Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

Zombie gimmick has become so redundant in recent time, even the mockery of it created another actual subgenre as it has spawned many clones this year alone. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is as juvenile as it sounds, some of the jokes are either downright bizarre or blatantly aggressive. Still, its simple theme and full commitment to awkward crudity are surprisingly effective on creating a few laughs.

Story is incredibly straightforward, it's basically written in the title. Three scouts find themselves in a zombie outbreak, and with the help of a hot chick they form some silly version of A-Team. Characters are not original. Maybe the main lead is pretty likable, but most of the characters are absolutely simple minded and comical or stereotypically comical. Its use of friendship tone is decent, it may be the only working drama angle here.

The entire movie is satire made out of cliché and some freaky stuffs way outside the box. Don't bother with logic or continuity, since they are admittedly flawed, at some points the plot seems shaky at best. As for the jokes, they are simply brash. This is definitely a visual clobbering as well as a jab at genre's silliness. Those wanting maturity or deep psychological study will find themselves lost.

It's similar to humor from gag website or forum comment threads, coupled with mandatory bloody gore and obtuse use of breasts and buttocks for viewer's pleasure. Normally this kind of overwhelming sensory overload can be appalling, yet the movie is unapologetically bizarre that the comedy works more than it falters.

This is a juvenile showing in purest form, using primitive jokes, nudity and even random singing. It should not be this entertaining, yet surprisingly it is.

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse lacks any sort of novelty and it doesn't quite flourish its ultimate conceit. But isn't this the most enjoyable zombie movie I've seen in a while? There hasn't been much zombie movie in a while that's as brutal and deliciously violent as this one. And zombie cats! Why not? Maybe it's just my hangover from last Halloween. Either way, it's somewhat like a relic from the 80's, specifically from its tropes to its aesthetics (albeit some lens flares and digital blood.) It won't change your life or anything, but if you seek for some dumb adventurous schlock (with some teen comedy vulgarity,) then this movie knows how to deliver that kind of pleasure.

Simply put, this is a future cult film for a new generation. The zombie sub-genre is one that is so incredibly saturated that it can be hard to find a decent new film as we have to wade through tons of sewage to find anything with some value. Thankfully, after a fair bit of digging, we have one with Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. It's a film that will appeal to the new generations of horror fans who were born into this nutty zombie infested pop culture, and it should also resonate with the well travelled horror fans who grew up on a diet of Evil Dead and Re-Animator. It's not going to be a mainstream success, and it's not going to appeal to everybody but Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is a blast of fun from start to finish.

It's clear from the opening scene of the film that aims to be a bucket of bloody fun. As a foolish janitor messes around with some laboratory equipment and comes across a strange looking comatose patient, he accidentally causes the them to flat-line and awkwardly tries provide CPR. His efforts are clearly in vain as he pushes his hands through the patients chest and wakes up the living dead, thus causing the zombie outbreak.

The comedy in the film ranges from hilarious mutilation of corpses, wacky animal zombies to plain stupidity, but it is none the less entertaining every step of the way. Highlights include a scene involving a trampoline, which had my body cringing in disgust and almost laughing hysterically at the same time, and a surreal rendition of a classic Britney Spears song. The climax owes a lot to the gaming franchise Dead Rising as the boys use the scout skills to craft hand- built weapons from a hardware store for maximum zombie killing impact.

Despite the zombies being a primary part of the proceedings, it would have been a shell of a film had it not had the central friendship between the characters of Ben, Carter, and Augie. We can all relate to a group of friends on an adventure, and their dynamic has shades of 80s classics like The Goonies and Stand By Me. It isn't drawing on anything new but it doesn't pretend to either as it feels like a hokey sentimental tribute to cult favourites such as The Monster Squad. The 80s are very much beating in the lively heart of this horror.

I'm a horror fan through and through, and the genre needs feel good films like this, equal parts gore and laughs with a splat of gratuitous nudity for good measure. At the end of the day isn't that what fun horrors are all about?

A reckless janitor accidentally releases a zombie from a laboratory of research. Meanwhile, the teenagers scouts Ben Goudy (Tye Sheridan) and Carter Grant (Logan Miller) decide to camp for the last time since they are too old to be scouts. The problem is that they do not want to harm the feelings of their friend Augie Foster (Joey Morgan) and the Scout Leader Rogers (David Koechner). They have a flat tire after hitting a deer on the road and Carter's sister Kendall Grant (Halston Sage), her boyfriend and her friend Chloe (Niki Koss) stop their Jeep to see whether they need a ride. They invite Ben and Carter to go to a party in the night. The two scouts leave the camping during the night to go to the party. When they drive through the town, they do not see a living soul and they decide to visit a night-club since the bouncer is not at the door. They discover that people have turned into zombies and they team-up with Ben's recent acquaintance Denise Russo (Sarah Dumont), who is bartender in the nightclub, and Augie that was left alone at the camp and came to the town. Soon they discover that the non-infected inhabitants have been evacuated and the town will be bombed by the government. They decide to rescue Kendall but they find that the address her boyfriend gave to them is wrong. What can they do to save Kendall?

"Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" is a silly and funny combination of comedy and horror that entertains and make laugh. There are scenes of the annoying Carter that should have been deleted during the edition, but the film in general works. The scene with Ben hanging on the window is hilarious preparing to jump on the trampoline. If the viewer is not an intellectual, he or she will certainly laugh a lot with the stupidities and adventures of this scout group. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Como Sobreviver a Um Ataque Zumbi" ("How to Survive to a Zombie Attack")

Note: On 17 March 2017, I saw this film again.

Horror films in recent years tend to be in the found footage vein, and Zombie films have been in decline since filmmakers could knock them out on low budgets with large amounts of CGI hordes of the undead for the straight to disc market.

Scouts Guide is a modestly budgeted comedy horror with lashings of gore with plenty of raucous laugh aloud.

The film does open up with a truly cringe worthy two minutes of inept nonsense with a janitor doing his job, but quickly changes its pace with the introduction of D.O.D. Christopher Landon (son of Highway to Heaven actor/director Michael London) has the guts to run with the laughs and some decent splatter for the next 90s minutes.

The cast of unknowns are capable and do have the charm and skill to carry the film over its 90 minutes running time. The film does not lag or waste any time introducing parental relationships and defining the social structure of high school culture it exists within its own universe of undead, scouts, strippers, boobs and pussies of all sorts. It's well edited, the script is tight,the photography is bright and clean and is definitely worth a viewing.

I just hope the producers don't plan a long series of low budget pointless sequels and just let the film find its own appreciative audience over the coming years.