You know, it drives me crazy when a movie could be great if it just pushed the envelope a little further. Sadly, Cooties is just such a movie. It looked like so much fun, but just doesn’t go far enough in both the humor AND the gore aspects.
The premise is silly enough: Something contaminates the chicken nuggets at the local school and turns the young students into vicious flesh-eating maniacs. It’s left to a group of teachers to band together and try to save the day.
This thing is full of people you know – and even like. Elijiah Wood, Alison Pill, Rainn Wilson, Jack McBrayer, Leigh Whannell, Ian Brennan, Jorge Garcia and Nasim Pedrad. All play various teachers of a particular sort with their own quirks. Most of them are quite funny. There is a silly goofiness to Cooties that makes you want to like it. And it really is pretty fun. Unfortunately, it’s not REALLY fun. I think I laughed out loud three or four times, and that’ s pretty good. But the rest of the time I was just watching it. Not particularly amused or what not, just, Meh. It’s a real shame. I love this genre, the horror-comedy, but writers Leigh Whannell and Ian Brennan don’t take it far enough.
And just so you know, there IS some blood and gore in this. It’s not for kids. Frankly, it might not be for parents, either, as all of the infected are kids. So, there is bound to be violence perpetrated upon them. Meaning, one kid gets killed. But nothing as intense as say, The Walking Dead. That shit is serious, this is much lighter, or at least as light as such a thing can be. Ballsy movie, killing kids in films, but hey, they ARE flesh-eating monsters, so you do what you gotta do. You know this is a movie, right?
However, there isn’t a LOT of gore. Only maybe a few moments early on. It’s like they used their practical effects budget in a couple scenes, and then had some fake blood left to use for the rest of the film.
Cooties seems to me like it’s not quite gory enough for horror gore fans, and not quite hilarious enough for comedy fans. It sort of sits in the middle of both but not enough to fully please either.
Cooties is light fun horror comedy fare, but the envelope isn’t pushed enough in either genre to satisfy me. It’s an ok movie that could have been great if they had let go of the leash. Seems like they were trying to appeal to a larger audience when they should have just pandered to the logical target audience; the Shaun of the Dead/Evil Dead fans.
I give Cooties about two and a half kittenhands. Should have been more, but oh well. I watched this On Demand in the comfort of my own home for half the price, so I don’t feel so bad about it.
~ Neil T. Weakley, your average movie-goer, thinking I’ll go back to some films I missed this past summer.