Cooties is a horror comedy, and it does a good job of
capturing aspects of both genres. It’s not great in either category with some
of the jokes falling flat and for the fact it’s not a pure horror film. I don’t
think the movie would have worked as a straight horror flick, but there are
points when the movie does become frightening. Cooties is just a fun film, it’s not serious
and doesn’t pretend to be. The characters are great tropes and the actors play
them up well. Besides a bit of a stumble at the end the movie is a fun time and
well worth watching.
The movie starts with the disgusting process of how
composite chicken nuggets are made (I’m sure this was sensationalized for the
movie….?? L).
A bad piece of chicken infects a girl at the school where our hero, Clint (Elijah Wood), is
substitute teaching. The girl starts infecting other students and before too
long every child in the school is infected. The kids aren’t zombies in this
world, they don’t die and reanimate. They are more of the 28 Days Later
variety. They are still alive with a virus that is affecting their frontal
lobe. This makes them hyper aggressive and want to eat adults. On the surface
this is a silly concept. They make it believable in the world they are in, and
the premise when stopping to think about it is terrifying. Children make the
perfect delivery system. You don’t feel threatened by children, and then they
attack you. Plus our natural instinct is to help kids, and the movie plays
against this desire. This type of virus would spread like a wildfire. It could
be my terror in thinking about how a virus like this would spread that added to
my enjoyment.
Cooties does a good job of dehumanizing the kids even before
they get infected. One character, Patriot (yes that’s the character’s name) is
a bully and you don’t feel bad when he gets bit. There is a bunch of little
things in the movie I enjoyed. When Clint is starting to teach all the kids pop
their Ritalin or Adderall. Nothing is said, they just all pop their pills. This
scene sets up another scenario in the movie. It was a clever way for the future
scene to be more believable. The gore was another plus. The teachers getting
torn apart was well done, and the special effects were top notch. I would have
enjoyed just a bit more gore though. I wanted more over the top scenes to really drive
home some horror elements, since the comedy fell flat at times.
The movie is funny, but some of the jokes just didn’t work.
The vice principle for example had some funny lines, but he seemed to rush
through them, and the timing was off. There were a few instances of this. The
comedy that did work was based on the traits of the characters in the movie.
Clint is an Apple guy who writes a blog (dammit, don’t think of me I’m not an
Apple guy). He lives in his Mom’s attic and is writing a book. Elijah does a
great job of playing on this trope. The character who stole the movie was Doug
the science teacher. Leigh
Whannell was fantastic as the possible sociopathic teacher. I found every
scene he was in enjoyable. He provided an awkward tension with the rest of the
characters. He is also the teacher who
figures out what is going on. These exposition scenes are great. This allowed
the audience a fun way to receive information about what is going on. Yes it is
a bit unbelievable, but in the context of the movie I felt it worked.
The rest of the cast is great. Elijah Wood is fantastic as
Clint, and Allison
Pill is good as the love interest in the movie. I wanted more of Nasim Pedrad as
Rebekkah, who played an over the top right wing conservative. She didn’t have many scenes in the movie, but
I laughed when she got a chance to step in. The only person I didn’t fully enjoy was Rainn Wilson as
Wade. Not sure why, but I just didn’t believe him as the over the top former
high school sports star and gym coach. He had his moments, but in the end I
just didn’t care for his character, nor how they used him.
The ending is the only other weak point of the movie. Up
until the last ten to fifteen minutes I was loving the movie and everything
they had done. The ending was too unbelievable for what they had set up during
the course of the film. If it wasn’t for
the ending I would say this movie was a must buy for me. It is still worth
watching and really enjoyable. The ending however was neither funny nor
terrifying. The film should have went another way, and it would have provided a
more satisfying conclusion.
I don’t want to end on a negative note about the movie. I
enjoyed it too much for that. If you want to watch a fun horror/comedy I would
suggest Cooties. Don’t expect an instant classic like Zombieland, but it is
still worth watching and enjoying. Go see it in the movie theater or rent it on
video on demand.
My Rating: Rentable
Top Five Horror/Comedies:
1. Ghostbusters
(not much horror, but I was terrified as a kid)
2. Shaun
of the Dead
3. Army
of Darkness
4. Zombieland
5. Beetlejuice
Let me know your favorite horror comiedes and if you saw
Cooties what you thought.
They did die and became zombies.
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