Cooties
Introduction
Introduction
Me: (singing) “I been caught stealing… once… when I was five!”
My wife: “Is that the Spin Doctors?”
Yeah, that’s about how we have to start this. I’m off jiving and writhing with Perry and she wants to call me later. Maybe. Or talk to a dude named Jerry. Maybe. Or flirt with a lady? Maybe? LA DA DA DA DA….
Janes Addiction is caffeine for your ears. Coke for your soul. Ecstasy for your essence. Who the fuck gave them the funk? Did they steal the funk? Who stole the soul? I saw Janes Addiction once. It was a fucking adventure of a debacle.
About 8 of us took a limo to the show. I’d bought a pack of Oreo Double-Stuffed and opened them and scooped all but a little perimeter of the white filling out of them and replaced it with diced mushrooms and then capped again. So, I had a quart bag half full of these things. I think I’d eaten a couple before the limo ride even started.
We got about half way to the show and I talk the limo driver into pulling over at a package store, and now we got a 30 rack of something cheap. We start rolling down the middle window and asking about smoking. He’s like, yeah, try to blow the smoke out the window. And finally I get voted to be the guy who asks “Yeah… about smoking… you care if we smoke anything else?”
And he holds up a huge joint and replies “Like this?” I think I shimmered for a second before I teleported into the front passenger seat. We talked engines and cars and stuff, and then we got stuck in traffic for a really long time, since the college that was hosting the show didn’t have parking and stuff set up well.
It also could have been something related to the mushrooms and weed and alcohol. But parking really was starting to get difficult and I think we all just bailed out of the limo and ran into the concert. The show was fucking awesome. Flea was playing bass for them.
About 3 songs in, all the house lights come on and suddenly there’s 3 bleeding hippies, resplendent in handmade wool sweaters, being carried out from in front of the stage. Someone tried to climb something and it fell over and landed on some people. I had no idea. It was really loud.
I’d eaten more of the cookies than I thought. At some point in the limo ride, I’d realized that people hadn’t eaten as many of the cookies as I’d anticipated, and I wasn’t going to leave drugs undone before the concert, so I know I ate more than I thought I did. I think my girlfriend at the time took a couple extra too. Things were loud.
I wasn’t sure where the stage was. We ran into some people we knew, but we were too messed up for socializing. I remember the kid had a Spitfire Wheels hat on. The ball of flame kept rolling in his forehead every-time I looked away. Maybe I spent the whole conversation staring at his head. They disappeared though, and a little while later my girlfriend wanted to go find them again, and I was trying to explain that I couldn’t function that well for an expedition at the moment. It was really loud.
She couldn’t hear me, so I yelled really loud. I projected very strongly. I must have contorted the fuck out of my facial features trying to be heard, ‘cause all of a sudden she’s bawling huge sobbing tears and asking why I’m mad at her? Why am I yelling at her? It’s really loud.
I have to yell to be heard. I’m not angry. But trying to tell her this makes my face scrunch up into yelling face again. Things are not going well. I mean, its going better for me than the bleeding hippies, but they’re gone and I’ve got a hallucinating hysterical girl standing in front of me silently crying and asking why I hate her. I have no idea how that bullshit resolved itself.
I honestly am just blank. It’s like the rest of the concert has been erased from my memory and replaced with a few static images from the show. My next memory of the evening is some sort of wrestling match in the limo that resulted in the phone being kicked out of the wall and damn near everything else getting trashed.
I really feel bad for my friend who set the whole night up- she’s one of those wholesome responsible people that my life tended to fuck over. I feel bad for the limo driver, too. I don’t remember tipping at all. Hopefully I left some cookies in the bag when we ran into the show.
How many concert have you heard without seeing? I’ve heard one- I stole a Blues Traveler show once- they were playing at a riverfront pavilion and my friend and I took our kayaks out into the middle of the river and burned it down to free tunes.
I remember more of Blues Traveler, who I actually have never laid eyes on, than I do Janes Addiction. I regret nothing. I hope I don’t regret doing this movie. Whichever I end up doing. I haven’t even opened up that laptop yet. So much good music.
Bosstones. Someday I suppose. I get shivers. Growing up East Coast sucked, but I did get to see the Bosstones in venues the size of bathrooms over and over. I saw Helmet in a pitch-black basement. I want live music to start up again. I want baseball to start up again. I want life to start up again. So. Got a movie to watch.
I smell bad. Fresh sweat. Let’s see here. So I went back to the “Best 50 Zombie Movies” and started poking around to see what Amazon actually has. So many of these movies have been released under different names, I’d hate to try to figure out royalties. My little brother is an actor. I wonder what it’s like to have royalties checks coming in. You work once, you keep getting paid. It’s a nice idea.
Cooties. Much less of a nice idea. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this movie. ”Elementary-school teachers come under attack from children who have been turned into vicious monsters by a mysterious disease.” That’s interesting. I like the idea of fighting hordes of infected children. I like the idea of fighting children.
I teach children to fight. It’s important. You want good cardio? Try fighting three 12-13 year olds at the same time. What am I worried about? Gassing out or getting swept/tripped is my fighting fear against kids, since they have that lower center of gravity.
I’m also worried that there’s two directors here. You know how I feel about that. Fortunately, neither of them appear to be actors in the movie. But you know who is? Elijah Fucking Wood. I’m just sitting here going “Whaaa?”. I thought that there were rules against this kind of thing. I’m not sure why, but, like… Is this the guy I’m thinking of?
Who was in Swiss Army Man? And Jungle? Or wait… That’s Daniel Radcliff. Fuck. Elijah… you’re a Hobbit! That’s right! So I mean, like… these are gonna be worse than the dementors. I mean, black riders… or whatever the Nas’Ghoul or whatever are called. I don’t mean to be dismissive. I’m just having a hard time taking nouns seriously.
I got Primus blaring Jerry and I’m getting my short little dudes confused. I’m gonna have to turn this music off, reef it down, and then fire up the movie. This sounds sorta like every teacher’s dream. The kids are evil, so you get to kill them all.
Imagine if Alice Cooper has written Schools Out from the perspective of the teachers? Like Steven King said, scary is when a known scenario gets one factor changed, inverting the whole dynamic. It’s this feeling of uncomfortable that actually scares us more often than the happenings in the movie. I’m just fucking making that up ‘cause it sounds smart. Dan.
Review Notes
Review Notes
Wow. I spilled water *everywhere*. Thank god I didn’t break another bong. Or two. This shit has got to stop. My shit… is not secure.
Green light chickens…
That’s one less chicken.
Oh. This is not fucking appetizing. Lots of dead chickens. And live larva. This is supposed to make us really not want to eat processed meat. And it’s working.
Fuck. Chicken slurry. I’ve never had food used like this to gross me out.
Is how they make fish sticks?
Happy Poultry.
They’re following one nugget with a black marking… out, out damn spot…
Oh, no. That was just fucking gross. The nugget puss… not ok. I’m getting grossed out.
Wood is a writer. His mom is… super honest. I love her.
“Now get up and teach those summer-school kids how to write like you!”
Something about an evil boat. Schooner. Evil.
I’ve never had much success with that whole “talk into a mini-tape recorder” cliché. I mean, I probably come up with good ideas, but then I forget to go back and transcribe them. But I know I probably come up with good ideas. Or kill lists.
“No foul balls.”
Dude! It’s… fuck! From lost!! HURLEY!! And here’s another example of the universe being both tiny and possessing of a great sense of irony. What did I write 90% of the intro about today? Eating too many hallucinogenic mushroom Oreos and wrecking a limousine. What does Hurley want? MUSHROOMS. It’s like I wrote it by living. Fuck, I’m high. And suddenly aware that I’m at least mostly responsible for trashing two separate limousines. That I remember. Imagine if there’s more?
Wood is having a hard day. And life.
These kids are fucking brutal, though. Mean. So mean.
I like the Mormon joke! I mean, I don’t really have any specific reason to. But I didn’t expect it! And I like being surprised!
Can’t write it all- but the Principal. He’s like… uh… Fuck. From Office Space. Rupert? No… Fuck! I can’t remember the bosses name.
“She’s hilarious! A lot of personal tragedy.”
“I don’t care if it’s raining labradoodles! I want to get those kids outside for recess! I’ll lock them out! And I *will* do that.”
He’s class of ’88. Bad choice of years.
Oh shit. Not the biggest fan of this character-cliché.
That woman carries… a rape alarm. A portable rape alarm. Because she can’t carry guns.
Woods is NOT making any friends.
Lucy already kinda looks like a zombie.
There’s a guy sitting in the corner reading a book called “How to have a normal conversation” I seriously used a book like this (I’m a diagnosed sociopath, read the other reviews for more details) when I was trying to learn how to navigate dating.
And yeah, as silly as this presentation of it is, you do have to do both of these things. Practice putting yourself out there. “It’s a scorcher!” Could have done better. “Unseasonably warm!”
“Please to meet you and meet to please you.” Ok, that’s a strange one.
These are some seriously strange people.
“Dual rear wheel.” (mispronounce and continue to mispronounce in strange cadence and tones 47 times) “It’s got two extra wheels back there.”
Wood is just ripping off Steven King.
Jason Patrick! I’m… trying to remember or figure out who that is.
These kids are dicks. I mean, she’s not looking well, but… don’t be mean!
“What’s with that guy? He seems like kind of a dick!”
“What? He’s my boyfriend! See you!”
No… that’s not the way you engage children.
Are they all taking VALIUM? That’s exactly what mine look like…
I’m not going to detail out that explanation of Darwinism. But… It’s wrong and wrong and really funny and wrong.
Clint. Do a better job writing your name.
And no-one cares much. As the kid illustrated.
The kid’s name is Hatred. He’s got some issues.
“While you were talking, I just looked at one hundred vaginas.”
Wood! Stop bugging people to read your shit!
Oh fuck. That escalated quickly!
Kid ripped her pony tail off!
She ripped his cheek off!
Then Wood’s watch off!
Fuck. That’s good special effects.
Hurley… has the sweetest eagle van imaginable.
“Beautiful, beautiful shrooms.”
Oh, didn’t need to see a kid pick his nose and eat it.
Wood, you’re doing a great pretentious prick.
Hurley may have eaten a little too much.
This slow motion game of tag is fucking awesome though!
Where’s he going?
So you just need to have the blood scratched onto/into you and you turn very quickly.
“You’ll be beating off the women in Fort Chicken”
Bit of startled right there!
Good amount of good gore…
Hurley, good report. It could be the medication.
Oh! The nurse’s office has a great bloody hand to window slap!
We’re watching the principle get drawn and quartered…
“Oh look! Carnage.”
These are some scary children zombies. Well done!
“Ma’am? Ma’am? You need to calm down.”
These zombies hate routers, evidently.
Nice, Hurley, nice. I agree. Eat them, don’t let the cops get them!
You lost those fingers yourself, idiot. Once again, well FUCK!
Got a little startled there.
Coffee pot thrown- into the nuts!
I’m not repeating the funny comments about the unfortunate chimp woman. But they’re funny.
“Follow me! I do CrossFit!”
These zombie kids are thinking- one opens the doors for the others.
“I blame rap music!”
It’s a virus. With raised blisters.
“Oh. I guess she’s gone to commit murder somewhere else.”
The symphony of death is a great idea!
A book about a guy who wants to fuck a boat is a good idea!
That’s one good Hobbit crack.
She… beat the terrorists after 911?
I like the idea of waiting until 3pm too.
Woods got cooties!
Woods got quarantined!
Hurley is in a bad way. A very bad way.
“Mild anal leakage…”
Oh fuck. Remember to wear gloves. For real.
Kids are playing with body parts. A head is a tetherball, for example. Intestines can be a jump rope. Eyes are marbles.
Bloody baby is scary.
“They go straight for the face!”
Yet another example of a fire-extinguisher as a bludgeon. It’s tradition.
The zombies have black blood. Ick.
Woods… you’re gonna dissect him?
Oh! The little girl… That’s bad.
Umm… lotta stuff going on… I’m really high.
Weird guy is playing with brains. Hurley… tripping balls. Tough guy went into the closet? Or is it a bathroom?
I’m hungry. Like, really.
Ok. Not sure I needed Hurley hallucinating a giraffe.
A domestic talk? At this juncture?
Angst. So much angst.
I fucking love this wierdo! Keeps telling Palin to shut up!
“I learned all about the brain when I had a six inch spike lodged in my head as a child.” So… I shit you not. I had a chunk of carbide drill bit stuck in my head for 49 days. I still have it. Doctor didn’t believe me. Now I have a nice scar.
“Which is the reason that sometimes when I’m talking I use the wrong rowboat. Word.”
“Why is sex ed always taught by the creepiest teachers?”
Science. Lots of science. Talk like a person. Please.
This virus is puberty-dependent. Like, you can’t get sick if you have gone through puberty.
This is a pretty convincing horde to be running away from.
The janitor lives in the basement of the school. Pretty f’n sweet.
“Dual rear-wheel”
Thank god for air ducting.
Oh shit. The hobbit just got called out.
“I definitely don’t do brave stuff. I’ve never even been camping. I have a blog. I get excited about Apple products. That what I’m comfortable with.”
“Circle circle dot dot now you have a cooties shot.” Didn’t know it worked like that.
This vent has the best mood lighting.
“Yeah, and your cock is girthy, too!”
“There are no words on this.”
I like his writing style.
I like her ranting style.
Bad words by Tommy, age 8.
Got a little startle there…
That’s terrifying. Make the music keep playing! Bad things are gonna happen if the music stops!
Creepy!
I think going back to the tricycle is the scariest part of it. That’s wrong.
Now *that* is a covert entry.
Don’t separate! Idiots!
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
I would have to run out there and kick her in the head. Or try.
A person just walking by my window startled the fuck outta me.
Oh shit! Started again!
And it’s lit!
The kids laughing as they chase them… that’s scary. They’re enjoying this.
“After the fifth half-eaten corpse that you see, it’s still horrifying.”
Oh shit! He’s the groom from… Forgetting Sarah Marshall!! FINALLY!
Pretty much playing the same role in this film.
This Odd guy is awesome! Slapslap!
“This is like, the worst… Monday… ever!”
Woods… are you a fucking stalker?? YES!! He is!! That IS so creepy!!
Woods, it’s called getting older and living your life. That happens, it’s the passage of time. It’s not how much you spend, but how you spend it. Stop whining.
“There’s still so much I haven’t done. Like, I’ve always wanted to fire an Uzi.”
Teachers do deserve respect.
“I always wanted to have sex with a prostitute that was non-white.” WHAT THE FUCK??
“I sleep in a bed I used to pee in.”
There’s a whole lot of domestic feels that aren’t really firing on the right cylinders.
But the humor is spot on! I think I’m seeing the wrong thing.
They… are throwing Ritalin and Adderall out to the children zombies to distract them.
Yes. Not only do they reference (quivers for it) COMMANDO, he even talks the suiting up montage. Yes, it’s a tad bit contrived- it’s been used before. But these guys are having a good time and so am I.
Uhh… it’s actually a pretty good and spot on weapons montage.
“I’ve played dodgeball a million times with these little shits. Go for the face. It’s their weak spot!”
Confession time is funny!
The frog and the caterpillar…
Oh. That is quite the baseball launcher. I can see how the face is a weak spot.
His gun reminds me of Aliens.
The janitor is sorta coming out of nowhere here.
We’re in a really long pointless playground brawl. Really counting down the time though. Like the final car chase.
“Hey! Daniel Steele!”
Remember what I said about how exhausting it is to try to fight three of them at a time? Imagine if it was 30? He got his head-butts in though. Nice.
Great hand breach! Re-imagined!
Kid on the roof! Kid on the roof!
Oh… the ripped off jaw was great, but then was that humor attempt necessary? A straight squish would have worked fine.
Isn’t it ironic? That it’s named Danville? Dan?
“Well, I’d feel worst if these people weren’t from fucking Danville.”
Little back and forth defining endemic vs. pandemic. As if any of us didn’t know it by now. This is a bit of real-world foreshadowing.
Oh shit. There’s a lot of kids watching.
Chasing.
If Danville were New York…
Dude, you’re not ok. This guy has got to be a space alien.
“Nugget out of here” Oh shit. Worst pun ever.
Why does he want a nugget?
Where the fuck are they? That’s a Dante-ish version of hell. OR a McDonalds play pit.
“Now is time to fuck the caterpillar?”
I really want to know how this disco thing got set up. When it got set up. It’s… dumb. Did I miss something?
“Is this one of those really intense drug interventions?”
I love the flaming child chasing the truck into the sunset.
————End Transmission——————–
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- The Hobbit arrives at a school and has zero friends
- Little blonde kid goes on a cootie-bender scratching everyone
- All the kids get face herpes and want to eat the adults
- The adults finally accept they need to kill these children and start enjoying it
- I don’t remember exactly how it ended.
- Hurley cashes a check for sitting on his butt in a van.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
If you have gone through puberty you just get explosive shits, if you haven’t gone through puberty you turn into a zombie. You just have to get scratched too. It’s pretty fucking liberal. The zombies are smart in an evil way and remember stuff from when they were alive. Basically, they just turn into little herpes-faced monsters and start chasing down and eating adults. And it all starts with dismembered ground up chickens. I think the point was that our current practices of upping protein by grinding the corpses of the deceased in with the food is a sick way to stay sicker. But it comes down to a little girl eating bad food and getting sick and eating her classmates. The ones who aren’t eating the other ones or already being eaten by the other ones.
Where the money went
Where the money went
I jokingly propose that too much of the money went to getting Hurley on board. Hell, might be able to say the same thing for Woods. I’d like to know what other actors were considered for his role. Him being in it got to fire off a couple Hobbit jokes that were funny. The whole thing was well balanced, with great gore and special effects. The script could have been gone through again, but it’s a standard B+ effort from a competent crew. Maybe everyone felt a little too bound to remain within the boundaries of their character’s cliches? This movie could have done more with less money and more passion. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s closer to say that it’s a bit formulaic, even when it goes off formula- it does it when and where you’d expect it to.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
Hmm. So… Uh… They made a bunch of weapons but I’m not sure I liked them all? They had a whole “making weapons” montage, but the crap they created was sort of like running down the list of “what hasn’t been used to kill zombies before?” and then picking off a couple options. There’s really a lot that I can’t remember. I’m going to have to go back to my notes. Or maybe I’m not going to. I keep thinking back and there was much more running away than there was fighting. So- I think the “Grab the kid by the shirt and lift him into a head-butt” is probably my favorite move/weapon/whatever from this.
That was new!
That was new!
Chicken slurry. I’ll say it again. Chicken slurry. I’m glad I’ve stopped eating fast food. This… was fucking brutal to see. Not actual brutal, like the Misfit’s Legacy, but brutal in the “Damn, wish I’d looked away from that but now I can’t!” sort of squish way. Having an all-child evil was sort of new and cool too- I’ve seen children zombies and undead before and it’s always a good time. I’d like to see this one with less humor maybe? More terror?
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
There were at least two great hand scenes here- first, there was a perfect “bloody hand slaps the window” shot, as well as a new form of Zombie-Breach; the “raised last hand of human defiance” that punched out of a pile of zombies, showing that his fight was still on. There was also a fire extinguisher skull bashing, something I’m learning is of more prevalence than initially thought. I’m pretty sure that one of the kids was playing with a severed hand during the playground scene after everything has gone to hell. I also feel like there could be other inclusions for this paragraph, but I really don’t feel like going back and looking for them. I feel like they had a good chance to do anything and everything that they ever wanted to- and they kinda left a bunch of shit still on the table.
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
It’s funny and worth watching, but nothing to write home about. Definitely got some good laughs and scares, didn’t see anything horribly whack about it, kept my interest pretty much until the end, when I got really confused ‘cause of all the Studio 54 strobe lights and stuff. This is kinda like Anchorman, in that all the characters are very strong yet singular in most dimensions, and then they’re forced to work together under great stress. See? Put that way, it’s not really that good of a movie. I think the last real bone I have to pick with it is the forced love interest crap. It was weak and forced and unnecessary. It could have been a better movie if it had Neil Patrick Harris in it. Or a whole host of other actors just slightly more suited for the roles. Or a different script. Not a complete re-write, but enough so that when you read it to strangers, they’d say “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like something I’ve seen 30 times already this year.” They really didn’t have enough to flush this out into a really good movie- they swung a little harder than they should of, maybe? I mean, there’s some really good writing, acting, timing, direction, sets… even the shit I didn’t understand at all was done well. Whole bunch of these actors gonna be recognizable from other stuff, too, like the whiney guy. Hurley? What the hell? I like your character for being a crazy van-dwelling psylocibin lover, but come on. Doing the damn near whole movie from inside a van? That’s fucking lazy. There are some great jokes that line out to solid doubles and triples, and there’s a home-run or two in there too. This is irreverence mixed with imagination. I’m gonna say this is a solid “watcher”, but that it’s also one for a day when you don’t have much of anything planned and you don’t feel like watching “The Thing” or “Prometheus” again. This is a better use of time than the new Dune, that’s for sure. Re-reading some of this, I feel like I’m being too negative. Watch it- it’s funny. I focus on the negative because if I tell you all the positives you won’t actually get to go through them on your own. I don’t want to dilute any of this fun little summer day slip-and-slide for you. It’s that fun and wholesome.