Cooties is yet another in the crop of zombie comedy movies. Thing is I'm a sucker for them, and judged by the trailer this definitely looked to be one of the better ones. I was not disappointed. It opens up with a montage of chicken nuggets being made, from the killing of the chicken all the way to the first bite, except this time it's infected and is enough to put you off chicken nuggets for life. Then we get introduced to Clint, an aspiring writer who's moved back to his sleepy little town from New York and is about to start his first day as a teaching sub at the local primary school.I found myself thoroughly enjoying the movie already, before the zombie infection had even broken out. While no new ground is particularly broken with the cast of characters, they're all a delight to watch. Clint is a positive guy despite being down on his luck, Wade is your typical jock come PE teacher with assholish tendencies, Rebekkah is tightly wound and maybe a little fanatical, Tracy is obviously trying to conceal his blatant homosexuality, Doug has no idea how to interact with real people, and Lucy is...well she's cutesy I guess; smiley, happy, giggly. She comes more into her own later on. While none of these character tropes are particularly new, the way they interact with one another, and the chemistry shared between the whole group, lends to a number of hilarious icebreaker moments, like Rebekkah pointing to her rape alarm when Clint introduces himself, or Wade's inability to pronounce 'dual rear wheel'.Thankfully the humour never really lets up, as it oozes into every moment, making Cooties more comedy than horror. Even in more serious moments, there's jokes squeezed in to lighten the mood and keep the tone more amusing than disturbing. And yet, and most crucially, none of the jokes feel forced. Each one flows naturally from the characters and moments they find themselves in. Often they come completely from the left-field and are funny out of sheer surprise (such as Doug using "gloves" to sift through bodily fluids). It's also hugely quotable, which in my opinion is one of the most enduring aspects for a comedy, as it keeps the hilarity going long after the credits have rolled. I've found myself quoting it all day today, and I foresee it getting quoted more over the next few days. "Follow me, I do crossfit" and "You may have noticed I sometimes say the wrong rowboat" are particular highlights.As I said though, Cooties ends up being more of a comedy than a horror movie, so if you're looking to it for scares, you will be disappointed. Me, I'm a wimp, so I welcomed the toned down horror. Even when the opportunity arises for a cheap jump-scare, they play it slower and less dramatically. Negative for some, but it made it more enjoyable for me personally. This is a zombie movie though, so there is a certain level of gore. A couple of characters get their guts ripped out, and there's a lot of kids covered in blood, but in-all it's fairly light on the gore scale, especially for a zombie movie.The cast are all great. While the characters are tired tropes, each one is made more enjoyable thanks to the acting talent behind it. Elijah Wood is charming as Clint, who is a character who could so easily have drifted into annoyance. Rainn Wilson steals every scene as Wade, with Leigh Whannell's Doug not far behind (seriously, who knew Leigh Whannell was actually funny?). Alison Pill is perfect as the cutesy Lucy who comes into her own later on, and Jorge Garcia enjoys looking stoned and confused throughout most the run time.There is one rather large criticism I have of Cooties though and that's the end. Or lack thereof as the case may be. The survivors manage to escape and leave the town only to reach the next town and find the pandemic is far more reaching than they expected. There's a little hint of finding a cure, but they just blow up a playgym and hightail out of there into the credits, with no resolution to any of the barebones character arcs, or the general story. It just sort of ends, and it feels like they didn't really know how to resolve anything, so just threw up the credits when they reached their allotted runtime. Maybe it was deliberate to leave the door open for a sequel, but it made the whole thing feel a little incomplete, like there was more to come that we just didn't get to see.In conclusion, Cooties is, for once, a very good thing to have experienced. It's truly hilarious and best and mildly amusing at worst. It's a little light on the horror and gore, so not recommended for that crowd, but for anyone just looking to have a good chuckle I couldn't recommend it enough. I give Cooties a solid 8/10.

Arriving for work at an elementary school, a substitute teacher finds himself and the other teachers on staff trapped in the school by the children who've been turned into ravenous zombie by a food- based virus and must find a way of getting out of the school alive.For the most part this one here wasn't all that bad of a horror/comedy. What really makes this one so much fun is the fact that this one tells such a silly and inherently goofy storyline while being told in a straightforward manner. This one utilizes the threat of the virus against children in a very serious manner with the idea that they're deliberately attacking and turning children into zombies that's still done with a serious air to it as there's a rather strong impact here with the kids and their overall zombie-dom throughout here. As there's little waiting around for them to turn as it takes the transformation quite early on to occur with the basic school-yard rampage taking place within the first twenty minutes of the film with the image of the kids running after each other and scratching them to pass it along, this one really gets down to business with the rest of the film going for the series of encounters with them trying to find a way of getting away alive. That gives the film a great pace as the encounters here are truly a lot of fun, as the initial playground massacre of the kids turning and becoming infected to tear apart the oblivious first responders to the situation while the one teacher is also oblivious to the situation, the race to get upstairs past the kids who run wild throughout the hallways and into the rest of the school as well as the second half encounters which really focuses nicely on the group staying alive in the school's winding hallways and cramped rooms which makes for a thrilling series of action-packed encounters here that are also given quite a great base for the film's sense of fun. Though not inherently joke-filled and reliant on laughs, the lighter tone here in spite of the situation where it really remains quite cheesy and silly makes this one quite an overall effective and breezy time here as nothing about this one that really allows for any kind of genuine thrills here despite the actions present here which really works nicely here. Aided along by the strong gore and make-up for the zombie children, these here do enough to hold this one up considerably. What tends to hold this one down is the fact that there's just an endless series of scenes in the finale that drag this one out longer than it really should with no real reason why as practically any of the earlier finishes would've been fine rather than dragging this one out longer than it really should. As well there's also the rather conflicting nature of this one trying to be a bloody, serious effort despite having a silly premise and goofy atmosphere which is somewhat troubling. If these can be taken by the viewer, it leaves quite a lot to really like here.Rated R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and continuous themes of violent actions against children.

(No spoilers)Circle, circle, dot dot - now you got the cootie shot! Horror and comedy films are undeniably from completely different worlds, however when handled with care they can complement each other rather well - with 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Zombieland' making huge success within the zombie sub-genre. This film in particular has a premise that is so outrageous it has to be seen to be believed, causing various body reactions and emotions from the viewer such as utter disgust at the obscene gore factor, eye-rolling or chuckling at the cheesy one-liners and sometimes an occasional yawn when the plot can go off track and lack bite.Cooties, the directorial debut of Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott, has one of the most disgusting and nauseating opening sequences to a film I've ever seen as the extremely graphic procedure of how a particularly sick looking chicken is plucked from a slaughterhouse, processed into mush and ultimately a chicken nugget, then for an unsuspecting little girl to bite into it. Be warned, you will most probably be looking away from the screen heaving, however it's a title that definitely sets up the film to a strong start and explains the plague origin quickly.With what seems to be Elijah Wood continuing a streak of horror films, he stars in Cooties as Clint, a pretentious would-be novelist who returns home to Fort Chicken (I know, right?) from New York City to take on a much more terrifying role - a substitute teacher at his old school. With the earlier scenes showing the teacher versus student dynamic and adults having feelings of dread towards young people, the threat becomes much more real as the film progresses. The impressive cast and school staff-room of unlikely heroes teaching for the summer also include the incredibly comical alpha male P.E teacher Doug (Rainn Wilson), his positively sweet girlfriend and Clint's old friend Lucy (Allison Pill) and nerdy, zany science teacher Doug (Leigh Whannell, also co-writer). Clint's first day back in the daunting world of education rapidly goes from embarrassing to wild when aforementioned chicken nugget eating girl shockingly retaliates and bites her bullying classmate, triggering a descent into madness as the pandemic turns her pint sized friends into ruthless, bloodthirsty, flesh-eating maniacs.I think in the world of the horror genre today, especially in a zombie film, it is vital to inject something fresh into it and to bring something new to the table. Cooties succeeds in that department right away as the opening set up promises an entire movie about menacing and infected children. Of course, re-animated kids have been shuffling around and frightening audiences on the big screen ever since George A. Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead', however Cooties is taken place in a world where only children are susceptible to the outbreak, in a clever and amusing spin on the imaginary playground legend.The initial idea of setting a zombie film in a elementary school is incredibly ballsy, as it inevitably means that at some point you are going to be shown a bunch of kids being killed, or violently killing others, however the material never really comes across as tasteless, as the film has a outrageous sense of humour filled with slapstick gore that adds relief. The child zombies are delightfully horrific, delivering ghoulish grins and guttural snarls as they are shown in montages of mayhem playing with intestines for jump rope and decapitated heads for ball games, which can be surprisingly downright hilarious in some scenes.The film runs at a brisk and easy 90 minutes long and although it mostly hits all the right notes in the humour and gore departments, the same tired plot of characters trying to make an escape from near death has been played so much, it runs a little thin at times, especially during the middle act. The film is packed with characters that mostly lack any personality development or motivation other than 'survive' and it's only when the final act plays out that things with the other characters start to get interesting. Combined with a regrettable chunk of time spent wallowing in a tedious love triangle between Wood, Wilson and Pill, you may be left feeling frustrated at the tone switching from over the top madness to hurried heartfelt speeches at cut throat speed.If you're looking for a consistent and serious display full of drama and scenes that provoke scares then this definitely won't be The Walking Dead you're looking for, however for a comedy horror it delivers basically everything you could wish for. It may not rank up there with the great films of the zombie sub-genre, but it's a macabre and fun spin that more than works if you're after a silly flick to watch with a few friends.

Zombie movies through the ages can be measured. There are the the high times, from out of nowhere a zombie movie comes out and takes everyone by surprise. The world suddenly falls in love with zombie movies and film and television is flooded with zombie movies. A lot of them of outstanding quality. We go from a world with no zombie movies to a world ripe with zombie movies.Then there's more and more and more and as we start getting tired of the monotonous tirade of the walking dead on our screens they start getting cheaper and shittier. Suddenly we don't want to watch them. No longer are there any good zombie movies and all that remains are unentertaining, bad copies of what lay before. As though just by repeating a good theme badly people will want to follow.Suddenly it feels like an infection, ironically similar to the zombie virus and we need to get rid of it.Then finally we are rid of zombie movies, for about 20 or so years until they resurface again.This movie is proof that the golden age of zombie movies is over. It's not funny, it's not original. In fact it's actually a little painful to watch, the attempts of jokes that fail are more painful than the failed attempts of violence. At the end of the movie your whole face physically hurts from wincing for 80 minutes.Soon there will be no more zombie movies, the suffering will end.