'The most inventive, original and worthwhile film on a climbing topic I've seen in the last decade'. Colin Wells, Climb Magazine. 'Storms' is a first in climbing history. Finally, a climbing film without any climbing or narrative in this hysterical analysis of the modern climbing ethic. The onslaught of comedic sketches mirrors the achievements of our heroes. Features a battle scene, super-heroes, villains, insane caricatures, short animations and film parodies. Visually stunning, very funny, and slightly risqué..... an experimental climbing comedy falling off the edge. Double award winner at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival 2005. This is a place where hero's wouldn't dare. Where you need a crispy baguette to survive. Where the crags have become battle grounds. Where adventure and awe are replaced with laugher and lunacy.... this is 'Storms the Movie.' Awards Winner of the Mountain Culture Award Kendal Mountain Film Festival 2005. Winner of the People’s Choice Award Kendal Mountain Film Festival 2005. 'I thought the whole thing was absolutely brilliant!' - John Dunne (one of the many targets of Storms). 'Storms. . . great, congratulations, I laughed out loud!' - Bernard Newman, Climber Magazine Editor.
Storms the Movie - Reviewed in Climb magazine by Colin WellsStorms the Movie - a DVD based very loosely on a stage production Storms of Laughter which Lee and Halsted toured, the duo have dispensed entirely with factual footage and gone for a straight half-hour satirical sketch show based on climbing. This was a huge gamble - a project like this had the potential to be monumentally terrible. Instead, thank god, they've pulled it off to produce a show that, consciously or not, nods in the direction of influences as diverse as The Fast Show, The Goodies, That Peter Kay Thing and even the venerable Michael Bentine's Potty Time.
Although some might accuse them of cruelty to pensioners, one of the many highlights is undoubtedly Lee's over-the-top lampoon of Chris Bonington. No one else has quite captured that slightly camp intonation that Bonington employs to deliver his worthy pronouncements quite so deliriously before. Lee's depiction of Bonners as a crazed old egomaniac obsessed with potting sheds and boring mountains is augmented by subtle Simpsons - style background visual gags - like the book titled 'Quest for Adjectives' stacked on the shelf behind him - blink and you'll miss them.
Other splendid sketches include Dave Halsted attempting all 14 Woolworth's checkouts in Burnley dressed as Alan Hinkes. There's also a truly awesome pastiche of the film Touching the Void ('I couldn’t believe it, I'd broken my baguette, we'd never be able to get down on pies alone'), several sick animations at Leo Dickinson's expense and sundry other sketches satirising bouldering and the peculiar Yorkshire cult of John Dunne worship. However, arguably the most technically impressive part of the movie is a lovingly crafted and very silly homage to the CRoW Act and Stephen Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.
ing as it does out of a couple of punters' computers, the technical proficiency of this piece is quite staggering - many mainstream TV series exhibit inferior special effects. And many television comedies have inferior scripts to this DVD as well. You get the distinct impression Halsted and Lee have really come of age in terms of film-making - surely the next leap is to leave the ghetto of Mountain Film and head for the real world? Maybe Storms might just give them that launchpad.
