If you’re not already excited for the 2014 Sundance darling Cooties, you really should be. Leigh Wannell, of Saw and Insidious fame, wrote the screenplay. Wannell stars alongside Jack McBrayer, Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson as teachers attempting to survive in a school infected by a violent zombie virus. Maybe Nasim Pedrad will come off funnier on the silver screen than she typically does on SNL (she’s in the cast as well.)
Early press photos from the film, which has garnered mostly positive reviews so far, look highly saturated, and they appear more suspenseful in tone than comedic. It’s an interesting question that rises in the production and distribution of a horror comedy: is it enough to cast comedians in an otherwise straightforward horror movie, or should a script do most of the heavy lifting in finding both the laughs and chills in each scene? Let’s take a look at what’s worked for the films that preceded Cooties.
Monster Maven 