It even has moments that are weirdly touching, such as one of the few surviving kids drawing a circle on Clint’s arm and saying, “Circle, circle, dot, dot, now you have a cootie shot…” – the title, referring to the kids’ playground infection is inspired. It’s also packed with quotable dialogue, with tonnes of very funny, off-the-wall moments and quirky, throwaway lines. The script, co-written by Whannell and Ian Brennan (Glee), is packed with terrific throwaway gags, both verbal (notably a great running gag about Clint’s as-yet-unwritten horror novel about a killer boat, provisionally titled Keel Them All) and visual (the teachers taking forever to notice that the screaming in the playground isn’t the normal sound of kids playing). (To his credit, Wilson resists what must have been a tempting opportunity to give Wade elements of his Dwight-from-The-Office persona, delivering an enjoyable comic performance that feels fresh and original). Similarly, Pill is very funny as the perpetually optimistic Lucy, while Wilson walks away with the film as Wade, winding up with the lion’s share of the laughs in the process. Wood, whose genre-film-focussed company produced the film, is excellent as the likeable teacher, who discovers that his name doesn’t lend itself well to being written in block capitals on a chalkboard.
Meanwhile, nerdy Sex Ed teacher Doug (Leigh Whannell, of Saw franchise fame) figures out that the virus only affects those who haven’t gone through puberty, but will he be able to find some sort of cure? As the kids break in, the teachers are forced to fight for their lives and if that means bashing in the brains of formerly cute children, well, so be it. When one of Clint’s students bites off a chunk of classroom bully Patriot’s (Cooper Roth) face, the nugget-borne virus quickly spreads and it isn’t long before the entire student body are hungering for brains, trapping the surviving teachers in the school. Elijah Wood plays Clint, a would-be novelist who’s moved back to his home town and taken a job as a substitute teacher, where he’s delighted to discover that he’ll be working alongside his high school crush, Lucy (Alison Pill), and somewhat less delighted to discover that she’s dating boorish PE teacher Wade (Rainn Wilson). Fortunately, the material landed in the right hands, as this is a superbly acted comedy-horror that strikes exactly the right balance between gore, humour and bad taste.Ĭo-directed by Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion (making their feature debut after their short, Boob, about an implant with a mind of its own), Cooties begins with an amusing credits sequence that tracks an infected batch of chicken nuggets from factory to an elementary school lunch room in the small town of Fort Chicken. What if a bunch of junior school kids became zombies? The premise behind sharply written zom-com Cooties is such an obvious no-brainer that it’s genuinely surprising no-one had thought of it before.
Watch Cooties online in the UK: Amazon Prime / Apple TV (iTunes) / Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / Rakuten TV / Google Play
Leads Elijah Wood and Allison Pill barely look like adults themselves, while co-stars Rainn Wilson, Jack McBrayer and Nasim Pedrad bring self-awareness and snappy timing to their supporting roles.Cast: Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Alison Pill, Jack McBrayer, Leigh Whannell Milott and Murnion embrace every cliché of the zombie genre, which is kind of wonderful when it’s played out at pint-size scale. Not that this is of much help to the teachers trapped in a public school with hundreds of students. It’s your basic rage-zombie movie, but there’s a twist: the virus only turns children into frenzied killing machines. (I am not as enamoured of this year’s actual closer, The Final Girls.) An all-star horror comedy with a goofy premise and enthusiastic execution, Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion’s first feature seems like a perfect candidate to close this year’s program.
If you’re wondering why Cooties didn’t make it into Midnight Madness, well, join the club.