Fungus from Another World
Directed by Johnny Campbell
Starring Liam Neeson, Georgina Campbell, Joe Keery
Released February 13th, 2026
Rated R
After discovering a group of people who were killed by a fungus-like substance, government officials decide to trap and store the fungi in an underground facility. Years go by and a 24 hour public self-storage business is now located above the secret government cold storage facility. This is where we meet Travis (Joe Keery) and Naomi (Georgina Campbell), two young employees of the self-storage company. They are working together on an overnight shift, unaware that due to climate change, the cold storage beneath them has failed and the deadly substance is about to wreak havoc. This is where Trini (Lesley Manville) and Robert (Liam Neeson) come in. They were part of the initial crew that discovered the fungus, and now they’ve been called in to clean up this mess after receiving a signal that their storage unit had cracked open.
Before they can get to the facility, the fungus infects rats, then deer, then people, making them into zombie-like entities, vomiting greenish goo in order to spread itself across multiple species and continue its reign of terror. Make no mistake, Cold Storage is a gross film. It earns its R rating strictly through being gross. Rats explode. Deer explode. People explode. It’s gross. Is this supposed to be a rollicking good time, a fun, gross-out comedy? Or is it supposed to be a serious action movie? It tries to be both. It fails at both. The screenplay for Cold Storage was written by David Koepp, based on his novel of the same name. Perhaps the tonal shifts are not as jarring in the book, but on screen the disparate story threads do not gel very well.
Liam Neeson has grown tired of being an action star, and it shows in his most recent performances. Neeson spends a lot of time here talking on the phone to subordinates, detailing the special skills he has to defeat this fungus. Cold Storage relies on him to scowl and mumble and not much else. He plays it mostly straight which is at odds with the goofy, gross vibe of the rest of the film. Lesley Manville mugs for the camera, playing a character that’s goofier than she usually gets to play. You’ll see Richard Brake and Sosie Bacon. You’ll see Vanessa Redgrave in a head-scratchingly thankless role. You’ll see bad CGI rats and deer. You’ll see zombies spewing green bile everywhere.
We are at an interesting point in history where it is unclear whether or not Joe Keery will have a big career in movies and television. He’s just coming off of the highly successful streaming series Stranger Things, in which he played Steve “The Hair” Harrington. In Cold Storage, he’s pretty much playing the same “who me?” character, albeit with a different haircut. He’s fine I guess, but if this acting thing doesn’t work out for him at least he can fall back on his music career. His co-star Geogina Campbell does her best to flesh out an underwritten character, and it made me wish they would have focused a bit more on her story.
I would like to point out that there exists in real life a parasitic fungus that leads carpenter ants to their doom, compelling them to climb high before their death so the fungus can more easily spread from their decomposing bodies. That’s much more interesting than the tonal mess that is Cold Storage, which makes the fungus extraterrestrial in origin and wastes a game cast with a nonsensical plot.