Cold Storage will be released in theaters on Feb. 13.
For those who have enjoyed certain types of horror-comedy hybrid films through the years, there’s something comforting about Cold Storage from the start. On-screen text at the opening, which turns an ominous backstory about the remnants of the Skylab space station and what it actually brought down to Earth into a purposely jokey over-the-top display, makes it clear that there’s a “we’re having fun here!” approach.
That tone continues in the film’s prologue, as an investigation into ghastly deaths in a tiny Australian town caused by a piece of Skylab evokes 1990’s wonderful Tremors, both with its desert setting and its heightened, funny tone accompanying its horror movie scenario. It’s not full farce or self-parody, but it’s winking just enough, buoyed by some clever visuals from director Jonny Campbell, particularly when it comes to depicting what happens to the oh-so-dangerous fungus discovered at the scene and the passage of time that follows.
Cold Storage loses some momentum after its great opening, feeling more hit and miss comedically as we pick up 18 years later, when two employees at a 24-hour self-storage warehouse – Travis (Joe Keery) and Naomi (Georgina Campbell) – come into contact with this fungus. The substance has been secretly sitting in hidden levels underneath them; their place of work just so happened to once house a military base. The specific horror-comedy vibe the filmmakers are going for is a tricky one to maintain, and there are beats that don’t quite hit the mark as we get to know Travis, Naomi, and a few other characters that will be significant over the long night they’re about to endure.
Still, there’s a lot to appreciate throughout, starting with the film’s leads. Stranger Things fan favorite Keery and Barbarian star Campbell make for an appealing central duo, with the proper amount of charisma and chemistry to sell the bantering ‘opposites attract’ dynamic between Travis the ex-con and Naomi the aspiring veterinarian. They also have one hell of a pivotal third major player in the form of Liam Freaking Neeson as Robert Quinn, a now retired military veteran we first meet in the prologue.
Robert gets a heads-up that things are going awry at the storage warehouse and goes to help, even as Travis and Naomi begin to find out just how much trouble they’re in. Again, this film’s tone doesn’t require Neeson to go full Naked Gun as far as sending up his tough guy image to an extreme level, but it does let him show different, gently funny and humanizing sides to his usual action persona, including the fact that Robert has quite a bad back from a previous injury. Yes, this is something begging to be significant in the third act, and thankfully, the film pays it off in a very entertaining manner.
Cold Storage is produced and written by David Koepp, adapting his own novel. Koepp has an interesting Hollywood career; he’s a go-to screenwriter for massive studio movies from franchises like Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, and Indiana Jones, but in between those sorts of films, he’s also frequently writing (and sometimes directing) smaller, quirkier projects. And while some of them have been misfires, there have been some notable highlights there as well, including 1999’s compelling ghost story, Stir of Echoes, and last year’s terrific Steven Soderbergh-directed spy film, Black Bag.
Cold Storage finds Koepp operating outside his usual style with something much more heightened and winky. This is a movie about a fungal outbreak that turns those it infects into zombie-like creatures; it’s also about the long locked up remnants of a previous outbreak accidentally being unleashed, leaving some out-of-their-depth average-joe employees to deal with it. So if there was a shorthand I’d use for this movie, it would be “The Last of Us meets The Return of the Living Dead,” and in that regard, while it doesn’t match either of those projects at their best, it’s still quite fun in its own right.
Koepp and Jonny Campbell add some nice flourishes that keep the film from feeling like a carbon copy of other zombie-adjacent stories (though there are plenty of familiar elements, of course), including the fact that those infected will eventually just plain explode out of nowhere. That allows for moments that are both surprising and jolting, and also darkly funny and plenty gory.
In the midst of all this, subplots involve an elderly woman (Vanessa Redgrave, reuniting with her Mission: Impossible screenwriter Koepp 30 years later) coming to the storage place intending to kill herself with a gun; Naomi’s ex showing up after a household accident, also carrying a gun; and an inside job plan by Travis and Naomi’s boss to rob the storage place that night. Is it pretty silly that all of these things happen to be going down at this isolated location on the very same night as a potentially world-ending outbreak is simultaneously beginning beneath their feet? Sure, but the jokey, easygoing tone of the movie allows you to let it slide more than you might otherwise.
Still, there are times where Cold Storage falters. As a Prometheus apologist, I will say this movie really pushes things in terms of having multiple characters – including those who should definitely know better – lean in close to something clearly horrible and dangerous occurring in front of them. There’s also just a tiny bit more sentiment included near the very end than what feels right for the overall feel of the story. The movie’s budgetary constraints are also felt in some of the visual effect shots, which are not always the most convincing.
But TV veteran Jonny Campbell, whose credits include episodes of shows like Doctor Who and Westworld, frequently overcomes that budget obstacle with some stylistic shots that are less beholden to sell complete reality. This includes a great sequence showing how the fungus is passing between insects and animals, where the camera hurtles forward and visually leans into everything looking more like CGI animation rather than photorealism.
Lending solid support is Ellora Torchia (Midsommar) as a military analyst contacted by Neeson’s Robert who ends up being his Al Powell-like new buddy feeding him crucial info even though they’ve never met in person. There’s also a very likeable, endearing performance by Lesley Manville (Maleficent) as Robert’s old comrade-in-arms who also comes out of retirement to try to help save the day.
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