Main cast: Elijah Wood (Clint Hadson), Rainn Wilson (Wade Johnson). Alison Pill (Lucy McCormick), Jack McBrayer (Tracy Lacey), Leigh Whannell (Doug Davis), Nasim Pedrad (Rebekkah Halverson), Ian Brennan (Vice Principal Simms), Jorge Garcia (Rick), Cooper Roth (Patriot), Miles Elliot (Dink), Morgan Lily (Tamra), Sunny May Allison (Shelly), Armani Jackson (Calvin), Peter Kwong (Mr Hatachi), Kate Flannery (Charman Hadson), Matt Jones (Sheriff Dave), and Rebecca Marshall (Emily Dopkins)
Directors: Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion
Cooties probably sounded like a good idea when it was first conceived. What if the co-creator of Glee, Ian Brennan, and the creator of Saw, Leigh Whannell, came together to create a high school horror comedy? Even better, it would have zombie kids, because yelling profanities at and killing kids are always edgy and hence, funny.
Put in Frodo in the lead to play the straight-laced man opposite Rainn Wilson’s blustering jock character and the result would be a classic case of total opposites finding a somewhat common ground in a desperate time… right?
Well, the movie does work to an extent.
Clint Hudson is an aspiring writer that is going nowhere fast on his career track. His story, about an “evil boat”, doesn’t even impress his supportive mother, who finds the whole thing confusing and the main characters unlikable.
Forced to return to his mother’s place, the ultimate insult is having to accept a teaching gig at his old high school Fort Chicken Elementary. As can be expected, his students generally mock and belittle him, the PE teacher Wade Johnson sneers at him, and the remaining teachers are all weird or neurotic. Fortunately, his crush Lucy McCormick is a colleague, and they get along well… but she’s currently in a relationship with Wade.
The whole thing feels like cliché utopia, right down to the Hispanic junkie traffic controller, katana-wielding Japanese janitor, and the black guy dying first to the kiddie zombies.
Oh right, the zombies. The whole thing starts with chicken nuggets contaminated by some weird chicken virus being served at the cafeteria, causing the kids to become infected and super feral. Hence, what is shaping up to be a “You’ll never stop living out your high school life if you persisted in working at high school after you’re an adult!” Glee the midlife crisis years saga is rudely interrupted by a tepid and formula-bogged zombie film.
Still, it’s not a bad watch. Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson do have a funny frenemy chemistry going on that allows each character to still retain the essence of their personalities (loser and asshole, respectively), while the portrayals of the Vice Principal as a pretentious blow hard that hides his laziness and uselessness behind buzzwords and a slew of teachers as neurotic, dysfunctional children trapped in adult bodies can be more fact than fiction.
The problem here is that the film never becomes anything more than a one-trick pony repeating its shtick all the time.
Wade keeps being a dumb jock that yells profanities and does violent stuff to kids, which are okay even hilarious because they are zombies, haw haw—although that gets stale fast when the character just does this over and over. The overtly dramatic gay teacher does that “Squeal! I’m so dramatic because I’m gay, or is that the other way around? Gasp!” thing over and over too until he outlives his welcome quickly. Occasionally Lucy does something, but for the most part she’s the one-note love interest that is barely of notice.
There are a few more characters around, but after announcing their designated shtick, they just sort of hog up space on the screen without contributing anything of note.
While the gore can be spectacular at times, for the most part, there is a very by the numbers nature to the horror elements here, whether it’s predictable jump scares or tired old “ironic death scenes that are meant to be funny” scenes. The whole thing just feels… lazy, as if the people behind this movie had an idea but didn’t know what to do with the idea 30 minutes into the movie.
Anyway, this is all in all a pretty watchable, if formulaic and stale-tasting, movie. It’s okay if one wants a diversion that doesn’t require them to think too hard, but don’t expect it to be forgettable. It doesn’t even have a satisfying ending, on top of that!
