The Horror Show
Cooties
by Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion
I love a good horror comedy, I mean, who doesn’t? You get gore, guts, and loads of laughs all in one sitting, and not to mention, sometimes you’ll get an awesome storyline to top everything off.
Cooties was a movie I’d been waiting ages for. The trailer, the cast, zombie children… everything about it had me screaming “I want Cooties!” (The movie obviously, not the disease.) And then when I found out that Leigh Whannel was not only in the film but had a hand in writing it, well, you can only imagine how my excitement grew.
The movie starts off with a super-gross chicken processing montage: from the farm to the packaging. If you’re a vegetarian you will not like the opening sequence. (You might not even like it if you’re a meat eater.) But it’s pretty clear once the chicken nuggets make it to the plate that this montage was not just there for the gross-out factor. After we’re shown one of the children eating these nasty nuggets, we cut to Clint (Elijah Wood) who lives at home with mom. He’s an aspiring writer but he also needs to make a living, so he takes a job subbing at his old elementary school. It’s there at the school that we are introduced to obnoxious gym teacher Wade (Rainn Wilson), Clint’s old crush Lucy (Alison Pill), a socially awkward science teacher, Doug (Leigh Whannel), and a whole other awesome cast of characters including Jack McBrayer, Nasim Pedrad, and although it’s a small role, Jorge Garcia. Come on, who doesn’t love Hurley from Lost?
The morning starts off on a normal note, a bunch of bored but bratty elementary school children are forced to attend summer school. Cut to Clint’s class and we revisit the same little girl from the opening sequence who ate the chicken nuggets. She’s behaving strangely and attacks one of the other students, causing a chain reaction on the playground just a few minutes later. With the whole school crawling with zombie children that just want to rip the adults to shreds, the teachers are forced to band together to find a way out of the school in one piece. But once they make it out, what will they do if they find that the virus has spread beyond the playground fence?
I want to point out that Rainn Wilson made this movie, and I loved that. I am a huge Wilson fan and not only because of The Office. The casting directors really outdid themselves with this film. Each and every actor/actress went above and beyond, nailing the specific stereotypes they were assigned and Leigh Whannel once again gives me a reason to adore him.
Sure, some might say Cooties was too cheesy or too self-aware, but I think that’s what made it great. The fake limbs being ripped from bodies, Wade playing basketball while the vice principal is eaten alive just a few feet behind him; those are just a few examples of the set up for the rest of the film. I feel like the message was “We want to have fun with this, and so should you.” I didn’t go into this movie expecting to feel like it should win an Academy Award (although with some of the stuff that actually does win these days, it makes me wonder.) It’s a self-aware zom-com that doesn’t hold back. Yes, I’m talking about the teachers laying some serious waste to cannibal kids. And it’s important to note that the dialogue throughout the film is one of a kind. I’m not sure how much was improv and how much was scripted, but either way I enjoyed it. There are also several movie and zombie video game references that are thoroughly enjoyable.
The writers stayed specifically consistent with the imaginary childhood illness and it’s pretty terrifying to think of a world where blood-thirsty children are taking over. The end of the film was executed well, and I can only hope that they make another one. Yeah, I know, don’t ruin a good thing and all, but I for one would love to see more of the misadventures of the teachers from Fort Chicken Elementary.
At just under ninety minutes, the film is worth every minute of your time. Funny, silly, and filled to the brim with creepy ass kids, you’re going to want to catch some Cooties.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
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