Last night, Cooties opened the 2015 Stanley Film Festival and was definitely a crowd-pleaser. The horror / comedy finds a group of teachers fighting for their life when a virus turns their students into ravenous zombies. I'll post my full impressions soon, but I think our readers will really be into this and caught up with Elijah Wood, Leigh Whannell, and Alison Pill to hear about how they got involved with this movie.
Killing children in movies can be a very taboo subject. Not only were you able to center your movie around it, but you were able to really balance the horror and comedy. What can you tell me about the origins of this idea and how difficult was it to get the right tone for this movie?
Elijah Wood: This started as an internal idea. My producing partner Josh Waller came to myself and my other producing partner, Daniel Noah. He said he had an idea about this food-borne virus, called "Cooties," that turns kids into savages. I thought that was so genius and it ultimately got communicated to Leigh.
Leigh Whannell: They told me this idea and, as soon as I heard the logline, I wanted to be involved. We always knew that it was kind of taboo, but you're always trying to find unique things when making any film. Maybe everyone doesn't approach it that way, but that's the way I do and I felt a movie hadn't been seen before where the kids were the aggressors, and there was this war between the adults and the kids.
On the other hand, we had to calibrate it pretty well to see that it wasn't going too far. We had a rule that there were no guns involved, but we had some pretty full-on scenes.
Can you talk about bringing together the cast for Cooties? You all had great on-screen chemistry and it seemed like you really got along.
Elijah Wood: It was instant. That table read was magical and it was the first time many of us had met.
Alison Pill: We had a table read at Leigh's house. It wasn't like "Let's go to the production office." We got pizza and invited everyone to his house.
Leigh Whannell: It's almost sheer luck that this all worked out the way it did. None of us really knew each other. It wasn't like we had months to audition and chemistry workshops. There was this awkward moment where a bunch people who don't know each other are sitting down the dining room table. No one wants to be the first to person who pounds their fist at the table read first and then one of the kids broke the mold, the tension left the room, and everyone went for it. We were really lucky that everyone was so funny in their own way. You'd be in a scene and you'd just lose it...
Elijah Wood: It was so electric and created this intense enthusiasm for the first day.
Were those fight scenes against the infected children as fun to film as they were to watch?
Elijah Wood: It was really fun. I've never done anything like this. It was like a fantasy come to life. It was the most awesome feeling.
Leigh Whannell: Elijah and I said to each other this is the most fun we've had on a film. Sometimes you realize that your just a well-paid eight year old. You revert to being a kid again.
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We talked for quite a while, including going into detail about some of the best scenes from the movie and the possibility of future "Cooties" films. Because Cooties won't be released until September 18th, I'm holding off on the full interview until we get closer to release to avoid spoiling any of the surprise. With that being said, check back soon for my Stanley Film Festival 2015 interview with Cooties directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion.
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