Format: Streaming video from HBO Max on Fire!
The lesson that I need to constantly relearn in attacking lists of movies is that when I watch something that might show up on a list, I need to review it. I’ve seen Cooties before, but never actually reviewed it, and suddenly it’s shown up on the TSZDT list of zombie films and here we are. I didn’t hate this movie the first time I watched it, but I also didn’t love it, so I figured knocking it out as soon as I could would be a good idea. I don’t like things hanging over my head in the way that I’ll eventually have to rewatch We Need to Talk About Kevin currently is.
With any zombie movie, you either have to do things as perfectly as you can (see: Train to Busan) or do something really different with the subgenre. The X-factor in Cooties is that our zombie plague is only going to affect children. Anyone who has gone through puberty is going to get some flu-like symptoms, but the kids are going to go feral, infect each other, and straight up murder adults and eat them. They are zombies, after all.
Our children’s zombie apocalypse is going to begin in the fictional town of Fort Chicken, Illinois. A chicken infected with a mutant virus is turned into chicken nuggets, one of which ends up at Fort Chicken Elementary. Fourth grade student Shelly Linker (Sunny May Allison) gets the tainted nugget, and suddenly our apocalypse has a beginning, although we’re going to take a few minutes getting there. Shelly’s class is getting a new substitute, failed writer Clint Hadson (Elijah Wood), who has returned from New York City and taken the job as a sub in large part so he can reconnect with his old crush Lucy McCormick (Alison Pill). We’re going to get a quick introduction to the quirk-filled staff of the school: PE teacher Wade (Rainn Wilson), teachers Tracy (Jack McBrayer), Doug (Leigh Whannell), and Rebekkah (Nasim Pedrad) as well as the vice principal (Ian Brennan). We’re also going to meet perpetually stoned crossing guard Rick (Jorge Garcia) and eventually the janitor Mr. Hatachi (Peter Kwong).
You know where this is going to go, right? The kids attack, the adults run away and do what they can to keep the kids from attacking. They’re going to be confined to smaller and smaller areas of the school while the kids get increasingly rabid, and the infection and chaos are going to start spreading once the parents come to pick up their kids. Eventually, everyone is going to make a break for it, and even more chaos will ensue.
The main problem with Cooties is that as a horror/comedy, it hasn’t really decided what it wants to be. Is it a horror movie? There are a couple of decent jump scares and some relatively tame gore moments, but there’s nothing here that is genuinely scary. So it must be a comedy, right? It is in the sense that it’s intended to be funny, but is it actually all that funny? Most of the things that are here for us to laugh at are much more stupid than they are funny—this is a film that thinks Wade’s inability to describe his truck as “dual rear wheel” is something necessary to repeat multiple times.
It also doesn’t seem to really understand the idea of zombies. We’ll find out that our kids, once infected, essentially become something like human sharks. Most of their brains turn black (an impromptu autopsy tells us all of this), leaving them with just enough wherewithal to run, bite, and eat. So why are there infected kids playing on the playground? I mean, sure, they’re playing tetherball with a severed head and jumping rope with intestines, but the fact that they had the ability to literally attach a head to a tetherball post indicates some higher functions, doesn’t it?
Cooties desperately wants to be funny and hip, and it really isn’t. It’s pretty lowest common denominator humor that continues to aim as low as possible to get the easiest laughs possible. There are a few genuinely funny moments—the crossing guard hallucinating a giraffe in his car is surreal and unexpected. There are also a few actual surprises in the way the plot unfolds, including a few shocks at the end. But there’s not enough of this, not nearly enough tension in most of the film, and no real scares to keep the audience curious if anyone is actually going to die or make it out alive. Most of these characters could die and we wouldn’t care—none of them are likeable. At one point, Alison Pill’s Lucy follows Clint into the air conditioning ducts, shouting “I hate every single one of you!” Me, too, Lucy. Me, too.
Why to watch Cooties: It’s a solid attempt to do something different with the zombie subgenre.
Why not to watch: It mistakes stupidity for comedy.
This film is stupid but goddamnit. It is so fun to watch.
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