Cold Storage

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https://www.studiocanal.com/title/cold-storage-2026/

Date Reviewed: 11/03/2026

The zombie horror-comedy genre has produced a surprising amount of quality movies over the last 40 years. None better than Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004), Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland (2009), and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse-entry, Planet Terror (2007). But for the last decade, it’s been a bit more serious with Overlord (2018) focusing more on action, and 28 Years Later (2025) more on drama. So, there was a little gap in the market for Cold Storage to take advantage of.

A reasonably straight intro scene gives us all the backstory we need in a little over 5 minutes, setting the tone with some splatter and low budget, yet adequate, FX. As The Beach Boys’ “I Get Around” plays over the animated opening credits, you know they won’t be going for Citizen Kane-vibes with this one.

What follows is a simple story of an infection quickly spreading to various hosts, controlling their behaviour, with no real specified endgame, other than continuing to spread. There are many zombie movie tropes here. There’s the protagonist that is way too book-smart, the stupid character that ignores warnings and causes the infection to spread more, and military involvement and cover-up. But with Cold Storage embracing it’s B-movie tone, stereotypes like this work fine. As does the cartoonish gore and hammy acting.

Joe Keery (TV’s Stranger Things) and Georgina Campbell (Barbarian) are our heroes in the roles of Teacake and Naomi, respectively, and both acquit themselves adequately. We’re happy to go along for the ride with them, without necessarily wishing them a grizzly demise. While both are likeable enough, neither role is a star-making turn, and both actors would struggle to carry the movie alone. So, pairing them up as dual leads was a wise choice. Liam Neeson adds much-needed credibility to the cast, and even with his own string of b-grade movies in recent years, he is still a cut above the rest of the cast here.

Most of the movie is set in one main location – a remote storage facility, with only our heroes working as late shift security. And this was potentially the script’s biggest strength. The options the storage facility setting opened up were many and varied – the different groups of people that may come to the storage facility, the options to contain the virus within and/or hide from the infected in the storage units, the weapons and resources that could’ve been contained within the various units, etc. This effectively allowed this to be a modern-day Dawn of the Dead.

But this is where Cold Storage drops the ball. The setting opened up so many possibilities that were squandered, and they would have worked really well combined with the movie’s tone. We're even teased with some effective cat-and-mouse scenes after Naomi's infected ex announces he wants to "vomit in her mouth", and begins to chase our heroes through the storage units. While I can assure you that something like this is not a kink of mine, this brief section of the movie creates the most tension, and was the most entertaining and satisfying. It was the type of thing they should have included more of. However, this effective use of the set is all too fleeting, and we're left with a series of splattering bodies out in the open, that somehow manage to keep splashing away from our heroes. These scenes are not memorable in terms of action, scares, or laughs; resulting in the movie being a fun time-filler, but overall, a missed opportunity.

Working only in TV for the last 20 years, this was a good relaunch of the career of director Jonny Campbell. There is enough here to suggest that Campbell could do a lot more in feature films, in multiple genres. Visually, he can produce a fun film. He just needs to find source material that suits his style. And Cold Storage was an “almost”.

Reviewed by Dion Gaunt