Just when you thought the zombie genre had run out of ideas, Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson start hacking and slashing their way through an elementary school full of undead, flesh-hungry kids.
In the first trailer for Cooties (embedded below), there’s ample amounts of both laughs and scares as the audience is introduced to a group of schoolteachers fighting for their survival against a horde of kids who want to eat them alive… literally.
Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings series) and Rainn Wilson (The Office) play two of the school’s teachers in a cast that also includes Alison Pill (The Newsroom), Nasim Pedrad (Saturday Night Live), Jack McBrayer (30 Rock), Jorge Garcia (Lost), and Peter Kwong (Big Trouble in Little China).
The trailer debuted on Yahoo Movies this week, and along with presenting a fairly unique take on the genre, the movie seems to be comically self-aware of the conventions of zombie movies (and horror movies in general), with Wilson’s character seen discussing the obligatory scene in which the heroes suit up to battle their enemies. The movie also doesn’t seem to shy away from embracing the horror side of horror-comedies (zombedies?) as the kids are glimpsed biting, scratching, ripping, and tearing their way through their victims.
Helmed by first-time directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion, the script for the film was penned by Saw and Insidious co-creator Leigh Whannell (who also appears in the movie) and, in what might be one of the strangest pairings in recent movie history, Glee co-creator Ian Brennan. One look at the trailer suggests that the team-up between these two creators is every bit as bizarre — and intriguing — as one might expect.
Cooties recently made its theatrical debut at the Stanley Film Festival, and is scheduled to arrive in select theaters and on-demand video services September 18.
