Crew
Director – Jonny Campbell, Screenplay – David Koepp, Based on the Novel Cold Storage (2019) by David Koepp, Producers – David Koepp & Gavin Polone, Photography – Tony Slater Ling, Music – Matthieu Lamboley, Visual Effects – MPC Visual Effects (Supervisors – Bastien Chauve & Nikolas D’Andrade), Makeup Effects – Igor Studios (Designers – Dave Elxsey & Lou Elsey), Production Design – Elena Albanese. Production Company – Pariah Productions/Canal+/Cine+/OCS.
Cast
Joe Keery (Travis ‘Teacake’ Meacham), Georgina Campbell (Naomi), Liam Neeson (Robert Quinn), Lesley Manville (Trini Romano), Ellora Torchia (Abigail), Sosie Bacon (Dr. Hero Martins), Aaron Heffernan (Mike Snyder), Vanessa Redgrave (Mary Rooney), Gavin Spokes (Griffin), Richard Brake (Wesley Jerabek), Andrew Brooke (Ironhead), Darrel D’Silva (The Rev), Luiza Richter (Garbage), Nahel Tzegai (Cuba), Daniel Rigby (Anthony), Rob Collins (Enos Namatjira)
Plot
In 2007, biologist Hero Martins accompanies containment specialist Robert Quinn to a town in the Australian Outback where debris from the fallen Skylab has spread a deadly fungus that has wiped out the entire town. Martins becomes infected after getting some of the fungus on her boot and dies within minutes. The samples are taken to the Atchison military facility in Missouri River Bluffs, Kansas for storage. In the present day, Teacake works at a storage company. He meets his new co-worker Naomi. The two hear strange noises coming through the wall and break through to find the Atchison site has been buried and their facility built over the top. The fungus has escaped and now begins to rapidly take over people and other animals as it seeks to spread. Quinn is called in to deal with the situation as Teacake and Naomi find themselves fighting off the infected.
David Koepp is a high-profile screenwriter with credits for films such as Jurassic Park (1993), Mission: Impossible (1996), Spider-Man (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005), among a good many others. Koepp also has a greatly underrated career as a director. (See below for David Koepp’s other genre credits). Cold Storage comes with a script from Koepp, who bases it on his first novel Cold Storage (2019).
Cold Storage is directed by British director Jonny Campbell whose previous film was the comedic Alien Autopsy (2006). Campbell has also directed a good deal of television, including episodes of Spooks (2002-11), Doctor Who (2005- ), Westworld (2016-22) and Dracula (2020). The film was shot in 2023, but release delayed until 2026.
You have to commend the film as it grabs your attention from the start and rarely lets go until the end. The opening scene holds an intrigue with Sosie Bacon being called by the man in the midst of a dust storm in the Australian Outback and she, Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville arriving to sort things out and encountering a deserted town of dead bodies. This and the subsequent scenes where the contained fungus is moved to an underground storage facility has strong associations with The Andromeda Strain (1971). As they investigate, Sosie gets the fungus on her boot and moments later becomes infected before her head explodes into green goo inside her contamination suit.
This is just the prologue and the main body of Cold Storage takes place at the storage facility. We are introduced to slacker Joe Keery and new employee Georgina Campbell, who are both crafted with well-developed backstories. What really stands out about the film is the snappy repartee and low level flirtiness between the two of them and the natural rapport that the two actors strike up with one another. They really do seem perfectly believable as working stiffs going down to investigate an anomaly and biting off more than they can chew – Joe Keery’s incredulous “You brought a nuke?” and then being asked to deliver it by Liam Neeson is priceless. It’s some great character writing from David Koepp and gives the film an enormous sense of fun.
Koepp’s plot keeps busy jumping between the competing storylines and character intersections, ranging from Keery and Georgina on the inside, Neeson and Lesley Manville brought in to contain the threat, as well as assorted bikers turning up to the facility, covert calls to Neeson from Ellora Torchia back at military command, even a surprise appearance from an aging Vanessa Redgrave that never goes anywhere. Koepp’s adeptly twists and turns around this, throwing in spins that push everything in unexpected directions – Liam Neeson determines to try to stop anyone coming out of the facility at gunpoint only to put his back out and be forced to shoot while on the ground in agony.
Jonny Campbell conducts a wonderful balancing act between humour, making Koepp’s snappy dialogue zing and the horror element. There are some great effects showing infected deer, humans, what is referred to as The Rat King and the cat Mrs Groggins with half her face blown off. Although the best effect is one where a biker gets the top half of its head blown off and then just keeps on walking. This is the sort of film that you can easily imagine having been made back during the mid-1980s fad for Makeup Effects driven horror – the era that produced works such as The Evil Dead (1981), Re-Animator (1985), Return of the Living Dead (1985) and a host of imitators. It makes Cold Storage quite one of the most satisfying and enjoyable films I have seen in some time.
Screenwriter David Koepp has written a number of high-profile films including Apartment Zero (1988), Bad Influence (1989), Death Becomes Her (1992), Carlito’s Way (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), The Paper (1994), The Shadow (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Snake Eyes (1998), Panic Room (2002), Spider-Man (2002), War of the Worlds (2005), Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Angels & Demons (2009), Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), Inferno (2016), The Mummy (2017), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), Presence (2024), Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) and Disclosure Day (2026). As director. Koepp has also made the collapse of civilisation drama The Trigger Effect (1996), the medium film Stir of Echoes (1999), the Stephen King adaptation Secret Window (2004), the comedy Ghost Town (2006), Premium Rush (2012), Mortdecai (2015) and the malevolent house film You Should Have Left (2020).
Trailer here