New in Home Entertainment
December 1, 2015
Cooties
Rated R for horror violence and gore, language including sexual references, and some drug use
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Twisting the horror sub-genre once again is Cooties, a film about grade schoolers who eat tainted chicken and become zombies. The cast, including Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson and Alison Pill as school teachers trying to survive the epidemic, add a surprising amount of credibility and skill to what would normally be a cheesy b-movie. Unfortunately, the cleverness wears off as you get tired of little children meeting their demise in horrible yet funny ways. Ultimately the film is a comedy more than a horror film and the comedy gets too thin long before the third act. C
Fear the Walking Dead: The Complete First Season
Rated TV-MA
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
We are starting out December with a lot of zombies apparently. This spin-off to the uber-popular AMC series The Walking Dead moves us to sunny Los Angeles as the outbreak is just getting started and a new cast of characters are struggling to survive the scourge we all know is coming. While not quite as riveting or violent as the The Walking Dead, this show works. The writing is strong and they got some terrific actors to tell the story. The smartest part of all is that the movie is not about zombies. It’s about people put into an impossible scenario and we around the fishbowl get to watch what they do. I can’t wait to see what comes next. A-
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Rated R for language including abusive behavior and some sexual references
Available on DVD (Blu-ray will be released on January 12)
Based on one of the craziest true stories you’ve ever heard of, this movie follows an experiment where a psychology professor at Stanford (Billy Crudup) places a group of men in a made-up prison, half as prisoners, half as guards, just to see what happens. It’s an amazing and sickening display of the abuse of power, even in a made-up scenario. The movie itself is incredibly uncomfortable to watch and yet you can’t take your eyes off it. I never want to watch it again, but it is definitely worth experiencing one time. A-