HORROR FILM REVIEW: COOTIES (2015)

Oh, you'll sneak around, huh? Sneak around like a little Hobbit. No way! I'm taking the fight to them like a fuckin' Orc!

COOTIES

Circle, dot, circle, dot now you've got a Cooties shot.  If only life was that simple, sadly for the us it's just not that easy to get protection from the dreaded playground disease, which is a good thing as it would have meant that this film would have been a lot less enjoyable than it is.  

Horror and comedy has never been a genre that has a had a huge amount of success for every classic like Evil Dead II there are hundreds of unfunny or totally not scary films.  You would think that this would be an easy genre of film to make as both horror and comedy have roots in the same dark place of your brain, so why does Cooties work when most other attempts at comedy horror fail?...

The plot of Cooties is a simple one, kids eat infected chicken meant, turn into fast intelligent zombies, and lay siege to the ramshackle teaching staff of a decidedly below than average American High school.  Can our band of hopeless teachers survive and escape a hell   worse than that of the Glee Club?

Cooties is great success of film, it manages to to remain funny throughout its length, thanks mainly to its amazing cast, Elijah Wood and Rain Wilson ave a great time playing off each other.  Granted neither of their performances stray far from the the roles that made them famous. Elijah is a wide eyed quiet and nervous teacher, and Rain Wilson's character is basically Dwight Shrute without the calming influence of Jim and Pam.  Yet despite this both characters are very watchable, and the chemistry between them is a pleasure to watch.  However it is Leigh Whannell's turn as the creepy over zealous science teacher that is the real winner of the film. Whannell hams it it to perfection, his obsession with bodily fluids is hilarious. 

The humour in the film ranges from simple slapstick humour to sly nods at the numerous zombie films that the film clearly relishes making fun off.  Even the ripping a person in two scene from Day  of The Dead gets a sly wink, when the most annoying vice principle gets his final comeuppance.  On the whole the humour works well, there a few off moments, mainly thanks to the scenes with Jorge Garcia, who just seems to be in the film to take up some running time.  Trust me a hallucinatory giraffe is just not funny.  

Thankfully the film also piles on the horror, faces get bitten, people get ripped apart, fingers are chopped off and classrooms of kids get smashed in the head. The horror elements of he film are in the main played straight, the opening segment, which introduces us to the source of the Cooties outbreak, is stomach turning to say the least.  And the visual effects of the various body parts that get chomped on are handled very well.  It's this juxtaposition of horror and comedy that sets this film apart from many of its contemporaries, many of these films shy away from the horror side and focus too much on poor slapstick jokes, you will laugh at the jokes and you will shudder at the horror on display here.  


Cooties is an infections film with an ending that hopefully sets us up for a sequel.     

COOTIES is released on Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital Download from 12th October 2015.

Elijah Wood stars as substitute teacher Clint Hadson whose first day on the job at his new elementary school turns into a killer..Literally! 

A virus spawned from a diseased chicken nugget quickly spreads through the school turning all the children into feral, savage and pre-pubescent beasts.  

Hadson must unite a ragtag bunch of teachers who will have to band together in the fight of their lives if they are to have any hope of making it to safety from a horde of rampaging adolescents. 

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