a5c7b9f00b Three scouts, on the eve of their last camp-out, discover the true meaning of friendship when they attempt to save their town from a zombie outbreak. A reckless janitor accidentally releases a zombie from a laboratory of research. Meanwhile, the teenagers scouts Ben Goudy and Carter Grant 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 and the Scout Leader Rogers. They have a flat tire after hitting a deer on the road and Carter&#39;s sister Kendall Grant, her boyfriend and her friend Chloe 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&#39;s recent acquaintance Denise Russo, 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? The poster for &quot;Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse&quot; is just like the poster of &quot;The Goonies,&quot; an over-celebrated cult classic. Perhaps &quot;Scouts&quot; is an attempt at becoming a new cult classic to replace &quot;Goonies,&quot; but it tries much too hard. A few standout scenes aside, if you&#39;ve seen &quot;Zombieland,&quot; &quot;Shaun of the Dead,&quot; and even &quot;Cooties,&quot; you&#39;ve already seen most of what &quot;Scouts&quot; has to offer– and you&#39;ve seen it done better.<br/><br/>Plot: three teen boy scouts go camping while a zombie plague breaks out in their Californian town. The boy&#39;s names are Ben, Carter, and Augie. Ben&#39;s the level-headed one, Carter&#39;s the horny comic relief, and Augie is Piggy from Lord of the Flies. Along for the ride is Denise, a bartender armed with a shotgun and a super-tight tank top, so expect lot&#39;s of jiggle action while they&#39;re fleeing the undead. (Actually, there&#39;s a lot of naked boobies in this movie– the filmmakers were really aiming for the teenage boy demographic, I guess.) The great irony about Denise is that she&#39;s basically a blonde Barbie doll, and Ben is in love with Carter&#39;s sister, who is… also a blonde Barbie doll. Seriously, neither women have any character beyond blonde with short-shorts/tight tank top. The irony: they&#39;re both indistinguishable, but by the film&#39;s end Ben chooses Carter&#39;s sister over Denise. (Ha… ha?) <br/><br/>I liked David Koechner in this. Usually he plays jerks or bad guys, but here he&#39;s an affable buffoon. I liked his character because he&#39;s passionate about scouting, but the filmmakers chose to weird it up by giving him an arbitrary Dolly Parton fixation. Hey guys, I like Pacific Rim– gonna make fun of me for that? <br/><br/>Koechner does some hiking with a backpack and there&#39;s a scene where the boys make a campfire, but apart from that these scouts don&#39;t really use their scouting skills until the very end of the movie. Until then, they&#39;re just some kids in khaki shirts and fleer. When they do use those &quot;scouting skills,&quot; they construct *insanely* elaborate melee weapons. I know they have badges in archery and everything, but when was the seminar in assembling nail-firing rifles? <br/><br/>&quot;Scouts&quot; doesn&#39;t really capitalize on its scout theme very well. I think it would&#39;ve been a stronger movie if it was set on a campsite and the boys had to contend with zombie scout leaders/zombie bears by digging traps, using maps, actual bows and arrows, etc. Throw in a Native American legend (or Bigfoot or something) and a girl&#39;s camp across the water, and we would&#39;ve had a far superior film: certainly one more deserving of the &quot;Scouts&quot; title. Instead we&#39;re given a tedious glimpse into the wasteful, indulgent, sheltered life that is Californian upper-middle class, replete with a terrible mainstream rap soundtrack. Seriously, what&#39;s up with all these &quot;Top 40&quot; songs? Don&#39;t you think that&#39;s going to fight your attempt at becoming a cult classic, guys?<br/><br/>There are a few good scenes– the zombie cats (obvious puppets = funny) were pretty great for example– but scenes like that do little when the rest of the movie is so predictable. Even the boobies and trampoline scene felt lame, predictable, pedestrian. <br/><br/>&quot;Scouts&quot; is barely discernible from the ever growing pile of zombie-horror and zombie-comedies out there. If you want a modern cult classic in the making, go watch &quot;Turbo Kid&quot; instead.<br/><br/>Seriously, go do it. I&#39;ll wait.<br/><br/>Okay, you did it?<br/><br/>Yeah. You&#39;re welcome. Set in a genre which has grown over the last few years (if not bordering saturation) this film is a mix of horror and comedy with all the elements you&#39;d expect to find in a film aimed at 20-40-year olds - bad language, sexual content, nudity, gross-out gore, action, and tongue in cheek humour. It tells the story of 3 boy scouts who want to grow - two of them have been enticed with the prospect of sexuality and all things cool in a coming of age way, while the other just wants to be the best darn scout he can possibly be. To coincide with a camping trip a zombie virus is let loose in their small town, with the residents slow to respond most people are wiped out and it&#39;s left to the 3 scouts to build bridges amongst themselves and save anyone near and dear to them. Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller and Joey Morgan take the lead roles in this film and they deliver well in this Christopher Landon film. It&#39;s a cross between &quot;Shaun of the Dead&quot; and &quot;McGuyver&quot; (or the &quot;A-Team&quot;) in that, when the film gets going there is no end to their creativity and inventiveness - evidently the skills of being a good scout transfer well to zombie killing. It&#39;s an entertaining film which has some fun moments in it, the plot isn&#39;t that revolutionaryit follows a standard trope; boy fancies girl but daren&#39;t say anything, boy loses girl due to zombie apocalypse, boy realises his feelings due to impending doom from zombies (and a little help from cocktail waitress), boy fights the horde to get girl. Eagle eyed viewers and fan of zombies and horror will be quick to spot some fun Easter eggs along the journey, from the &quot;Haddonfield&quot; sign to the &quot;Jockey&quot; zombie from the &quot;Left 4 Dead 2&quot; game, to the trampoline escape a-la &quot;Zombies ate my neighbours&quot; game. All in all, an enjoyable ride which seems to have suffered from bad marketing - I say that because I&#39;d never heard of the film and only stumbled across it by accident. Pacing is decent and I can&#39;t remember many wasted moments of screen time, and the score/soundtrack wasyoung and freshI&#39;d expect from a film of this kind. Much better than a lot of the run of the mill B-movies being pumped out nowadays and I&#39;d recommend this to friends without a doubt. I&#39;m giving this a solid 7 out of 10. A horror-comedy that takes a weak premise (do high school boys even go scouting anymore?) and barely uses it, anyway.
Trancirama Admin replied
365 weeks ago