So long, '80s nostalgia! Stranger Things star's new zombie horror is a love letter to gooey, goofy sci-fi from the early 2000s – and I hope Hollywood is taking notes

New zombie horror Cold Storage is goofy as hell, and I couldn't mean that as more of a compliment. Based on the book of the same name by Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp, it follows night security guards Naomi (Georgina Campbell) and Teacake (Stranger Things' Joe Keery), who stumble across a parasitic green goo in the storage facility they work in one evening – and are inadvertently tasked with saving the entire human race from extinction. Fortunately for them, Liam Neeson's world-weary bioterror operative has faced off against the mind-controlling, body-bursting fungus before and is keen to help. If he can get there on time and not blow them up in the process, that is.

The movie is upfront about its silliness from the get-go, as we see a bunch of debris crash land on Earth and a title card reads: "Pay attention! This shit is real." But what was perhaps less expected, though, was its tangible, old-school feel that took me right back to being a kid sat grossed-out, grinning, and wide-eyed in front of the likes of Slither, Dude, Where's My Car? and Eight-Legged Freaks. (In retrospect, I can admit that Teacake's curtained, bleach-blonde hair and the use of Daniel Powter's 2005 track 'Bad Day' in the trailer should've been a big clue as to its vintage vibes).

Directed by Phoenix Nights' Jonny Campbell, which goes some way to explaining why Keery is surrounded by so many British actors in the Kansas-set flick, it's an end-of-the-world movie that realizes the benefits of keeping its narrative small-scale. Its brilliant cold-open prologue sets things up at breakneck speed: in 1979, an experimental space station fell out of orbit, and some of its fragments crashed down on our planet. Cut to 2007 – because, of course – and Sosie Bacon's microbiologist, Dr. Martins, is called out to a tiny town in Western Australia after receiving a panicked phone call from a local. "Something came outta your tank!" he shrieks. "We're dying, we're all dying. It's your tank, you have to help us!" The line goes dead.

27 hours later, Martins and Pentagon pals Robert Quinn (Neeson) and Trinny Romano (Lesley Manville) investigate the Kiwirrkurra gas station the ill-fated guy dialled in from. I won't spoil what goes down, but let's just say, things don't go well. The incident leads the United States' Department of Defense to take a sample of the goo back to a military base (as The Beach Boys' 'I Get Around' kicks in) – and forget about it for 18 years.

Suits over supes

Given its tight 98-minute runtime, it's bold of Koepp and Campbell to not have Teacake and Naomi discover the antagonistic ooze until 45 minutes in. It works, however, because the likeable characters are fun to be around as they roam around the workplace and open up about their pasts; Naomi had a daughter with a "manchild" at 18 and wants to be a vet, while Teacake got in trouble with the law 'cause he's "easily talked into things" and this job is part of his parole conditions. We bond with 'em as they bond with each other, which makes it all the more thrilling once they find themselves batting off blood-soaked, brain-dead baddies.

Keery is well-versed in going toe-to-toe with murderous monsters brought to life with gnarly effects by now, but it makes for a welcome change to see him play a chatty everyman who tries his best to be brave but can't quite wrap his head around what he's seeing at any given moment. Campbell – who's fast establishing herself as a scream queen with Barbarian and up-and-coming slasher Psycho Killer – is his perfect straight-man scene partner, too, while Neeson is in top Naked Gun-esque form as he drops phrases like "space shit" and "Pucker Factor 10".

Even though its gags aren't slapstick, Cold Storage's unlikely team-up reminded me a lot of the one in Ivan Reitman's quirky comedy Evolution (2001), which sees David Duchovny and Orlando Jones' former science professors join forces with Sean William Scott's firefighter and Julianne Moore's CDC researcher to thwart an alien invasion. They're not superheroes or action stars, which we've grown so accustomed to thanks to the big screen domination of franchises like Mission: Impossible and the MCU; they're regular people in button-up shirts and name tags. There are no Avengers headquarters here, rather staff rooms and reception desks – and it helps ground the plot's absurdity. It makes our heroes more accessible and easy to root for, too, as we dare to imagine how we'd fare in a similar situation.

Opportunistic invader

With its small cast and singular setting, Koepp gets creative inventing opportunities for gooey carnage. There's Vanessa Redgrave's Mrs Rooney, who drops by to say a final goodbye to her late husband on their anniversary. At one point, Naomi's volatile ex shows up at the facility in a tizzy about accidentally shooting his parents' cat and, naturally, becomes cannon fodder. As do Teacake's boss and his punky crew, who've driven out into the middle of nowhere to buy 4K TVs. It's all hilariously situational and mundane in juxtaposition to the wild things that are happening in, say, the corridor over.

One standout sequence, which is amusingly set to Blondie's 'One Way or Another', uses a POV tracking shot to chart the devastating organism breaking out of its containment breach and latching onto a cockroach host, evading a hungry rat, and ultimately getting run over by Naomi's ex in the warehouse's driveway. Uh oh.

For the last 10 years or so, the film industry has been obsessed with capitalizing on our '80s nostalgia. From Stranger Things and the It movies to Netflix's GLOW and legacy sequels such as Top Gun: Maverick, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Karate Kid: Legends, and more, the bygone era has influenced a lot behind the scenes. After thoroughly enjoying retro romp Cold Storage, I hope we don't make the same mistake the DoD did and lose track of the good work we were doing two decades ago – and Hollywood will start leeching off more tongue-in-cheek titles from the noughties for inspiration next.

Cold Storage is out in US theaters on February 13, and will land in UK cinemas on February 20. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.