Now this is my kind of zom-com double feature. Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse and Cooties are the kinds of flicks I could watch over and over again.
First there’s Cooties. A bunch of teachers must survive the worst day of school ever after their kids get infected by tainted chicken nuggets.
On his first day as a substitute teacher, Elijah Wood must contend with Rainn Wilson, who plays the asshole gym teacher boyfriend of the chick Elijah likes (Alison Pill of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World). If you never thought you’d see Rainn as the one-liner hero of a horror film (especially after House of 1000 Corpses), think again.
Also on staff are Jack McBrayer of 30 Rock (and he’s a bit sexually ambiguous—until his fear of children forces him to come out), Nasim Pedrad (of Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens), Leigh Whannell (of Saw and Insidious fame), Ian Brennan (writer for Glee and Scream Queens), and Jorge Garcia (Lost).
The opening scene showing the process of how chicken nuggets are made let’s you know right away that Cooties is going to be wickedly tasteless (pass the honey mustard sauce). When a student in Elijah’s class begins to fester, it’s all up ooze berry hill from there, starting with a feeding frenzy in the playground!
Kudos to the child actors, because no respect is shown to the kiddies in this comic horror romp. Nasim Pedrad has some great lines as an anti-evolutionist, there’s a baby-eating scene (yay!), Rainn Wilson literally calls for a suiting up montage, there’s an in-joke about hobbits, and there’s a Chucky doll sighting.
Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is pretty much the ultimate blend of zombedy and teen comedy. I knew this was the movie for me as soon as it opened with a janitor in a lab jamming to Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora’s “Black Widow.” This dude rules, delivering the gags and the gore immediately.
Next, we meet our scouts. Don’t expect this to be a family-friendly film about little kids fighting zombies. Our heroes are a couple of tenth-grade boys who are outgrowing scouts. They plan to ditch their campout to go to a party, but a town full of zombies stands in their way!
The boys team up with a stripper to save the day. Along the way, we get a club scene complete with a lesbian kiss, a zombie deer, a zombie dick, a great zombie stripper scene, a funny scene involving Dolly Parton memorabilia (and set to “9 to 5”), huge zomboobs (not Dolly’s)…
a zombie that sings Britney Spears, a zombie cat, zombie cunnilingus…
Arnold’s hot son Patrick Schwarzenegger (below) and a hot military man (below him)…
and a hero montage set to “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by The Scorpions.
Then there’s Cloris Leachman as an ass-eating zombie. I love when iconic actors just don’t care anymore.
To top it off, director Christopher Landon, who also wrote several of the Paranormal Activity movies, is a cutie…and the son of Michael Landon!
