Aaron Heffernan, Cold Storage, comedy, Ellora Torchia, Gavin Spokes, Georgina Campbell, horror, Joe Keery, Jonny Campbell, Lesley Manville, Liam Neeson, movies, reviews, Richard Brake, sci-fi, science fiction, Sosie Bacon, Valentina Popkova, Vamessa Redgrave, Vanessa Popkova
February 14, 2026
by Carla Hay
Directed by Jonny Campbell
Culture Representation: Taking place in Kansas (and briefly in Italy, Australia, and North Carolina), in 2007 and in 2025, the sci-fi horror comedy “Cold Storage” (based on David Koepp’s novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Asians and indigenous people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A deadly green fungus, which was secretly placed in a storage facility by the U.S. Army, becomes unleashed, leading to several gory deaths, and only a small group of people know how to stop the fungus.
Culture Audience: “Cold Storage” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the movie on which the book is based, and horror comedies where most of the comedic situations are from “gross-out” body horror.
The sci-fi horror comedy “Cold Storage” is a mix of gory and goofy in this story about a deadly green fungus that’s unleashed from a Kansas storage facility. The movie also has wry observations of military corruption and worker exploitation. It’s a fairly straightforward horror comedy where the “splatterfest” that takes place is intended to evoke scares and laughs at the same time.
Directed by Jonny Campbell and written by David Koepp, “Cold Storage” is based on Koepp’s 2019 novel of the same name. The movie starts off in 2007 and then fast-forwards to 2025, when most of the story takes place. Most of the horror action takes place in Atchison, Kansas, but there are also a few scenes taking place in Australia and in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Cold Storage” was actually filmed in Morocco and Italy.
“Cold Storage” begins with a captioned introduction referring to the real-life incident involving the U.S. space station Skylab on July 11, 1979. In this incident Skylab re-entered Earth’s atmosphere earlier than anticipated and “fell out of the sky.” “Most of the debris burned on re-entry,” the caption explains. “Some [of the debris] landed on Earth,” specifically, the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.
In 2007, Dr. Hero Martins (played by Sosie Bacon), an American research microbiologist who works as a consultant for NASA, is relaxing at a cafe in Rome when she gets an emergency phone call patched in to her by NASA. The caller is Enos Namatjira (played by Rob Collins), a resident of Kiwirrkurra, Australia, a rural community located in Western Australia’s Gibson Desert. Enos frantically tells Hero that a tank is there and that something terrible is happening to everyone in Kiwirrkurra. A major windstorm is happening where Enos is, so part of what he says is hard for Hero to understand.
However, 27 hours later, Hero has arrived in Kiwirrkurra with two officials from the U.S. Army: Major Robert Quinn (played by Liam Neeson) and Lieutenant Colonel Trina Romano (played by Lesley Manville), who investigate what turned out to be a mysterious plague that killed everyone in Kiwirrkurra. The “tank” that Enos was talking about was a NASA oxygen tank that fell from space. The tank was believed to have been a remnant of the Skylab disaster.
It’s revealed early on the movie that this oxygen tank, which was sent up with Skylab, had a terrestrial fungus. Enos had taken the tank and opened a Skylab Museum to showcase the tank. When Enos called, he reported an outbreak of unknown origin. Hero, Robert and Trina (all wearing hazmat suits) soon discover dead bodies where everyone looks like they exploded before they died. Many of the bodies are found on a roof, as if they were trying to escape on an elevated platform.
Hero finds the tank and does an X-ray examination. There’s a living green organism in the tank that suddenly lunges in Hero’s direction, even though the tank is closed. Hero finds a small, dime-sized patch of green fungus on a building surface and takes it as a sample. It’s decided that because this is a hazardous disaster area with no survivors nearby, the U.S. Army will have to blow up the area.
Just as Hero, Robert and Trina are about to leave, Hero shows signs of being infected. Her condition quickly escalates to where the green fungus appears all over her body. She becomes irrational and starts to see Robert and Trina as enemies. This review won’t reveal everything that happens, but it’s enough to say that things do not end well for Hero.
Robert and Trina recommend that the U.S. Army store this fungus in a secret storage facility in Atchison, Kansas. It’s later revealed that the fungus was buried in a container in a secret underground laboratory-styled warehouse located 400 feet below the storage facility. Over the next 18 years, the storage facility went through many changes, including the U.S. Army selling the storage facility to a private business, without telling the current owner about the secret underground warehouse with the deadly fungus.
In 2025, the storage facility is now called Atchison Self-Storage, which is owned by a sleazy criminal named Darryl Griffin (played by Gavin Spokes), who uses the facility to store stolen big-screen TVs, which he sells to other thieves for a profit. A conversation in the movie also reveals that Darryl sexually harasses his female employees. “Cold Storage” is mostly about what happens one night during a late shift at Atchison Self-Storage.
There are two Atchison Self-Storage employees who are on duty as security personnel: a motormouth misfit named Teacake (played by Joe Keery) and a sarcastic intellectual named Naomi (played by Georgina Campbell, no relation to “Cold Storage” director Jonny Campbell), who has been recently hired at Atchison Self-Storage. Teacake needs the job because he’s on parole. Teacake later tells Naomi that he spent time in prison after being set up for a theft he didn’t commit. Later in the movie, Teacake tells Naomi what his real name is and how he got the nickname Teacake.
Naomi, who is 24 years old and a veterinary school student, has the job because she needs the money to pay for expenses. She has a 6-year-old daughter named Sarah (played by Vanessa Popkova and Valentina Popkova), with a nitwit named Mike (played by Aaron Heffernan), whose relationship with Sarah goes back to when they were in high school. Whatever love Naomi might have had for Mike is now gone. She clearly despises him and calls him a “hopeless man-child” when she describes Mike to Teacake. It’s unclear if Naomi and Mike are still a couple, but Mike definitely acts possessive of Naomi, because Mike constantly calls Naomi while she’s working and eventually shows up at the storage facility because she won’t return his phone calls.
In the first scene showing Atchison Self-Storage, Darryl tries and fails to convince Teacake to help the thieves who will be arriving later to pick up the stolen TVs. Teacake refuses because he doesn’t want to do anything that could send him back to prison. Darryl is frustrated because he normally doesn’t go to the storage facility at night, in order not to implicate himself in helping the thieves move the TVs out of the facility.
Before Darryl leaves, he orders Teacake to find out the source of a mysterious beeping sound that he’s been hearing in the storage facility. Because Teacake refused to help Darryl with the stolen TV scam, you just know that Darryl will come back at some point to oversee how these TVs will be moved out of the storage facility. Darryl’s fate can easily be predicted in a movie like “Cold Storage,” but it will still give some viewers plenty of satisfaction to see what happens.
Meanwhile, Teacake hears the beeping sound. Naomi doesn’t hear it at first, but then she hears the sound too. Teacake and Naomi find out that the beeping sound is coming from behind a thin drywall, which they decide to tear through. Behind the drywall, they find a map and a ladder leading down to the unknown. Vanessa Redgrave has a small supporting role as an Atchison Self-Storage customer named Mary Rooney, who has the misfortune of being at the storage facility on the night when things turn into chaos.
It’s no mystery in this movie’s plot that the fungus gets loose and wreaks havoc. The rest of “Cold Storage” is about what happens when the fungus (which spreads like ooze) is discovered at this storage facility. Infections occur if anyone comes into unprotected physical contact with the fungus. Humans aren’t the only ones who get infected. A cat and a deer are among the animals that are also shown getting infected.
Sensitive viewers should be warned: The scenes involving the fungus infections and death are very explicit. At some point in the infection process, the infected individual vomits green bile. This isn’t normal-looking vomiting. It’s the type of intense vomit projectile that can be compared to a snow cannon machine in motion. The movie’s visual effects are better than the average low-budget independent horror movie that has visual effects.
The U.S. Army finds out about this outbreak at Atchison Self-Storage. And so, even though Robert (currently living in Raleigh) and Trina are retired, they’re soon on the scene to help. Robert has an old U.S. Army nemesis named Wesley Jerabek (played by Richard Brake), who was the one who decided to sell the storage facility to a private business owner without telling the owner about the deadly fungus stored inside. Wesley is still a high-ranking U.S. Army official, and he wants to suppress any reports or military assistance involving this outbreak. One of his subordinates, using the code name Abigail (played by Ellora Torchia), defies Wesley’s orders when Robert contacts her.
“Cold Storage” doesn’t have much of a plot beyond showing who will survive this outbreak and how they survive. (And it’s very easy to predict who dies and who lives.) The performances are serviceable, with good comedic timing from all the cast members. However, “Cold Storage” is the type of horror movie where the concept outshines the characters. The movie isn’t constantly laugh-out-loud funny. Most viewers will get at least some mild chuckles out of watching it.
As far as the “Cold Storage” characters go, the banter between Teacake and Naomi is the heart of the movie’s dialogue. What starts out as awkward co-worker interaction between Teacake and Noami turns into mutual attraction and respect. Robert and Trina have a sometimes-prickly, sometimes-cuddly rapport with each other that’s also entertaining to watch. “Cold Storage” is a horror movie that puts a lot of emphasis on gross-out splatter scenes, but there’s still enough humanity to make the main characters relatable to a lot of viewers.
Samuel Goldwyn Films released “Cold Storage” in U.S. cinemas on February 13, 2026. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 6, 2026.