Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

            Guilty pleasure films are common amongst the world. Everybody has at least one film that they’ve seen that they think is stupid and illogical, but still enjoy sitting through it from start to finish. Films like “Independence Day,” “Porky’s,” “Commando,” “The Wicker Man,” the “Judge Dredd” movies, and even films from this year like “Pixels” and “San Andreas” are examples of guilty pleasures that I enjoy. However, that doesn’t always mean those types of films succeed at their job. Case and point: “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.” And yes, I know the title sounds like something made from Cards Against Humanity, but the only difference is that this is handled poorly.

            The film tells of three of the Boy Scouts of America: Augie, a dedicated fat kid scout; Ben, an awkward nerdy protagonist scout; and Carter, an obnoxiously unfunny douchebag scout. On the night that Augie is going to receive his Condor Badge, Ben and Carter are invited to a senior party by Carter’s sister and her boyfriend. Unfortunately, things take a wrong turn when the zombies attack. And from there on, it’s one unfunny scenario after another in this 90 minute long waste of time.

            Not only is this one of the worst films I’ve seen this year, this is one of the worst horror comedies I’ve seen in a long time, which is one of the biggest problems I have with it. It’s trying to be a comedy, but not once did I laugh or chuckle at this film’s attempts at humor. It’s just a bunch of dumb sophomoric humor with dick and sex jokes thrown at you, and all of them have such poor delivery and no payoff. There’s a scene where it lingers on a zombie cop’s exposed chest and it cuts back to the douchebag scout staring lustfully at it…this goes on for a minute straight. And in another scene, the nerdy hero scout is hanging from the window by grabbing an old zombie’s dick, which rips off and he throws into another zombie’s mouth. Whoever wrote this film, really needs to work on their comedic thinking process if they think this shit is funny. Also for a film titled “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse,” there isn’t much of a GUIDE to speak of throughout the entire film.

            The characters in this film are annoying and intolerable. When the biggest star you have in the film is David Koechner, your film is likely to be bad. Don’t get me wrong, I like David Koechner, but when the only material he has are running jokes about his toupee, an obsession for Dolly Parton, and how he doesn’t die, it doesn’t work. Seriously David, pick better scripts. Then we have Ben, Carter, and Augie, our heroes of the film. To the credit of their actors: Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller, and Joey Morgan, they do try their best to make this work, but their characters are written so damn poorly that it’s hard to find them likable, or at the very least buy them as friends. Carter, especially, is an unlikable piece of shit. He’s not funny, he’s not endearing, and his actions just make him come off as a bully towards the other characters with no redeeming qualities. As for Ben, he’s just the typical boring loser hero we’ve seen so many damn times. His character is essentially Michael Cera’s character from “Superbad,” which just makes me wish that Cera was in this role, if the film was made back ten years ago, so that way I could have something of an impression left on me. With Ben and Carter sharing the screen more than other characters, they work off of each other so badly, that it makes me wonder, why the hell are these two still alive in a horrible situation like this? Augie, while he's the only tolerable scout of the film, has just about every stock fat joke happen with him. Seriously, name any fat joke that’s used in any clichéd comedy, because they use them a lot in the film. It’s so damn repetitive and predictable, it just makes me wish Joey Morgan was put into another film so he could avoid these jokes. Hell, as I look back on these three, it all feels like one of those bad movie fan fictions with the characters from “Superbad” in a zombie story…wow, this actually makes sense now.

            Halston Sage, who appeared in “Paper Towns” and “Goosebumps” earlier this year, plays Carter’s sister and Ben’s love interest. Guess where that goes? They end up together. Sage is a great young actress, and I feel bad that she has been type-casted as the love interest for the nerdy character three times in a row. She deserves better than shit like this! Same goes for Patrick Schwarzenegger, Arnold’s son, who plays the jerky boyfriend, making this the third time he’s played an asshole jock, with the other two being from “The Benchwarmers” and “Grown Ups 2.” They have nothing interesting going for their characters and could have easily been written out of the film. They served no purpose. Same goes for Cloris Leachman as the old lady next door, who owns cats that get turned into zombies. There’s no purpose to her character being in the film, or even it being Cloris Leachman in the role. What, could they not afford Betty White to be a part of this film? Sarah Dumont as the badass hot chick in the film (I know she has a name, but who the fuck cares?) doesn’t have much to show for in this film. She’s hot and helps the trio out, but doesn’t really have an interesting character, aside from one scene where she helps give Ben relationship advice. However, it makes you wonder why Ben didn’t choose her instead of Halston Sage, since he and the badass hot chick share more screen time together and have actual chemistry...it's bad chemistry, but at least it IS chemistry.

            The zombies are exactly what you’d expect from any other zombie film. The make-up with them is fine, but when they use CGI for their deaths it got bad. My major problem with them is there is no consistency with how they act. There will be times they’ll act like they would as zombies, but then they’ll shift from running to walking or still have enough intelligence left to do stripper moves and sing Brittany Spears. That’s not funny, that’s just a stupid clip that even people who share stupid clips off YouTube would say is too much. In fact, the whole entire film feels like a collage of bad gifs from Tumblr put to a feature film.

            The film was directed and co-written by Christopher Landon, the man behind “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.” After watching this film, I’m proven that this man sucks as a director, found footage or not. But now after knowing he directed “The Marked Ones,” it now makes the connection between this film and “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension” all the more clear. They both were release in limited theaters, “The Ghost Dimension” had a preview for this film TWICE, and they both shared Christopher Landon’s directing and writing.

            Overall, “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” is a major frontrunner for the worst film of the year. The writing is awful, the direction is terrible, the jokes are not funny, and the characters are so poorly written that you’ll be wishing for Eli Roth's characters from any of his films! Skip this crap and just go watch “Shaun of the Dead” or “Zombieland,” those are actually worth your time…but after this film, I’m starting to get sick of zombie films. Way to run this genre into the ground, Hollywood.

Rating: 1/10