Cold Storage [2026]

May 22, 2026

Nothing like slipping into the latest addition to one of your favorite subgenres. And I hope it’s the same for you. Cold Storage is a deliciously gooey horror comedy reminiscent of all those eighties B-movies we love so much. It is just an ordinary night shift for Naomi and Teacake, two diligent employees of Self Storage Atchison. However, after they hear a strange beeping sound coming from the walls, it will start changing fast. It turns out that behind the walls is an old abandoned military facility. A facility used to store dangerous stuff, and some of that dangerous stuff is about to become deadly. What follows is your classic single-location B-movie horror comedy in the vein of The Return of the Living Dead. Fungus will spread, infect stuff, and our two protagonists, with the help of one retired operative, will have to take care of it.

Everything you would expect from a movie like this is present and accounted for. Well, I guess the nudity had to go, but I’m willing to make that sacrifice. It’s funny that they have a character, Garbage, a nod to the almighty Trash, played by Linnea Quigley in the above-mentioned classic. A classic featuring a healthy dose of good old eighties nudity. I wonder whether you could do something like that today. Something that doesn’t feel exploitative but just a bit erotic, teasing the audience. It would appear that I can’t stop talking about nudity, so let’s change the subject quickly. I bet that the instant you read deadly fungus, you thought The Last of Us. I feel like every movie featuring some sort of fungal infection will get the same treatment. And it’s just not fair.

You cannot trademark something like that. On that note, I had a strong Planet Terror vibe throughout the movie. When it comes to the Skylab Space Station, that part is very much real. The rest of the story is pretty much your standard-issue run-hide-kill routine. With a couple of witty dialogues in between. Cold Storage is a pretty strange movie when you look at its crew. The director is Jonny Campbell, best known for his 2020 miniseries Dracula. And the writer is none other than David Koepp, the man who wrote the scripts for basically every big nineties movie. I’m talking about shit like Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, and Mission: Impossible, among many others.

I absolutely love one of his earlier works, I Come In Peace, a hilarious, so bad that it’s good science fiction movie. Joe Keery (Stranger Things) and especially Georgina Campbell (Barbarian) were great choices for lead roles. Indomitable Liam Neeson finds himself in another cool role at the tender age of seventy fucking three. You keep ’em coming, and we’ll keep watching them. Too bad Richard Brake didn’t get a bigger role. I would love to see him in action. Gavin Spokes, who plays the sleazy biker Griffin, was excellent. The special effects were a mix of practical and CGI, and they look pretty solid. I mean, just a couple of shots were kind of messy, but the rest was gruesomely delightful.

We need to appreciate the fact that they went all in with an R rating. That means that heads will get blown off, people will simply explode, and all that good stuff. Just the thing you need after a nasty blunt. Cold Storage was filmed in Italy and Morocco, as this is a StudioCanal and Pariah production. Well, they could’ve fooled me. I also liked the whole “camera goes inside of things and shows us microlevels of infection or other stuff”. I noticed that people stopped using this little gimmick some time ago. When you combine all of these elements, you get one hell of a guilty pleasure.

A movie that should not be taken seriously but enjoyed in its full capacity as a fun distraction. A fun distraction with good chemistry between the actors, a genuinely funny script, and a decent amount of body horror. I wonder what this could’ve been if they had a bigger budget. Finally, if you’re looking for movies like Cold Storage, do check out Feast and Slither. All of these reviews feature further recommendations if this one piques your interest. As a bonus, I urge you to check out the little-known It Came From The Desert, featuring a similar atmosphere and setting. Just with deadly mutated giant ants!