SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE (2015)

Directed by Christopher Landon, Starring: Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller, Joey Morgan, Sarah Dumont, David Koechner. Comedy/Horror. US, 2015, 93mins, Cert 15.

Be prepared. Be VERY prepared.

Director Christopher Landon, probably best known for his writing stints on the PARANOMRAL ACTIVITY franchise (he also directed THE MARKED ONES instalment); takes a break from penning blurry CCTV footage to offer up an undemanding smutty zombie comedy romp with gross-out splatstick and boob jokes aplenty.

I’m beginning to feel sorry for zombies. It seems every possible demographic from strippers to cockneys to pro-wrestlers wants a piece of them. Their latest enemies, an unlikely trio of resourceful teenage scouts and a hot cocktail waitress handy with a shotgun, give them no end of messily gruesome grief when they infest their little town.

Character-wise, despite the initial novelty of the premise, we have essentially your standard teen archetypes, albeit ones wearing full scout kit. There’s the decent looking more thoughtful lead, Ben (Tye Sheridan), the horny titty obsessed smut hound, Carter (Logan Miller), and the triangle is completed by Augie (Joey Morgan), the overweight insular kid who you don’t want tagging along to a frat party for fear he’ll cramp your style (once you’ve changed out of your scout uniform that is).

The script offers up current references which feel overly calculated and appear clumsily shoehorned in for the multiplex crowd, e.g. selfie obsession, and Carter’s quip to chubby Augie when he unveils his handmade bomb: “What are you, the Taliban?” I will give it sniggering kudos for naming the local strip club: ‘Lawrence of Alabia’ (even if it is pinched from a porn film title – or so I’m told). In between setting up the next zombie encounter, the script pauses for breath to try and inject some depth into our teen protagonists. These moments feel obligatory rather than integral, but at least Sarah Dumont as the teens wet-dream Denise gets the occasional break from having her arse leered at.

Like a thieving magpie, SCOUTS plunders from a host of (infinitely superior) genre films ranging from John Carpenter’s THE THING, to RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, but it does still manage to drag at least some freshness onto the overly-saturated rotting corpse playing field.

The plentiful zombie splatter carnage is executed with an impressively satisfying exuberance by renowned special makeup effects designer and supervisor, Tony Gardner – and there are a couple of gross-out moments that even the Farrelly brothers would probably stand up and applaud.

In the end, SCOUTS won me over (or rather beat me into juvenile submission) with its gaggle of gross-out gore gags and inventively silly set-pieces. (Although I would have liked to have seen more of the zombie cats). It’s not a genuine cult classic in the making because whilst it strains every sinew of its synthetic fibre to be a current crowd-pleaser, it lacks the real heart required to stick around.                   

***(out of 5*)              

Paul Worts