Fans of pulpy, schlock horror comedies rejoice! David Koepp (Panic Room, Death Becomes Her) and Jonny Campbell’s Cold Storage releases today (too little fanfare). Some spoilers to follow in this review. In short – it’s a fun Friday night fright flick.
The plot of Cold Storage is what happens when you take the situation comedy tone of Cabin in the Woods. Mix it with a self-referential, semi-serious hot take on climate change and steal the entire plot of 1985’s Return of the Living Dead. Minus the kick arse rock and roll soundtrack. (If you’ve never heard Partytime by 45 Grave, get on Youtube right now).
Teacake (Joe Keery) and Naomi (Georgina Campbell), two Gen-Z adjacent night security guards at a remote storage complex, find themselves fighting for the survival of the planet against an outbreak of brain invading, mutated fungus. If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. The quick pace of this setup and the goofy romantic chemistry between these two reluctant heroes, lubes the machinations of this frequently funny body horror adventure.
The tropes are standard for this kind of thing. The storage complex is a reappropriated military facility. They stored some secret, nasty shit on sealed sub levels. It gets out. It spreads, the fungus compels its victim to spread more fungus… by any means necessary. Cold sweats and bodily fluid excretions – check. Extreme projectile vomit – check. Malformed and exploding body parts – check. Riotous one liners uttered in disbelief by stunned witnesses – you got it.
Only one man is capable of containing this cosmic disaster, his name is Quinn. Wait, sorry, his name is Liam Neeson. Playing every character Liam Neeson has played since 2008’s Taken hit screens. Though let us not worth dwell on that. In context, within this story about invasive green slime turning people into violent puking zombies, a broken down 73 year old retired spook saving the world isn’t that absurd.
David Koepp isn’t hiding his inspiration for this one. Characters mirror their counterparts from aforementioned 80’s flicks. An early scene shows Teacake reading a worn copy of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Plenty of nods and references are littered about for keen eyed creature feature aficionados. There’s also a covid joke that had the theatre audience erupting. Simple, but effective. It’s the timing and delivery that works in Cold Storage’s favour. It’s pure popcorn cheese.
I give it a generous 7/10 dead cats. Cold Storage does not re-invent the wheel nor does it bring anything unique to the party. It is just good old fashioned fun. Charmingly goofy, the creature and action effects are decent and gross. Hopefully there’s not a sequel. Leave this one, a one and done.