Cooties 2014

Cooties is unapologetic in what it is. A gory, silly, horror story, with some barely seen and hinted at grue, a lot of daft humour and thrilling escapades. All of these overseen by your normal motley crew of characters that must work together. A gay, a gun nut, a macho PE teacher who cannot forget his past, a cute lovely former sweetheart, the stoner, and the hero who cannot face the fact that his lifelong dream is not coming to fruition. This type of setup can work in serious films or comedies equally and with any driving matter in place, horror, criminal japes, war stories. It is a good solid safe premise that if the audience is familiar with and if you get it right. even if what you end up with is average. you will be okay.

When I saw the cast scrolling by, I was greeted with a more than stellar set of actors who had the acting chops and had good comedic credentials too, so I felt that Cooties was going to be strong in that department and only the story or writing could let it down.
The opening scenes are probably more disgusting than any teachers or children being apart and will make you think twice about what you eat but, in all honesty, this is probably not a bad thing. The writers have all worked in the horror genre which whether you like Saw or not they have proven experience in the field. Milott and Murnion were first-time directors but have certainly directed some interesting films since. One thing I will say is both the directors and writers did not let the pace slow, which so many films seem to do nowadays, and once the infection takes hold in the children, and the teachers realise what is happening, they let the shouting, running and snarling drive the story forward. A good thing.

The subject matter could be seen to be in bad taste with only prepubescent children being affected by the virus it immediately means that small children are the enemy, so not only will they literally tear you limb from limb but you must stop them by killing them. So we are treated to bloody and violent deaths all around.

These types of films can fall flat with the comedy elements because getting the tone right is much more difficult than it seems. Cooties works well in this area and laughed out loud more than a few times throughout the running time. The stereotypes were there, and you could sort of predict what was going to be said or happen with different ‘teachers’ but to be fair to the makers a lot of expectations or familiarity was subverted.

Cooties is clearly made for horror fans first and pokes fun at our expectations whilst serving up a big dish of what a horror fan would want without tipping buckets of blood and entrails over them. Alison Pill, Elijah Wood and Rain Wilson looked as if they had fun making the film and the chemistry between them is on the screen for all to see and it makes their storylines work well.

As the horror and problems escalate and rattle on the final third of the film is where the writing seems to have lost momentum. Without spoiling anyone new to the film it seems as if they feel in love with their characters and just could not go through with what they had planned in some of the first drafts. If you are going to get picky with Cooties though you could spend hours dissecting the logic, why the monster-kids are as bright as evil apes one minute and then as dump as one-legged ducks the next but if this taking you out of the story, then maybe this type of film just is not for you in the first place.

Overall Cooties is a good fun entry into the zombie horror film slot and with some good sick humour mixed in you have a great fun film. I will concede your tolerance level for this type of B movie schlock might not be as high as mine and it really does depend on how you are feeling when you view. I remember not expecting very much from this and just choosing it on Amazon Prime because I had nothing better to do.

Under the right circumstances, Cooties is a good film – in different circumstances, it might annoy you - but you could not say it was boring and it definitely knows what it is. It does not try to be something else. It is called Cooties and is about children eating tainted chicken nuggets that infect them with a virus that makes them attack and eat everyone else.

Reading that, what else do you really expect?