Skylab, the United States’ ill-fated first space station, was launched in 1973 and came crashing back to Earth in 1979. It has been a prominent plot device in some movies and TV shows since then.
Most notably, it featured in the 2001 comedy (and early ’80s period piece) Wet Hot American Summer, when David Hyde Pierce’s Prof. Henry Newman and a group of wily campers used a device partially built out of donuts to divert a remnant part of Skylab from crashing into the big talent show. A poster even features Skylab about to take out Elizabeth Banks. (Historians will note that Skylab crashed in 1979, while Wet Hot had a piece of it crash two years later. Because it was hilarious, we shall forgive this likely intentional historical inaccuracy.)
Now comes Cold Storage, a film that puts Skylab to a more sinister (yet still funny) use. While Skylab crashed to Earth in 1979, a piece fell untracked somewhere in Australia, where they turned it into a tourist attraction. In 2007, it leaks a crazy fungus that causes the surrounding townspeople to explode. U.S. operatives Robert Quinn and Trini Romano (Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville) are sent in hazmat suits to accompany scientist Dr. Hero Martins (Sosie Bacon, badass daughter of Kevin and Kyra!).
Of course, things go wrong. Cut to present-day Kansas, where the organism is inexplicably stored deep in a former military base-turned-commercial storage facility. After nearly two decades, the forgotten storage container begins to fail; the fungus leaks; and the whole world is in mortal danger. Quinn’s phone rings in the middle of the night, and his mission is to now save the world from a fungal apocalypse.
Ex-con Teacake (Joe Keery) and young mom Naomi (Georgina Campbell) are working dead-end night-shift jobs at the storage facility, where they hear a faint alarm going off. They burrow through some walls, descend a long step ladder, and discover a green substance doing awful things to rats. Unbeknownst to them, some of the green stuff got out earlier, and it’s taking over humans and animals nearby. The fungus compels those it inhabits to spread, spread, spread, so we are treated to zombies barfing green muck all over the place.
Set in the present, Cold Storage is the sort of horror-comedy that had its heyday in the ’80s and ’90s thanks to Sam Raimi (Evil Dead), Peter Jackson (Dead Alive) and Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator). Jonny Campbell, a longtime TV director getting his first big feature, is spot-on with the spirit of these films, mixing good laughs with effective, comically propelled horror. The gross-out factor is balanced by the humor, creating a constant state of dread and impending laughter. It’s a hard balance to pull off, but Campbell does so admirably.
I’m doing a good job these days of walking into movies knowing little to nothing. I didn’t even know Neeson was in this film until he showed up in the prologue. His work here is top-notch grizzled Neeson, his best work since 2012’s The Grey. Keery—the best thing about the inconsistent final season of Stranger Things—is solid as the hapless but caring ex-con trying to make a go of it after his earlier mistakes.
The real star of the film is Georgina Campbell, who is quietly becoming one of modern cinema’s most prominent and reliable scream queens. Her résumé boasts many horror films, including The Watchers, Influencers and, most notably, the already classic Barbarian. She’s one of those performers who dominates a scene just by being there, and she provides a sharp comic edge that mixes well with Keery’s intentional softness. They make a great screen pair.
There have been other attempts in the 21st century to resurrect this sort of queasy horror-comedy genre fare (like James Gunn’s 2006 film, Slither). The appeal of these films doesn’t usually show during the initial theatrical runs—and unsurprisingly, Cold Storage flopped in its first week.
Dumping it into the cinematic release wasteland that is early February (a fate that also led to the awesome Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die flopping) is a true disservice. I expect Cold Storage to find life on streaming, where grossout-horror-heads such as myself will eat it up happily on a Saturday night when Saturday Night Live is airing a rerun.
