Cooties

So we (shadesong, felisdemens, Aimee, Corey, and I) caught Cooties last night. The movie, that is. It was playing at the Brattle, and was totally worth it.

I cannot recommend this film enough if you're a horror fan. It's a horror comedy, and genuinely one of the better ones I've seen in ages. It's co-written by Leigh Whannell (who wrote Saw, a movie that I'm underwhelmed by, as well as a number of other movies that even fans of Saw dislike) and Ian Brennan (co-creator of Scream Queens, which I also need to write a post about, but which I enjoyed way more than I expected to), and has a great cast, including Whannell and Brennan (who both steal a bunch of scenes), Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Jorge Garcia, Nasim Pedrad, Jack McBrayer, and Allison Pill (who does not play drums at any point, alas).

The plot: Infected chickens are made into chicken nuggets (in what's easily the grossest part of the film), and when a little girl eats one, she gets infected and zombified. Soon enough, the entire elementary school is rabid, and a few teachers (and students) are the only survivors. Hilarity and bloodshed ensue.

And it really does work well. The movie is smart about its kids, not showing them as lovable, but also not really spending time on more than one or two particularly awful ones before things go awry. The characters are ridiculous and over the top in just the right way, and the cast sells the movie with everything they've got. The movie also takes two surprising gambles late in the movie (I won't spoil either one), both of which really paid off for me. Great dialogue, good action sequences, and generally smart decisions (there's only one minor stupid move committed by the survivors, and it's more in retrospect; compare that to Shawn of the Dead, which is filled with people being idiots). And just the pre-zombie classroom sequence with a kid named Patriot (who was born on 9/11 and believes he's destined to save the country) is fucking hysterical.

Definitely see this film if you like your horror comedies smart without getting too self-referential*. If you're lucky enough to be in an area that shows films like this on the big screen, even better, as I never find video-on-demand as entertaining.

*Okay, they do make one good Hobbit joke.

Cooties

So we (shadesong, felisdemens, Aimee, Corey, and I) caught Cooties last night. The movie, that is. It was playing at the Brattle, and was totally worth it.

I cannot recommend this film enough if you're a horror fan. It's a horror comedy, and genuinely one of the better ones I've seen in ages. It's co-written by Leigh Whannell (who wrote Saw, a movie that I'm underwhelmed by, as well as a number of other movies that even fans of Saw dislike) and Ian Brennan (co-creator of Scream Queens, which I also need to write a post about, but which I enjoyed way more than I expected to), and has a great cast, including Whannell and Brennan (who both steal a bunch of scenes), Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Jorge Garcia, Nasim Pedrad, Jack McBrayer, and Allison Pill (who does not play drums at any point, alas).

The plot: Infected chickens are made into chicken nuggets (in what's easily the grossest part of the film), and when a little girl eats one, she gets infected and zombified. Soon enough, the entire elementary school is rabid, and a few teachers (and students) are the only survivors. Hilarity and bloodshed ensue.

And it really does work well. The movie is smart about its kids, not showing them as lovable, but also not really spending time on more than one or two particularly awful ones before things go awry. The characters are ridiculous and over the top in just the right way, and the cast sells the movie with everything they've got. The movie also takes two surprising gambles late in the movie (I won't spoil either one), both of which really paid off for me. Great dialogue, good action sequences, and generally smart decisions (there's only one minor stupid move committed by the survivors, and it's more in retrospect; compare that to Shawn of the Dead, which is filled with people being idiots). And just the pre-zombie classroom sequence with a kid named Patriot (who was born on 9/11 and believes he's destined to save the country) is fucking hysterical.

Definitely see this film if you like your horror comedies smart without getting too self-referential*. If you're lucky enough to be in an area that shows films like this on the big screen, even better, as I never find video-on-demand as entertaining.

*Okay, they do make one good Hobbit joke.