Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse review
Zombies are freaking everywhere man, with the horror subgenre becoming almost ridiculously ubiquitous over the last number of years. Which is fine, because they’re fun, easy to make and provide lots of opportunities for carnage.
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is most definitely a zombie film but it manage to break away from the genre enough to give itself some unique identity.
Chiefly it does that by combining a teen comedy with shambling hordes of undead. That means plenty of puerile R-rated jokes which are aimed at people who might be too young to see the film in cinemas.
It’s not a bad mix, with a decent number of laughs throughout and a story which mixes in the heroes quest for a girlfriend with his aim of also not dying. One of the better elements of the film is an undercurrent of drama helped by some decent dialogue and surprisingly well-developed characters. I actually felt somewhat invested in the lives of these kids, which is pretty unusual for the genre.
Then there’s the other side of the film which is all about the zombies. With a $15 million budget, Scouts Guide has plenty of dough to throw at its effects and they look pretty great. The zombie designs aren’t particularly interesting but the kills are genuinely nasty, frequent and pretty inventive.
The CG additions aren’t always flawless but that doesn’t really matter when you’re watching zombie heads explode in slow motion.
Director Christopher B Landon conjures up some fun set pieces, including some really feral kitties, and ramps up well to the finale which is a bit of a let down. It’s a bit of an over edited mess which doesn’t really live up the potential of the heroic moment it should be.
Scouts Guide is pretty entertaining for the most part, though the slight story means it all feels a bit underwhelming in the final analysis. There is some good zombie killing to be found and the main cast does a god job with the mix of comedy and carnage.
