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.
Chuck says:
You’ll be forgiven if you think about “The Blob” (1958) and other B-movie, sci-fi monster flicks while watching Jonny Campbell’s “Cold Storage.” The director and screenwriter David Koepp, adapting his own novel, are fully aware they’re drawing from a mine that’s been dug into many times before. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, they wisely take a humorous approach to a story that could be, and has been, rendered as a straight horror film. Instead, they take the ironic route, managing to elicit laughs and jolts in equal measure, told efficiently in a little over 90 minutes.
Koepp’s premise is actually quite clever. Seems when Skylab disintegrated during reentry in 1979, not every piece of it burned up in the atmosphere or was recovered by NASA. An oxygen tank, containing a fungus the space agency sent up in the hopes of developing a vaccine, landed intact in the Australian Outback. Problem is, the fungus has changed into an organism that infects every living thing and once it takes control, causes its host to explode, thus helping it spread further. When reports are made that an outbreak relating to this has occurred, scientists Robert Quinn (Liam Neeson), Trini Romano (Lesley Manville) and Hero Martins (Sosie Bacon) are called into contain the threat. Only two of them survive.
Jump ahead to modern day Kansas. Travis Meacham (Joe Kerry) is working a dead end job at a self-storage facility in a rural part of the state. Content to coast for a while, he deals with his idiot boss (Gavin Spokes), does what he’s told and keeps his head down. That all changes with the arrival of a new co-worker, pre-med student Naomi (Georgina Campbell) and a dead battery in a smoke alarm…or, so they think. Following the incessant chirp, they discover a false wall and behind it, an enormous generator that powers a massive underground containment unit. Seems the warehouse was once a military storage unit. No fair guessing what it holds and what’s about to escape.
Campbell uses the orderly, multi-room structure of the warehouse to great effect, its many entrances, exits and corners great places for those infected by the fungus to hide or jump out from. The jump scares are effective but of the sort where you’ll be laughing once you come down from the ceiling.
As for the threat in question, computer-generated effects are used to chart the way the green moss-like fungus spreads, both through the air and on surfaces. Those infected, both humans and animals, aren’t around long before they erupt in a Technicolor splatter, but, you know, in a fun way.
Kerry and Campbell are a delight, playing well off one another, their chemistry and attraction to each other obvious. Their banter is so effective, I wouldn’t mind seeing them paired up again. As for Neeson, it’s good to see him poking nature at his action-hero persona which he’s run into the ground. His work here and in the recent “Naked Gun” reboot suggests he’s much funnier than we ever gave him credit for. And under the category of “What the hell are they doing here?” is Manville and Vanessa Redgrave(?). Though the former is currently starring on Broadway in “Oedipus” and the later has over 150 credits to her name, I guess they still have bills to pay.
Though you likely won’t remember a thing about it a week after seeing it, “Storage” is an entertaining enough time filler, providing you’re in the mood for a comical bit of body horror. Afterwards, whenever cleaning, be prepared to look askance at every stain or blemish you come across.
3 Stars
