The Walking Dead it ain’t. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse has failed miserably at the box office so far, and it’s understandable. It’s a very, very stupid movie. It’s not going to appeal to everyone and it certainly won’t appeal to critics but if you lower your expectations and view it for what it is, there’s some fun to be had.
The plot can be summed up pretty quickly. A viral outbreak causes a zombie apocalypse, of course we don’t know exactly how this happens, it just does. Three scouts: Ben, Carter, and Augie; played by Tye Sheridan (a surprising and disappointing change of direction for him), Logan Miller, and Joey Morgan miss the initial feeding frenzy, and the town evacuation, because they were in the bush, scouting obviously. When they sneak back to town to attend a secret party they’re met with a fight for survival and team up with Sarah Dumont’s badass character Denise, who happens to be very good with a shotgun. They take on the responsibility of rescuing the town, including Carter’s sister and Ben’s love interest Kendall (Halston Sage) who is busy dancing away at the party which is so secret not even the zombies can find it.
Let’s focus on the positives first. The film actually improves from the first act to the second, generally a rare feat for a teen movie like this. There are some running jokes that play out quite well and give the audience a nice pay-off. Some of the gags are even pretty original pieces of writing.
The musical numbers are also okay, and the comedy generally works in these scenes, especially one involving a zombie and a Britney Spears rendition.
Despite the two female actresses shaping as Megan Fox type personas, the film does respect them somewhat. Sarah Dumont as Denise is the smartest and most capable character in the film and Halston Sage as Kendall has a strong moral code. Both of them have modelled and most films would use them as eye candy and leave it at that but the script at least gave them a chance to be more than objects.
That’s probably about it when it comes to praising the film. The actors can only do so much with this material, Tye Sheridan in particular can do a lot better than this. The flaws in the movie are large and many. They rely too much on shock factor to raise a reaction from the audience, be it with gore or nudity. The characters are oh so dumb most of the time, using a weapon to kill one zombie and then leaving it behind and themselves without protection. They frequently back themselves into corners like idiots and just generally don’t act like you might expect normal people to react. There’s a problem with the zombies too, they’re terribly inconsistent. Some of them seem very intelligent, acting more like enraged humans than the walking dead, while some are as zombified as you can get. It’s a clear example of lazy writing that lacks depth, so everything has to be forced forward rather than as a natural progression.
A scene which was really built up in the trailer involved zombified cats and loomed as an anticipatory scene for the audience but unfortunately what we saw in the trailer is all we got, presumably because the budget for doing more was deemed expendable.
The film ends predictably and the time the credits roll around it seems like it’s been running for longer than it has, not a good sign. All in all, if you prepare yourself for mindless fun, you might get some laughs. Otherwise, I would highly urge you to go see a Michael Fassbender film instead.
