Title: Cooties
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion
Starring: Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Alison Pill
Runtime: 1 hr 28 mins

What It Is: Clint (Wood) is a “writer” whose back at home living with his mother. To make ends meet he has taken on a gig teaching at his old elementary school. Simultaneously the town they all live in is famous for making chicken products including nuggets served at that school as well as several others. When one of Clint’s students begins to pick on another the girl being picked on begins to quite literally eat her classmate. This sets off a series of events that leads to a pandemic of a zombie like disease that they’re calling “cooties”. Can this group of bumbling teachers survives a new (slightly smaller) scale of horror?

What We Think: This movie doesn’t take itself seriously at all. That’s part of it’s charm however. Elijah Wood is really good as is Alison Pill, but this is Rainn Wilson reigning supreme over the land. Not only is he the most interesting character he also has the biggest arch. There’s a few glaring issues with the story and some of the effects are so-so. There are several scene where these late twenties early thirty something teachers are locked in their teacher’s lounge like some quarter life crisis Breakfast Club, it sort of works.

Our Grade: C+, By no means does Cooties reinvent the wheel, but it is a good time. Even for someone like myself who isn’t a horror movie fan can enjoy this. Having said that I am going to go ahead and give this a passing grade, but not a great one. I like that it sort of embraced the horror cliches but it too often relied on that sort of things. Go ahead and check this one out on VOD and at an arthouse or smaller theater near you!