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Cooties: - or +
I've seen a lot of weird movies. This is one of the weirdest. An infected chicken nugget factory gives all of the kids in an elementary school a virus that turns them into cannibalistic zombies, and the teachers need to survive and fight their way out. There is a lot of gory murdering of children. If your moralistic standards prevent you from enjoying watching a 9 year old get decapitated, stop reading here. It's genre is a horror-comedy B movie. I admire that it's an honest horror-comedy. Those are pretty much dead in 2015. The modern definition of blending horror and comedy is a horror parody, where the characters or writers or both are very sarcastic and self referential, making fun of horror movie tropes through self-aware situations or a winking embrace. Those movies are often great if they're well executed. Scream is in that genre, which I would call one of the best horror movies ever, and Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 (my pick for B movie of the year, although Cooties might challenge for it) fits in too. Regardless of quality, it's nice to see a horror movie play itself straight and have the jokes come through the dialogue of the characters, with jokes that wouldn't seem out of place in a pure, albeit dark, comedy. This seems like an absurd premise that could easily be going for laughs, but a deadly pack of 5th graders is taken dead seriously. That makes the scary stuff work. The comedy is written around a love triangle trying to endure the situation, and the character's feelings towards each other. That makes the funny stuff kind of work. All together it's one hell of a fun ride, if not one I plan on taking again.
This movie is genuinely frightening in the ways The Gallows could have been but decided to not be. A school can be a scary setting. If you make me afraid of your villains, which you do because as mentioned they're cannibal murderers and they get brutal killing scenes, there is a lot of tension to be had running in hallways to lock doors and trying to move down rooms. The kids pop up all over the place, forcing our heroes to hide or fight for their lives. There's no obnoxious music, so everything feels very genuine. More importantly, as most mainstream horror directors and writers miss these days, the monster is even more terrifying when it's hunting down characters that I care about. Freddy Kruger is scary, but he becomes that much scarier when he kills someone that I really wanted to see live. It's probably the only horror movie I've seen this year where my first reaction was "Wow! That was horrifying!"
The acting was a big part of why this movie worked. Elijah Wood is good as the star. He balances emotions well, and proves that there shouldn't be any issues with actors nailing comedic timing and doomed crying in the same scene. Rainn Wilson from The Office is fantastic as the gym teacher. They go for a lot of low hanging fruit jokes, like how he's constantly bragging about achievements or is actually terrible at sports, and with a less talented actor that could have killed the movie. Rainn plays his character a lot like Ben Stiller from The Royal Tenenbaums, letting the contrast of an intimidating and mean exterior with a dorky personality do the lifting for him. Alison Pill's teacher caught in the middle of those two is a lot of fun. She gets a surprising amount of depth, and not just with her backstory but her active decisions to think for herself and frequently switch sides between the two men fighting over her.
The script was not as good. It felt overstuffed for sure. I think that the ensemble cast of teachers was too big. Other than those 3 mentioned, there is a group of 5 teachers trying to survive the kids. They're all one dimensional stereotypes (in order from harmless to possibly offensive, there is a stoner, socially awkward guy, overprotective woman, gay guy, and Asian guy). None of them have any personality beyond the description in parenthesis, and that includes the Asian guy having no role other than being Asian. The Asian and awkward guys both serve a purpose within the story. It's a purpose that you could have another character fulfill, or a purpose that you could have a cameo fulfill and then die, but the other 3 have none at all, and it ties the movie up with too much comedy relief. The third act is weakest because the double genre balance leans too far to the comedy side. The script is also oddly political. It is pro teachers, emphasizing their importance in the development of children and says that they aren't paid or respected enough, which is an okay message, but it is also very anti processed meat, which is poorly handled and not nearly as agreeable of a moral. It also can't resist a Hobbit joke, which just got an eye roll from me. It's wild and weird, and for the most part that's just the way I like it.
Cooties: - or +
I've seen a lot of weird movies. This is one of the weirdest. An infected chicken nugget factory gives all of the kids in an elementary school a virus that turns them into cannibalistic zombies, and the teachers need to survive and fight their way out. There is a lot of gory murdering of children. If your moralistic standards prevent you from enjoying watching a 9 year old get decapitated, stop reading here. It's genre is a horror-comedy B movie. I admire that it's an honest horror-comedy. Those are pretty much dead in 2015. The modern definition of blending horror and comedy is a horror parody, where the characters or writers or both are very sarcastic and self referential, making fun of horror movie tropes through self-aware situations or a winking embrace. Those movies are often great if they're well executed. Scream is in that genre, which I would call one of the best horror movies ever, and Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 (my pick for B movie of the year, although Cooties might challenge for it) fits in too. Regardless of quality, it's nice to see a horror movie play itself straight and have the jokes come through the dialogue of the characters, with jokes that wouldn't seem out of place in a pure, albeit dark, comedy. This seems like an absurd premise that could easily be going for laughs, but a deadly pack of 5th graders is taken dead seriously. That makes the scary stuff work. The comedy is written around a love triangle trying to endure the situation, and the character's feelings towards each other. That makes the funny stuff kind of work. All together it's one hell of a fun ride, if not one I plan on taking again.
This movie is genuinely frightening in the ways The Gallows could have been but decided to not be. A school can be a scary setting. If you make me afraid of your villains, which you do because as mentioned they're cannibal murderers and they get brutal killing scenes, there is a lot of tension to be had running in hallways to lock doors and trying to move down rooms. The kids pop up all over the place, forcing our heroes to hide or fight for their lives. There's no obnoxious music, so everything feels very genuine. More importantly, as most mainstream horror directors and writers miss these days, the monster is even more terrifying when it's hunting down characters that I care about. Freddy Kruger is scary, but he becomes that much scarier when he kills someone that I really wanted to see live. It's probably the only horror movie I've seen this year where my first reaction was "Wow! That was horrifying!"
The acting was a big part of why this movie worked. Elijah Wood is good as the star. He balances emotions well, and proves that there shouldn't be any issues with actors nailing comedic timing and doomed crying in the same scene. Rainn Wilson from The Office is fantastic as the gym teacher. They go for a lot of low hanging fruit jokes, like how he's constantly bragging about achievements or is actually terrible at sports, and with a less talented actor that could have killed the movie. Rainn plays his character a lot like Ben Stiller from The Royal Tenenbaums, letting the contrast of an intimidating and mean exterior with a dorky personality do the lifting for him. Alison Pill's teacher caught in the middle of those two is a lot of fun. She gets a surprising amount of depth, and not just with her backstory but her active decisions to think for herself and frequently switch sides between the two men fighting over her.
The script was not as good. It felt overstuffed for sure. I think that the ensemble cast of teachers was too big. Other than those 3 mentioned, there is a group of 5 teachers trying to survive the kids. They're all one dimensional stereotypes (in order from harmless to possibly offensive, there is a stoner, socially awkward guy, overprotective woman, gay guy, and Asian guy). None of them have any personality beyond the description in parenthesis, and that includes the Asian guy having no role other than being Asian. The Asian and awkward guys both serve a purpose within the story. It's a purpose that you could have another character fulfill, or a purpose that you could have a cameo fulfill and then die, but the other 3 have none at all, and it ties the movie up with too much comedy relief. The third act is weakest because the double genre balance leans too far to the comedy side. The script is also oddly political. It is pro teachers, emphasizing their importance in the development of children and says that they aren't paid or respected enough, which is an okay message, but it is also very anti processed meat, which is poorly handled and not nearly as agreeable of a moral. It also can't resist a Hobbit joke, which just got an eye roll from me. It's wild and weird, and for the most part that's just the way I like it.