COLD STORAGE (2026)

In Cold Storage, the new sci-fi comedy adapted by veteran screenwriter David Koepp from his novel of the same name, a man-made fungus has been shot into space aboard a NASA shuttle in the hope of developing new anti-fungal medications for astronauts. However, the fungus has crashed back to Earth on the ill-fated shuttle, and it isn’t behaving exactly as it did before it left our atmosphere.

We first glimpse the new space-fungus and its concerning effects in a flashback sequence set in 2007, when a trio of scientists in hazmat suits carry out a field study in the Western Australian desert. The fungus can attach to your clothes, eat through the soles of your boots, and corrode your flesh on a molecular level, entering your bloodstream and wreaking havoc as it goes.

British director Jonny Campbell, whose sole feature-length credit before this is, concerningly, the Ant & Dec vehicle Alien Autopsy (2006), breathes a colourful, borderline cartoonish air into proceedings, which occasionally threatens to topple into obnoxiousness.

On the positive side are SFX shots that zoom into the organism’s cells as it burns through rubber and flesh, while the infected erupt from the inside like the victims in The Last of Us. Anamorphic frames give the crash site a Western, John Carpenter-esque scope, while its bubblegum colours would feel at home in Street Trash (1987) or The Toxic Avenger (1984).

Adding to the sense that Cold Storage is a remix of 1980s sci-fi and horror is the head-turning pedigree of the cast. Like Donald Pleasance getting his trench coat out of mothballs for Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), or Michael Caine hightailing it to the Caribbean to duke it out with an avenging great white in Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Cold Storage snags screen legends Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville, and Dame Vanessa Redgrave. The latter two are despairingly underused; Manville is barely glimpsed without a hazmat helmet on.

Liam Neeson, who has spent the last decade and change of his career leaning into his grizzled-but-lovable “tough old dude” persona, plays bio-terror army man Robert Quinn as if he were recording a video for Cameo. He smirks, hero-poses, and hits the sweary lines with a “can you believe I’m allowed to say this?” twinkle. He also seems as if he may have learned his lines in the car on the way to the set.

It all feels as if he’s on autopilot. A graphic T-shirt from 2011 with a picture of Neeson and the phrase “Fuck Yeah” plastered over it could probably play the role. The use of the actor here feels less like an attempt to raise the calibre of the film and more an attempt to dump a living meme into it.

The poster for Cold Storage proudly states it’s “From the Producers of Zombieland“, a film which pulled a similar trick with Bill Murray. Success here isn’t necessarily down to whether the actors are good; rather, it depends on whether the gimmick is amusing enough to sustain such a hefty portion of the film.

As it is, Neeson spends most of his scenes in isolated one-shots—driving his car, in bed, or on the telephone—giving the film, intentionally or not, a B-movie feel. The detail that Quinn has a chronic bad back almost feels written in on behalf of Neeson’s representatives. “Don’t worry,” you can hear them saying, “you can sit for most of it.”

Thankfully, the film has a seemingly limitless resource of fresh energy in Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell. They play Naomi and Travis, two young, bored security guards at a storage facility in Kansas. They spend their shifts tolerating their idiot manager, Griffin (Gavin Spokes), who is trying to rope them into a scam involving stolen TVs and his biker gang. The details hardly matter; this is a film about getting the dominoes into the right place, not the numbers on them.

The facility itself is a great concrete bunker in the middle of nowhere (it’s actually Morocco standing in for Kansas, adding to the slightly off-brand feel). The security desk is bathed in neon and fluorescent light like a cinema’s concession stand. This could be any menial job in the world, and Cold Storage is at its strongest when it fits Keery’s “slacker” vibe.

Bleached blonde with dark roots and a single earring, Keery shuffles around the facility in a bright orange jacket looking like a guitarist in a “Geese-adjacent” band who has accidentally turned up hours late to his own gig. Naomi wears a matching jacket, her braids tight and falling across each shoulder. Where Travis looks perpetually worried, Naomi is unblinking and forthright.

There is a spark between the two, and their escapades eventually lead to half-romantic confessions. What’s particularly refreshing as they set out to find the source of a mysterious sound behind the walls is the lack of awkwardness. The chemistry is easy and recognisable—the sort you get from two people who’ve worked a boring job together for years.

Their excursions deeper into the tunnels make space for revelations about Travis’s past and the nature of what is being kept in the deepest levels. It turns out a sample of the mutated fungus has been kept in the bowels of the facility since the events that opened the film. A malfunctioning ventilation system now threatens to unleash hell on Travis and Naomi, as well as a crew of “expendables” including a clingy ex-boyfriend and a ragtag biker gang. With Quinn on the way, a hellacious showdown is promised.

Only, it isn’t all that hellacious, or even particularly tense. The fungus works as a rage-like zombie virus before it eventually explodes the host. We get the roaring, jerky, angry zombies we’ve seen many times before. They aren’t particularly scary, and this is where the film’s perma-jokiness takes its toll.

Eye-rolling lines are no substitute for genuine excitement. Keery does his best to land quips like “So… that’s not natural,” but a film that’s already playing it daft doesn’t need to undercut the horror any further. Added to this is a series of desperate choices that whiff of “try-hardism”.

There are retro needle-drops where you can sense your ribs being jabbed by the director (this isn’t the first film to use “I Get Around” or “One Way or Another” ironically, but it certainly seems to think it is). There are also baffling and obnoxious title cards that instruct the audience to “Buckle Up!”.

The film works best when Campbell and Koepp allow things to play out without underlining the “wackiness”. The use of the facility for a game of hide-and-seek is smart and allows for variety in the gags and gore. That most of the film takes place in one location works in its favour, but the concept isn’t taken far enough. Koepp, whose previous single-location scripts include Snake Eyes (1998) and Panic Room (2002), has proved he has a knack for invention.

That brilliance is nearly present in Cold Storage. With the Jurassic Park (1993) screenplay under his belt, it’s obvious Koepp is no stranger to writing about monstrous outbreaks. Here, the bunker recalls George A. Romero’s masterpiece Day of the Dead (1985), while the concept echoes the classic workplace horror The Return of the Living Dead (1985). But Cold Storage isn’t as genre-defying as the former, nor as rambunctiously nihilistic as the latter.

Ultimately, there is not much on the film’s mind. Characters make references to Covid or “active shooters” without much wit or purpose. The various refurbished parts say little besides “remember this?” (A question we might ask regarding the subplot involving a frail Vanessa Redgrave planning to shoot herself).

The attempted gung-ho ending is a damp squib and doesn’t suit the shaggy, casual tone that Keery and Campbell all but rescue the film with. There’s a more interesting sci-fi film buried here that gets lost in the tunnels and battered by “holy-shitballs” humour.

USA • FRANCE • UK • ITALY • MOROCCO | 2026 | 99 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review:

This 4K release of Cold Storage is presented in 2160p with HEVC encoding. The film, shot by DoP Tony Slater Ling, is vibrant and colourful; the presentation here offers an almost day-glo look to proceedings. The colours in Keery and Campbell’s costumes particularly pop, and the detail on everything from the sandy desert floor to the gooey makeup effects shines through. The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is a real plus, with action scenes (particularly gunfire) sounding powerful and well-balanced. The song choices throughout also offer a great chance to turn up the volume and appreciate the quality of the track.

Cast & Crew

director: Jonny Campbell.
writer: David Koepp (based on his novel).
starring: Georgina Campbell, Joe Keery, Sosie Bacon, Vanessa Redgrave, Lesley Manville & Liam Neeson.