  It’s bad film making.  It’s like watching Paranormal Activity without the ghosts.  Actually, come to think of it, I would rather deal with the ghosts than a pissed off Dolph Lundgren.

One more thing before I wrap this up.  After Dark had better get some better proof readers.  The back of the DVD case had Briana Evigan’s character listed as Emma when it was actually Amy.  I’m kind of a proof reading and spelling nazi so little things like this really annoy me.

Well, Stash House could have been good.  The poor acting (aside from Dolph), direction, characters and action (aside from the ending) all added up to a movie I couldn’t wait to end.  To say I was disappointed would be a massive understatement.