COOTIES: KID ZOMBIES!

From the start I thought this movie looked interesting. The combination of various film and TV stars looking disheveled in a comedy/horror film seemed interesting to me. When I found out it involved zombies I was curious to see if they could add anything to an already overflowing genre that is near the point of running its course. It succeeds in part but not in whole.

Elijah Wood stars as Clint, a wannabe author who has left New York to return home living with his mother. Unpublished and still trying to find that great American novel in himself, he takes on a job as a teacher to support himself. This is his first day teaching in a grade school where he grew up and things start out bad as he’s blocked into his parking space by an overcompensating sized pickup. Clint meets the rest of the teachers in their breakroom and finds a familiar face in Lucy (Alison Pill) who he knew back from his own school days. Lucy is currently involved with Wade (Rainn Wilson), the stereotypical jock/coach who is terrible not only at teaching but sports. It was Wade’s truck that blocked in Clint.

As the day progresses something happens with the kids. An infected chicken nugget (which we saw processed in a most gruesome way) has been eaten by one of the kids who then becomes a zombie from whatever ooze was leaked onto the nugget. Pandemonium ensues on the playground as first one child is bitten which begets another and another and so on. Since the outbreak only seems to infect children they adults don’t change but they do have to try and stay off the kid’s menu. Trying to corral the children and save them the teachers fail with one exception as they barricade themselves in the school.

The film slows here as the next segment of the film deals with the teachers dealing with their own issues and those among one another. First and foremost is Wade’s jealousy thinking that Clint talking to Lucy is more than just a casual conversation. It could be but there hasn’t been time for that to happen and it shows more of who Wade and Lucy are than Clint. When the film finally starts to move along again it’s because we find out not all of the children were outside.

Now the teachers must try and do two things. First is to try and save any of the parents who come to pick up their children. The second is to find a way to get out of the school and to any of their vehicles with the hope of getting the word out about what’s happened. With the phone lines gone, pulled by one of the infected children, they must band together to survive.

On the whole the movie does nothing astonishing to single it out from most low budget horror films or any of the myriad of zombie films that have come out recently. If more movies like this are what we can expect then the genre will die out faster than expected. That was my thoughts while watching the film. And then something else happened.

Once the film was over and I was thinking it had had its moments (the kids on the playground scene involving gore was actually pretty inventive) but not many I began to think about the terrifying implications of this concept. As a parent and uncle I know how deeply rooted my feelings are for children. They seem so innocent. We want what’s best for them. We want to protect them. And yet here we have those objects of affection, those innocents we want to protect, being the one thing that will kill us. To prevent the zombie apocalypse we need to kill the children. How horrifying is that?

In the end this wasn’t a bad film but not likely one to watch repeatedly. It is worth a rental though and one that fans of zombie films will want to add to their collection.

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