Dismissed by many on release in 2015, Christopher Landon’s gleefully crude scouts-versus-zombies comedy has aged into exactly what we predicted: a proper cult favourite.
When Flavourmag first reviewed Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse ahead of its UK release in November 2015, we called it rude, crude and hilarious, and predicted it was ‘bound to be a bit of a cult classic’. Nearly a decade of streaming later, that call has aged rather well. The film found the audience in living rooms that it never quite found in cinemas, and its director went on to become one of horror-comedy’s most bankable names.
The set-up
Three lifelong friends, Ben (Tye Sheridan), Carter (Logan Miller) and Augie (Joey Morgan), are drifting apart on the eve of their final scout camp-out when their small town is overrun by a zombie outbreak. Teaming up with cocktail waitress Denise (Sarah Dumont), armed with badge-earned survival skills and improvised weaponry, the scouts set out to rescue Carter’s sister before the military nukes the town off the map. It is exactly as subtle as it sounds.
Why it works
The gags are relentlessly juvenile, this is a film with zero interest in restraint, but the script’s secret weapon is sincerity. Underneath the gross-out set pieces sits a genuinely sweet story about three boys realising their friendship is worth keeping as adulthood looms. Sheridan, fresh from serious indie fare, plays it admirably straight; Morgan steals scene after scene as the scout who never wanted to quit.
The zombies deserve their own credit. These are not the shuffling classics, they sprint, and the film wrings real jolts out of that speed before undercutting them with another terrible, wonderful joke. It’s the Landon formula in embryo: horror mechanics played straight, comedy detonated on top. He’d go on to perfect it with Happy Death Day and Freaky, and you can see the blueprint forming here.
The verdict, then and now
Everything about this film says you should hate it; the fact that you don’t is its whole magic trick. Our original verdict stands: nothing about the story is new, you can guess the ending from the poster, and none of that matters, it’s gruesomely funny, oddly warm-hearted and paced like a sugar rush. If you missed it in 2015, it’s tailor-made for a Friday night with pizza and low expectations, and it will beat those expectations comfortably.
