Read @ Joe’s

Title: Cold Storage (2026) Director: Jonny Campbell Writer: David Koepp Studio: StudioCanal // Samuel Goldwyn Films IMDb Plot: When a highly dangerous fungus escapes from a secret laboratory, a former bioterrorism agent is called back into action. Alongside two young employees, he must confront an invisible and out-of-control threat. Joe Says: Cold Storage is a horror comedy that proudly teeters between farce and full body splatter. Enjoyable in the moment but will probably not have a long shelf life, title notwithstanding.

Back in 2019, David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man) wrote a silly novel that read like a B-movie pitch. Skylab falls from orbit. Alien fungus lands on Earth. The government freezes it. Climate change thaws it. It grows. It spreads. It explodes. The concept was pulpy, fast, and knowingly ridiculous. Seven years later, Koepp’s gory little creature feature makes the jump to the screen with Cold Storage, a horror comedy that proudly teeters between farce and full body splatter. The pacing is brisk, the characters are game, and the bodily fluids are plentiful. For a February horror release, Cold Storage’s B-movie antics are a warm blast of schlock.

Director Jonny Campbell (Netflix’s 2020 Dracula mini) wastes no time in setting the tone. As Skylab plummets, bold rendered text winks at the audience that shit is about to get real. Campbell visualizes the fungus slicing from macro to micro, emphasizing its invasive creep. Once hidden in a secret Kansas facility, now converted into a self storage warehouse, the thawed organism becomes a microscopic menace threatening dead cats, angry deer, and stupid humans alike. Campbell keeps the tone buoyant, allowing comedic beats while delivering generous CGI splatter. At 100 minutes, the film slightly overstays its lease, but makes for an entertaining, juvenile-laden escape.

The real surprise is how much personality the attractive cast injects into what could have been disposable monster fodder. Georgina Campbell (Barbarian) brings grounded credibility as Naomi, an overnight employee who did not sign up for sci-fi heroism. While the on-parole, and badly nicknamed, Teacake (Joe Keery, fresh off some strange streaming thing on Netflix) admirably straddles a fine line between slacker charm and clever usefulness. Their chemistry sells the blend, with Campbell playing it straight and Keery embracing the absurdity. The truly hammed up performances come courtesy of veteran actors Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville as government agents sent to clean things up, even as their gravitas nudges them toward camp. 

Koepp threads in additional tension, if only to ramp up Neeson’s pressure cooker of a situation, with the always-wonderful character actor Richard Brake as the grumpy military commander, and a gang of supporting characters from central casting who exist, more or less, to be zombie fodder. Oh, and Vanessa Redgrave appears as a grieving, gun-toting widow, because why not.

The film efficiently cycles through setup, chase sequences, and escalating confrontations, never apologizing for its own silliness. And to its credit, Naomi and Teacake avoid the worst horror clichés. Koepp’s dialogue moves with an easy cadence, momentarily making you forget he also scripted the recent Jurassic World: Rebirth, a spectacle not remembered for its witty repartee. 

Where Cold Storage ultimately falters is in its tonal obligation. Campbell and editor Billy Sneddon never quite commit to being gut-busting funny or genuinely skin crawling. The comedy could push further. The horror could splatter harder. Instead, Campbell and Koepp split the difference, delivering a film that is enjoyable in the moment but will probably not have a long shelf life, title notwithstanding. 

There is style here, energy, and an obvious affection for the creature-feature tradition. But like the contents of a rental storage unit, Cold Storage is easy to forget once the door rolls shut.