Cooties (2014) Review

After watching a couple of comedy horrors  I took to Twitter to ask for some recommendations with most people mentioning this or Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. I decided to give this a watch first and will be watching the other one over the weekend at some point!

“go give it a watch the comedy elements are really well done and are the main focus of the film.”

Running Time:

88 minutes

Directors: Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion

Trivia – At one point, Rainn Wilson’s character (Wade) insults Clint (Elijah Wood) by calling him a ‘Hobbit’. A ‘Hobbit’ is the race Elijah Wood played in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Trivia – There’s a short scene after the credits, this may not seem interesting but I switched it off when the credits started to roll!

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this film it’s got two reasonably big names in it with Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson which can sometimes be a bad sign for films like this. But it works well for this film, it starts off with Elijah Wood’s character going to work at a school as he takes a break from his writing “career” which isn’t going too well. The school is in his home town of Fort Chicken Town and he’s been forced to move back in with his mum. Upon arriving at the school he confronts a macho Wade (Rainn Wilson) who blocks his car in so he climbs out of the back window. When walking to see the head master he is insulted by a young girl but finally gets to the principal who was actually turns out to be the deputy principal.

The deputy insists that Clint hands over his mobile phone as no one is allowed one on school premises, this is obviously something that will come into play later on. Before going to class he meets the rest of the oddball collection of teachers including Lucy who he knew from school and he tries to impress. He also meets Rebekkah who is obsessed with the idea of someone sexually assaulting her, Tracy the overly camp one in denial and Doug who despite being very clever is a complete and total weirdo with serious social issues.

Don’t eat the chicken nuggets!

Clint then goes to the classroom and meets the pupils where he tries to act cool but it all goes completely wrong. During the class two of the annoying kids are bullying a young girl who ate a suspicious looking chicken nugget, she’s looking a bit zombie like and this goes terribly wrong for the young lad who gets his face bitten. However the annoying lad is taken out of the classroom for some medical attention from here the zombie looking girl ends up biting more people in the playground, they go on the bite and so on.

Before we know it all the kids are eating the hell out of the teachers as the main characters hunker down in the teachers room. This leads exactly where you think it does as the teachers move around the school trying to escape leading to some reasonably gory kills and funny moments. Doug is probably my favourite character with his weirdness and intelligence to work out what’s going on. As the teachers are chased around we meet the caretaker who is some sort of ninja, he’s been living in the basement of the school and it’s from here the characters plot their escape.

The teachers have a tough time at first fighting off the zombie kids

The Good

Jorge Garcia (better known as Hurley from Lost) is watching things unfold from outside the school in his van where he’s ingested too many drugs, this is one of the highlights of the film watching him trip not being sure what’s real and what’s not. All the characters are good in this film and all add to the comedic tone of the film. The ending was good as well I didn’t expect it to leave things as open for a sequel as it did.

Rick the lollipop man/drug dealer sits in his van off his head watching things unfold

The Bad

The film had it’s gore but for me it needed much more, sure there were some decent kills in the film but I’d have gone all out splatter movie style with blood all over the place. There’s a strange love triangle between Clint, Wade and Lucy that just all seemed quite pointless. The film also has a long running joke where Wade can’t say that his truck has a dual wheel rear axle which is just completely stupid and unfunny.

This film is far from brilliant but it is entertaining, if it had even more blood and guts I’d rate it much much higher. Don’t let that put you off though and go give it a watch the comedy elements are really well done and are the main focus of the film.

Overall Score