Always Bring Protection

 Directed by Christopher Landon (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) and starring Tye Sheridan (Mud, The Tree of Life), Logan Miller (I'm in the Band), Joey Morgan and Sarah Dumont (Don Jon). "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". Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse may be a guide for survival, but does it know the rules for how to make a good film?

Absolutely not. This is a trainwreck of a film. I don't really see much appeal for how this can be entertaining unless you are an extremely crude and immature person. The biggest problem with Scouts Guide is that it doesn't know what it wants to be - it tries to be funny but it also tries to have some jump scares which do actually work at points. However, the recent comedy/horror The Visit was very well laid out and knew itself what genre and area it belonged in. However, I think Scouts Guide thinks it is a comedy but to be honest, it is more of a horror - not only for the numerous jump scares but for how much of a travesty of a movie it is. Awful. 

I'll give credit to the filmmakers - they tried to make an original Zombie film/plot and in some ways they did - I haven't seen scouts have to handle the Zombie apocalypse. However, it wasn't really an apocalypse was it? There was no scale in terms of size - we are just led to believe that the apocalypse occurred in just this one town. It would have been good to see maybe a news report of the zombies taking over the whole world and then we would have been able to call it an apocalypse. Another good thing about the film is that it was short - luckily. 

I thought the Zombies themselves were ridiculous - both to look at and the way they acted. You could tell this film only had a minimal budget as the Zombies just looked stupid and not even Zombie-like - more of a crazy injured person. I always thought Zombies were quite slow movers? Not in this film - they can run at the speed of the other characters which is a little bit confusing. I just couldn't really believe the characters were in danger because it was all just so unrealistic. World War Z handled this a lot better. 

I think the biggest factor to blame about the films many flaws is the director - he is an unknown - his biggest hit is last years critically hated Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones. Landon probably needs just a bit more experience in order to turn messy films into near perfect films. I think Landon  and the writers just thought to themselves - what creates a successful movie these days? Zombies (World War Z), Teenagers, Nudity (Basically every comedy) and jump scares (all of Blumhouses films). And what do we get with all these combined? A hot mess. I have to say, the characters in this film were really poorly created - only one had a trait of being a bit crude but then all of a sudden, all 3 became a little bit 'nudity' obsessed. I think the overuse of nudity was unneeded in this film - it wasn't funny and certainly didn't add anything to the plot. It also kind of puts in place the male gaze theory which is a step back for Hollywood. 

The acting in the film wasn't awful but it was of a standard where you could tell that the talent involved were quite inexperienced. I'm not going to do little comments on each actor as they are all basically of the same 'so-so' standard. Except for Joey Morgan who was awful - he was definitely just involved because of his look - the film is extremely stereotypical and basically reinforces every stereotype people are trying to break. 

Let me leave you with something I liked about the film - whenever there was a song edited in, the film got a lot better. The artists consisted of Iggy Azalea, Dolly Parton and Britney Spears - all of these scenes were actually quite enjoyable and are the main reason for why this film's rating will be a little higher than you are thinking right now. 

Poorly directed, rude, offensive, crude, messy and averagely acted, this film was obviously aiming for the toilet and missed. I don't really have much more to say on this film other than - it's not worth your money or your time. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse should be burnt in a camp fire. Definitely one of the worst films of the year. 

1.5 STARS

D

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