Cold Storage (2026

Cold Storage (2026) ☣️

Exploding deer, fluctuating nukes, and another zombie movie? But also an alien movie?

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🎥 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

⚠️ WARNING: THIS FILM IS GORY.

We are talking:

Chest cavities burst open with rib cages exposed

Faces split apart

Eyeballs popping

Animals impaling themselves and exploding

Green fungus vomit directly into people’s mouths

Rat kings eating each other

If you are squeamish, this is not light horror. This thing is nasty.

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🧪 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Cold Storage (2026) is a sci-fi action-thriller directed by Jonny Campbell and based on David Koepp’s novel, following two young self-storage employees, Travis “Teacake” (Joe Keery) and Naomi (Georgina Campbell), who must stop a rapidly mutating parasitic fungus from escaping a government-sealed facility. As temperatures rise, the deadly organism threatens to cause an extinction-level event, forcing the duo to team up with a grizzled former bioterror operative, Robert Quinn (Liam Neeson).

Now.

I had no idea this was a book adaptation.

That actually makes sense now.

Because this does not feel like your generic zombie film.

This is alien fungus from outer space.

NASA tried to contain a meteor that exploded in orbit. They thought they stopped it.

Which brings me to something that pulled me out for a second.

The opening text says something like:

“Nasa thought it…”

I’m sorry.

What?

NASA thought it what?

And then something along the lines of “NASA thought it contained it.”

That wording is clunky. It threw me off. Context matters. Grammar matters. It broke my brain for a second.

But once you get past that, the opening is genuinely unsettling.

We start in Australia. Desert. A man at a payphone calls a NASA scientist who is in Rome, Italy.

Yes.

Rome.

And I loved that.

I love any movie, show, or game that uses Rome or Italy now. I went there last year. I have a connection to it. It made me happy seeing it on screen, even if it was just her sitting at a café drinking coffee. It didn’t function as some big lab scene. It was just Rome in the background. But emotionally? That meant something to me.

Then the words pop up:

“Pay attention everyone. It’s f****** real.”

And from there the tone shifts.

This opening does not scream comedy.

It screams horror.

And I liked that.

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🎭 Character Rundown (Non-Spoiler)

Travis “Teacake” (Joe Keery) – He talks a lot. Naomi calls him out on it. He’s an ex-con on parole and desperately needs this job because it’s the only place that hired him. He’s cautious. He’s not trying to be a hero. He’s trying not to screw up his life again.

Naomi (Georgina Campbell) – Single mom. Had her daughter at 18. Grounded. Mature. There’s a weight to her character. She’s not here for hero fantasies. She just wants to go home to her kid.

Robert Quinn (Liam Neeson) – Former bioterror operative who dealt with this fungus years ago. Serious. Tactical. Plays everything straight.

Im starting to think Liam Neeson will be hired in comedy roles from now on ever since his role in Naked Gun 2025.

Trini – His partner from the original incident. Smoker. Dry. Practical.

The Manager (Richard Brake) – Gross. Beer-drinking biker guy. Hits on Naomi. Tries to rope Teacake into illegal TV sales. You instantly don’t like him.

Angelica – Military insider contact connected to Quinn.

Elderly Woman – Small role but memorable.

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⏱️ Pacing / Flow

The film opens horror-heavy and genuinely unnerving.

Empty desert town.

Rooftops covered in bodies.

Chest cavities burst open.

Faces destroyed.

Green fungus growing inside them.

And when one corpse’s face splits open again?

Yeah. That was creepy.

That was not comedy.

The NASA scientist leans closer to examine green fungus in a breached capsule. Horror trope number one. Why are you leaning closer? You’re a NASA scientist.

Later she vomits green fungus into her mask. We see it infect her bloodstream and brain. She shoots herself. Her eyeball bursts open.

That’s how this “zombie comedy” begins.

If you didn’t tell me this was a comedy, nothing about that opening would convince you.

And I liked that.

From there, the movie shifts into storage facility workplace energy, layered with tension.

And things escalate fast.

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✅ Pros

Alien fungus concept is creative.

Infection forces hosts to climb and explode to spread. That’s different.

The opening is genuinely creepy and unsettling.

Rome being included made me happy, even briefly.

The film respects zombie heritage by referencing Haiti folklore.

Dry humor works when it hits.

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❌ Cons

The NASA wording in the opening bothered me.

Government logic with containment felt questionable.

Some horror tropes still show up.

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🧠 Final Thoughts (Non-Spoiler)

This is not your average zombie film.

It’s gory.

It’s absurd.

It’s creative.

It opens like horror and slowly reveals its comedy.

And I appreciated that it tried something different with the infection concept.

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⭐ Rating

8/10

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⚠️ SPOILER WARNING

Everything below this line is full spoilers.

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🧟 Spoilers

Now we get into everything.

The abandoned Australian town.

Every rooftop has bodies with burst rib cages and split faces.

The fungus forces infected hosts to climb high and explode to spread spores.

Also Rome makes an appearance in this film for all of 2 min but I genuinely got a smile because I went there last year, it appeared when a guy in Australia calls up this nasa scientist lady whos in Rome.

She then heads over to this spot in Australia with the help of Robert Quinn and his assistant Trini. They end up finding the capsule that the fungus escaped from.

The NASA scientist leans closer to the capsule, the fungus jumps on her foot, later she vomits into her mask, shoots herself, and her eyeball bursts open.

Years later, the facility is sold and turned into a storage unit. Yes. They buried alien fungus underneath it and then sold the building. Horror trope number two. That’s extremely stupid.

Teacake and Naomi hear a beeping behind a painting. They tear down the wall and find panels and a map showing containment rooms 500 feet down. Naomi takes a picture of the map.

They climb down and find a rat king — rats fused together eating each other, covered in fungus.

On their way up, they see a deer walk to the elevator.

The deer opens the elevator.

Teacake says:

“That deer just took an elevator. That’s not natural at all.”

I laughed.

They take the stairs.

Chad shows up claiming he shot someone. He shot the neighbor’s cat.

The infected cat climbs a satellite pole, jams its head into the pointy end, and explodes. Spores rain down onto deer and Chad’s face.

Chad later, infected, says:

“Can you please open your mouth, I want to vomit in it.”

That line was so absurd I laughed.

While hiding, Teacake references Haiti folklore zombies and voodoo roots. I grinned. I love when zombie-related media acknowledges its heritage. Naomi says, “There’s no such thing as zombies.” Meta.

The elderly woman almost shoots herself earlier in her storage unit. Later she shoots infected Chad in the face and calmly says:

“That guy wasn’t ok. There was something off about that guy.”

No kidding.

She makes eye contact with Teacake and tosses him the gun. He says:

“Oh lovely.”

And throws it into a janitor cleaning trolley.

The manager fires Teacake over the loudspeaker while green fungus from an exploded deer is on the floor. He gives contradictory commands like “Against the wall! On the floor!” and Teacake says, “Which one?”

I waited for this man to die.

Robert Quinn arrives with Trini.

They stopped at her son’s house to pick up a literal nuke in a box. Her excuse is her son is too dumb to detonate it.

Robert makes Teacake carry the nuke, even though Robert has a bad back.

The timer fluctuates between 9 and 18 minutes.

Teacake says, “9 to 18 minutes!?”

Robert says, “It fluctuates.”

They go down the shaft and realize the timer is already running. Six and a half minutes left. Robert set it without telling them.

Teacake says, “You set the timer already without telling us!?”

Robert says, “I knew you would make it.”

Teacake says, “No you didn’t!”

Robert says, “I had an educated guess.”

The manager tries to rob Robert. Says it’s every man for himself.

Trini asks for permission.

Robert says, “Permission granted.”

The manager says, “Permission to do what?”

She shoots him multiple times.

Finally.

Thank the Lord.

The nuke goes off.

85-mile radius.

Ground implodes.

Massive crater.

Building gone.

Fungus gone.

They barely escape.

Trini says:

“Oh no, my son’s car.”

Because it got damaged.

Priorities.

Later, on the news, Richard Brake’s colonel is under investigation because files from Australia were leaked. He says the most PR line ever:

“We are trying to find ways to prevent something like this from happening ever again.”

Robert says:

“Suck it, you dumbass.”

Angelica was the one who leaked the files. She thanks Robert. He says, “For blowing things up?” She says, “For reminding me why I am here.”

Then we cut to Teacake and Naomi playing with her daughter in a park.

Teacake explains how he got his nickname.

Peaceful.

Then a deer walks into frame.

Everyone in the audience tenses.

The deer turns its head.

No visible infection.

Relief.

Then it opens its mouth.

Green fungus vomits onto the screen.

Cut to black.

And Don’t Fear the Reaper plays over the credits.

Earlier, Teacake said:

“You can tell me helicopters are coming blasting Don’t Fear the Reaper and I still won’t believe they’re coming. No one is coming.”

No helicopters came.

But the song played.

And I was like.

Really.

Okay.