Cold Storage review: Horror comedy in need of more laughs
With famed Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible writer David Koepp‘s name on the script, I had reasonable expectations for the horror comedy Cold Storage, which is based on his 2019 novel of the same name. It’s a fun, silly film, but it could have drummed up the comedy more.
Cold Storage revolves around a dangerous parasitic fungus that was sealed in a government facility for 18 years. In the intervening years, the facility closed down and the fungus remained locked in the underground vault, which was subsequently transformed into a self-storage unit. Employees Naomi (Georgina Campbell) and Travis, aka Teacake (Joe Keery), are working the night shift when the fungus makes its escape, with deadly consequences.
It’s amazing how many big names appear in this, given its B-movie quality. There’s Liam Neeson as bioterror expert Robert Quinn, who goes to the facility when alarms go off, as well as Lesley Manville as his former colleague Trini Romano and Vanessa Redgrave as a storage customer named Ma Rooney. Neeson and Manville seem to be having a great time and Redgrave’s role is so small that her casting feels rather odd.
I was really into Cold Storage from its opening, which followed Quinn and Romano as they investigated an oxygen tank that fell from space and landed in Western Australia in 2005. The initial discovery of the fungus and what it did to their colleague was promising and I couldn’t wait to find out more. Unfortunately, it doesn’t maintain that standard when the action picks up 18 years later in the self-storage unit, but it’s still fun, light-hearted and silly. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it definitely could have amped up the laughs a bit more.
The fungus infection sequences are very entertaining to watch, as are their encounters with the infected. They aren’t exactly scary but they are pretty gross and disgusting, with plenty of green goo. Keery and Campbell are capable, watchable leads, but I just wish they had a better script to work with.
In cinemas from Friday 20th February