Cold Storage

This sci-fi comedy/horror is played with a straight-face but a twinkle it its eye.  While it won’t change the genre, Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell are a fun double-act to spend time with, and the snappy dialogue and gross-out special effects keep the tone light and the chuckles coming.

Premise:  Eighteen years after military biohazard specialist Robert Quinn (Liam Neeson) managed to contain a deadly, infectious mutated fungus, the decommissioned government containment facility where it was stored is sold off to a self-storage company, and nightshift security guards Teacake (Joe Keery) and Naomi (Georgina Campbell) may be all that stands in the way of a world-ending outbreak.

Review:

In one of those “you couldn’t make it up” situations, it seems that the story for Cold Storage was inspired by the real life Atchison Caves storage facility, which was a secure US government storage facility from WWII until 2013, when it was auctioned off to a private buyer, who in turn sold it to a warehousing company.  I’m (pretty) sure that in real life, no nasty surprises were left behind in the Atchison Caves when the government sold them ... but this movie has fun playing with what might have happened if that wasn’t the case.

The film could have easily taken itself too seriously and become just another forgettable entry in the zombie-adjacent horror sub-genre – but instead, the movie wholeheartedly embraces the B-movie ridiculousness of the premise and has a lot of fun with it.  That said, the characters in the film are not playing their scenes for laughs – Liam Neeson‘s stern retired military officer, for example, always behaves as if the threat to humanity is deadly serious ... but at the same time, the playful camaraderie that he develops over the phone with his new military liaison (played brilliantly by Ellora Torchia) is a lot of fun.

“…the heart of the movie is the pairing of Joe Keery & Georgina Campbell…”

The heart of the movie is the pairing of Teacake (Joe Keery), a veteran nightshift security guard who’s settled into an easy life, and Naomi (Georgina Campbell), a new recruit who’s clearly bored at work and looking for some excitement.  Both characters have backstories (which I won’t spoil here) that give them more depth and development than they arguably needed (in what is, essentially, just a fairly light-hearted comedy), but it’s their sparky relationship that makes the film as much fun as it is.

In arguably his biggest role since breaking out in Stranger Things, Joe Keery brings some genuine pathos to Teacake, while Georgina Campbell brings an irresistible sense of enthusiasm to what is arguably her biggest role since breaking out in Barbarian.  Both are clearly talents to watch going forward, and their easy-breezy performances in Cold Storage are responsible for many of the film’s funniest moments.

“…an inventive & playful spin on a traditional B-movie…”

The film is an oddity (in a good way) – it’s an intentionally playful (if gory, in places) B-movie, which is not necessary what you expect from David Koepp, the fourth most successful screenwriter of all time (based on US box office receipts, including last year's Jurassic World: Rebirth).  You also wouldn’t necessarily expect a film like this to feature cameos from British acting royalty Lesley Manville and Vanessa Redgrave – but it does.

Yes, if I was nit-picking I could say that the finale runs out of steam just a little – but by then I was already having such a fun time with these characters, I could easily forgive a minor plot issue like that.  Combining laugh-out-loud moments and snappy comedic dialogue (including a gag which has ruined suitcase nukes for me) with an inventive and playful spin on a traditional B-movie end-of-the-world scenario, Cold Storage is much better than it probably had any right to be.