Amongst the steady dose of traditional zombie films fed every year to the genre’s insatiable and dedicated fan base are the more unique takes that take aim at a wider audience. Some of these include Warm Bodies, World War Z and Maggie. All of them valiant efforts that attempt to subvert the genre to varying degrees of success. Cooties can now be added to this list, an infection film that puts comedy before horror and will appeal to non-fans of the genre thanks to its recognizable cast of comedic talent and surprisingly fresh premise. When a contaminated batch of chicken nuggets spreads a zombie virus through Fort Chicken Elementary, a rag-tag group of teachers must fight to survive against hordes of undead children. This premise has been underused mostly due to the taboo nature of killing children on screen but directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion navigated this well enough that the film is able to hold on to its comedic tone without ever feeling heavy.
Leading the motley crew of faculty losers is Clint (Elijah Wood), an aspiring writer, who has returned to his hometown to work as a substitute teacher at the local elementary school. Clint is the source of some great comedy at the on-set. His mother (Kate Flannery) critiques the hell out of his new manuscript, a haunted boat story cheesily entitled Keel Them All before he drives off for his first day of work, all the while spouting increasingly bad possible opening lines. It’s too bad the pokes at writers are dropped halfway through the film. The rest of the faculty includes Clint’s former flame Lucy (Alison Pill), her new boyfriend gym teacher Wade (Rainn Wilson), closeted homosexual Tracy (Jack McBrayer), psycho Rebekkah (Nasim Pedrad) and the socially inept Doug (Leigh Whannell, also co-screenwriter), the health ed teacher who provides the best jokes in the film. While the introductions to these characters are fine, they don’t grow and most end up repeating the same jokes past expiration and succumbing to stereotypes. A love triangle between Clint, Wade and Lucy is picked up and then dropped just as fast.
Despite the narrative shortcomings, Cooties is not without its moments of brilliance. The film kicks off with a graphic look at the making of a batch of disease-tainted chicken nuggets, all the way through the first gooey bite, that really sets the tone. In the playground, you can see a zombie girl playing jump rope with a large intestine and Wade’s weapon of choice, a baseball pitching machine hooked up to his arm, is super fun to watch in action. All things aside, directors Milott and Murnion still seem to have a blast with this revenge fantasy for teachers, the zombie transformations essentially a play on the figure of speech, little monsters. Cooties falls short of its potential yet still succeeds in providing some big laughs and gross-out horror fun.
