Cold Storage – Movie Review
Leaning hard into the 80s B-movie vibes, Cold Storage sees renowned screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park) adapting his own novel for the screen, and director Johnny Campbell bringing all the blood and ooze splattering goodness of this genre, with Liam Neeson, Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell delivering hard on this campy assignment.
After a space station exploded in 1979, leaving contaminated remnants to fall back down to Earth, government bioterror operatives Robert (Neeson) and Trini (Lesley Manville) are called to the discovery of a tank in 2007 that contains a mutated fungus from the space station disaster which leads to disgusting gory outcomes. In the present day, the contaminated tank lives deep underground and under the cover of a self-storage warehouse which is guarded by Teacake (Keery) and Naomi (Campbell), both unaware of the secrets that lie beneath them.
But when a distant beeping coming from underground captures their attention, and the arrival of an array of weird and wacky characters who seemingly are infected by the mutated fungus, a normal night shift turns deadly and disgusting.
There’s a bit of B-movie everything in Cold Storage. It’s a sci-fi flick, a zombie movie, a campy comedy, a body-horror splatter fest, government conspiracy thriller, romance, and crime caper. But altogether, it’s a pretty damn fun time. Koepp’s story and Campbell’s direction sync up wonderfully for the cinephile sickos who are looking for a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, leaning into the chaotic nature of the premise in a very entertaining, 90-minute ride.
The special and visual effects of the way the fungus mutates both humans and animals (shoutout to the Rat King) is ooey and gooey in all the right ways. The puss-filled, bloody scabby sores lead to some very effective body horror moments, and the movie is not shy on those. But all of the violence manages to balance the line of shocking and funny with its slapstick approach to the overall action.
The story of Cold Storage is packed to the brim for a 90-minute romp, dealing with a lot of characters and their intersecting storylines. And while it’s definitely a little convoluted and overstuffed, it’s the light tone of which these storylines are dealt with that make the film feel the kind of messy you’re looking for in a B-movie. From the government war room dealing with the infection situation, to the bikie criminals planning a heist of the storage unit, and the infected ex-boyfriend making an untimely return, the heightened and exacerbated nature of each plot point just adds to the ridiculous fun and humour, rather than bogging the film down.
Cold Storage really works though because of how committed the actors are to that ridiculous tone. Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell, plus Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville, both make for great two-handers in their own rights. Watching actors of Neeson and Manville’s calibre, gleefully wading their way through the blood and ooze of the film is delightfully entertaining. While Keery and Campbell bring a fun energy to their character’s plot.
Right from the opening moments, Cold Storage lets the audience know the type of movie they’re going to be in for, and how hard it’s going to lean into the insanity of the premise. And the end result is a really fun B-movie, full of nasty body horror, that doesn’t take itself too seriously at all.
Cold Storage is in Australian cinemas March 12
