Cooties

I struggled with how to write this review, not because it's a difficult movie to review, but because ... well ... there's not much TO review here. The more recent movies I've watched had themes and concepts and metaphors piled to the rafters. Cooties doesn't. Cooties doesn't try. Cooties doesn't WANT to try. It wants to be funny, and it wants to have some carnage to it. It has no aspirations to change your life or make you think. And you know what? I'm good with that. There's no shame in just wanting to be a popcorn movie. There's a lot of good popcorn movies, and Cooties is one of them. What you have here is a pretty familiar formula: the zombie siege movie. Survivors stuck in a single location while zombies are all around. But there's a couple major differences here; the zombies are all children -- we're talking 10 and under -- because the zombie virus only affects children in this movie. Adults get flu-like symptoms if they're infected, but otherwise are fine. Unless, you know, they're swarmed by a dozen fourth graders, who tear the adult limb from limb. So, it's adults vs. kids, and kids have both the numbers and a zombie-rage virus on their side. The adults have whatever sporting and office equipment they could cobble together from inside the school. If that sounds silly, yup, it sure is. Cooties aspires to be nothing more than a horror-comedy of the zaniest and most preposterous of proportions. There's constant energy, I laughed out loud several times, there's a ton of gore and viscera for the carnage fans, it breezes by at 90 minutes, and the cast is enjoyable. It's not Shaun Of The Dead clever, or The Final Girls satirical; it's just a goofy twist on a zombie siege situation. All it wants to do is entertain you for an hour and a half with thrills and jokes, and it does that. Can't get mad at a movie for having modest goals and meeting them.