THE SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
DIRECTOR: Christopher Landen
CAST: Tye Sheridan, David Koechner, Logan Miller, Joey Morgan, Sarah Dumont
CLASSIFICATION: 16 HNLV
RUNNING TIME: 93 minutes
RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
RIDICULOUS and funny, this Scouts versus zombies movie is a gigglefest of gore.
It really shouldn’t be funny to watch someone’s head being smashed in by a weedeater, but the victim is a zombie meeting its end, so you laugh as the blood splatters all over the place. Actually, you laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all – oodles and oodles of blood being spilled to foreboding music as people run away from lurching zombies.
Tye Sheridan is dependable Ben to Logan Miller’s horny Carter, two of the three Scouts in the movie. They are best friends with dweebie Augie (Morgan) who is about to be awarded the top merit badge in their Scout troop. Ben and Carter ditch Augie in the middle of the night for the secret high school senior’s party and when Augie realises, the friendship is damaged. Badly. But, before the boys can fix it, the zombies take over.
Actually, they featured from the beginning of the movie in a very funny laboratory scene, but it takes a while for the boys to catch up to the action.
This is really a story about how the teenagers realise the bonds of friendship are more important than ephemeral social status updates. In that sense, the storyline is predictable and a backstory to the zombie infection is never explained. There are also huge plot holes you could drive a Hummer through when it comes to what happens to the townspeople, the progression of zombification, the involvement of the army, how some people magically clean up despite being splattered with blood in the previous scene or why Scout Leader Rodgers (Koechner) just won’t quit.
There are mostly crass jokes and lots of splattering innards, with slow zombies and fast zombies and cat zombies with glowing eyes, and while the actors may be taking their job seriously, there is nothing serious about what you see. The humour is of the gross-out juvenile variety with plenty of sight gags, nudity and did I mention the buckets and buckets of blood?
Director Christopher Landen (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) emphasises entertainment over anything else, spoofing zombie movies in a very different way to Ruben Fleischer’s more considered and wicked Zombieland.
In some scenes, our expectations of how people are supposed to respond to zombies – thanks to decades of zombie movies creating an expectation on our part – and vice versa are upended, which produces some groans mixed with the laughs. Best line has got to be: “did they just drop some acid or are they really singing Britney Spears with a zombie?” courtesy of cocktail waitress at a stripper club, Denise (Dumont).
She saves Ben and Carter and proceeds to teach them a few tricks before they put their scout training to good use.
There is nothing new here, but as long as you are not expecting originality, you will laugh more than you will flinch from being scared.
The running and the screaming are par for the course and to be expected, but if you watch this with just the right crowd the horror comedy will be a hoot. What you need is that infectious giggler, the person who you laugh at as much as you laugh with them.
If you want to watch Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you will like this.