It's not often you find an intentionally funny horror movie that's any good. Usually, they are supposed to be scary, and turn out not only to be not scary, but unintentionally funny. Those are just bad horror films. The ones that are intentionally funny are called Horror-comedies, or homedies. Horror-omedies? Corror? Comorrorrororor? Comma comma comma comma comma chameleon? Nope. I'm getting nowhere.
Cooties (2014) is an intentionally funny horror movie, and not a horrible one. A teacher named Clint (Elijah Wood) returns to his old home town after failing as a horror writer, and embarks on his first day as a substitute teacher at his old elementary school. Clint runs into an old crush named Lucy (Alison Pill) in the teacher's lounge before class, and immediately hits it off with her, despite also running into her boyfriend, Wade (Rainn Wilson), the phys-ed teacher. Clint's day is going pretty awesome, which can mean only one thing. That's right. All hell is about to break loose.
The Good: I've gotta say, it's good to see Elijah Wood working again after being typecast as a Hobbit for so many years. And, sure, he's probably been acting for years, but never in any horror movies, and that's all I watch. Also good to see Rainn Wilson finding work after his failed series, Backstrom, though this movie was actually filmed before Backstrom, so... Yea. Alison Pill is always good to watch, in anything, but not many horror movies in her list of roles. The rest of the cast did a decent acting job, and I loved the janitor, Hitachi (Peter Kwong), going all Samurai on the kids. Probably something he's been wanting to do for years. The movie was actually pretty funny in spots, though it does better as a black comedy than an actual comedy. Watch it for the amusing horror, and not the scares.
The Bad: No nudity, sadly, though Alison Pill is just adorkable in this. Some of the jokes were odd, like Wade calling Clint a Hobbit, which breaks the 4th wall and something I'm not fond of (one reason I wasn't overly thrilled with the Deadpool movie). The plot got a little dodgy around midway through the movie, as the unnamed virus seemed to move through the uh, "population" with unnatural speed. Also, why would the sickly rip out phone lines? That doesn't even make sense, except to make it impossible to call for help.
The Ugly: Hey, nothing like calling an unnamed virus "The Cooties" and watching as it makes its victims erupt in blisters and leaky pus. Maybe a little too disgusting, and maybe asking a teenage girl if she had achieved "menses" yet, could have been avoided. Seriously, as Clint says, why is Sex Ed always taught by the creepiest teacher? Although, mine was taught by a hot blonde teaching assistant, but maybe I am the exception. I do applaud the writers for going that extra mile for a joke.
I caught Cooties on one of the Starz channels (Starz Comedy, I think?), if you want to watch it yourself. This is the second time I've seen it this month, so it certainly passes the rewatchability test. Interesting side note, Elijah Wood is "Todd" in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which premieres on BBCA tomorrow night at 9 pm. Stick with the horror movie fans, Mr. Wood, we're a loyal bunch.
In other news, I have ice cream! :-D Mmmm, chocolate! See you guys tomorrow night.
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