Classic Review: Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015)

Keith NoakesNovember 20, 2016n/a7 min

Since I’ve started this site, I’ve written a lot of reviews. In case you missed some of my earlier ones, I would like to share an older review of “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” which originally appeared here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLa1QCVqWzs

What could possibly go wrong when three buddies, Ben, Carter, and Augie (Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller, and Joey Morgan), decide to join the boy scouts? When bloodthirsty, undead creatures invade their once-peaceful town, it’s up to kindhearted Ben, quick-witted Carter and class clown Augie to save the day. With the help of the beautiful, tough, cocktail waitress Denise (Sarah Dumont), the boys must utilize all of their scouting skills to save their city and mankind while also earning their zombie-killing badges.

I’ve personally been looking forward to this one for a long time ever since seeing so many trailers before most of the films I have seen this year. I’ll just say that even though the film is named Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, this film is not really a guide to anything but that’s fine. It was still entertaining nonetheless. If I had to explain this film to someone, I would say that it is a combination of Zombieland and Superbad, two films that I enjoyed. It chooses to approach the zombie crisis in a more comedic fashion like in Zombieland and has a sense of camaraderie between the three main characters like in Superbad. These are not quite at the level of the films I mentioned but they come very close. I enjoyed the film’s comedic approach to the zombie film as it was a welcome change from what I’ve normally seen (Zombieland is the only other film I can think of whose done this). There are obviously zombies here but most of the film’s comedy comes from interactions between the three main characters. By that it deals with the fact that they are three young guys and all the stuff that comes with that and they also have fun with their reactions to what was happening and how they use their personalities to deal with it. I thought it worked most of time as I found myself laughing during many moments. It also worked thanks to the chemistry each of the three main actors had with one another. The film relied heavily on the relationship between the three characters as they set out on this adventure. This pretty much served as the stuff in between the zombie stuff and it did not disappoint thanks to the acting by each of them. The rest of the story is pretty silly from the way in which the zombie crisis began to the decisions made by the characters to the zombies themselves who I thought had character and were surprisingly high-functioning. That’s not the point however as the film is about the three scout friends. I thought the film definitely earned it’s 18A/R rating as there is swearing, graphic violence, and nudity. In my opinion, it did not earn the rating until, without giving anything away, was a scene near the end which definitely was my favorite of the whole film. It and the rest of the film definitely did not hold anything back. It was crude, raunchy, and gory but I just wished it had gone further with it. To me the trailers made it look like it would have have had more of that than it actually did. Overall, this was still a fun, entertaining film that is sure to become a cult classic.

Score: 7.5/10

If you liked this, please read my other reviews here and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, follow me on Instagram, and also like me on Facebook.

WordPress.com