Film Review - Cold Storage

Enjoyably silly B-movie nonsense featuring overqualified big screen royalty plus Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell

Credit: StudioCanal

What are the likes of Vanessa Redgrave and Lesley Manville doing in this pulpy sci-fi horror B-movie nonsense? Having a blast, that’s what. Who says they’re only allowed to appear in highbrow dramas? Their presence is a welcome addition to Cold Storage. As for Liam Neeson, he’s pretty much had it with serious roles these days, preferring instead to lean into his action movie credentials, even if, as here, good-natured fun is being poked (his character suffers from a bad back, presumably from too many prior biohazard clean-up covert op heroics).

The young leads are played by Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell as Travis (nicknamed “Teacake”) and Naomi. They’re hired for dead-end jobs in night security at a dubious storage company somewhere in Kansas. It’s Georgina’s first night on the job, but unfortunately, this happens to be the night they discover the storage facility used to be a top-secret government site for storing dangerous experiments gone wrong. One of these, a highly evolved, ultra-aggressive fungal plague that does horrible things to people and animals, has inadvertently been unleashed. Well, that’s what happens when governments cut penny-pinching corners, ignoring environmental concerns and selling off property that should never have entered private ownership.

Assisting Travis and Naomi is Neeson’s character, Robert Quinn, and a helpful government responder called Abigail (Ellora Torchia). In addition, Sosie Bacon has a memorable bit part in the Australian-set prologue, which gruesomely and grippingly details the origins of the fungus. The film’s captions warn us to “Pay attention! This shit is real!” Naturally, such captions make this run-around blend of The Andromeda Strain (1971) and various zombie films all the more hilarious. David Koepp adapts his own novel to amusingly cynical effect, with a colourful cast of characters that provide good reason for sticking with the grisly thrills and spills. Infected animals and humans alike smear themselves across the screen in visceral puddles of blood and green goo. Not all the CGI convinces, but it’s good, gory fun for those inclined towards this sort of thing.

Performances are solid from the winning leads, as well as the smaller roles for the aforementioned prestigious talent deciding they want a go at something schlocky. Director Jonny Campbell is best known for helming episodes of TV series like Doctor Who, as well as the rather dismal Ant & Dec showcase Alien Autopsy (2006). However, here he helms with flair, building suspense well with a couple of fungus-point-of-view sequences set to amusingly apt needle drops by Blondie and the Beach Boys.

I doubt Colt Storage will bother anyone’s brain cells for too long, but whilst watching, this is enjoyably daft stuff. If you’re craving reasonably well-made B-movie silliness, you could do a lot worse. I also couldn’t help wondering if the literal creeping brain-rot apocalypse threatened in this film is a metaphor for the figurative creeping brain-rot that seems to be afflicting humanity on a global scale these days. Insert the metaphor of your choice here: unchecked environmental damage, unwise cutbacks to maximise profits, political discourse in general, social media… Yes, all right, it’s a bit of a stretch. Perhaps I’m overthinking it. But this is a fun watch all the same.

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