Asking the tough question: which is more important, your life or your social life? Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse limped through theaters this past weekend wounded, bloody and drooling. But it wasn’t lethargic.
At first, I read this title as SCOTUS Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. That’s a different film … intriguing, but a different film. Do you think Antonin Scalia would be pro- or
anti- zombie? What am I saying? Of course pro-, Clarence Thomas IS a zombie, a rubber-stamping “WHAT SCALIA SAID” zombie. Has been since he got there.
Because you can’t have too many zombie comedies – and I’m not being sarcastic here, zombie comedies are a wonderful thing – Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse opened right next door to Freaks of Nature on Halloween weekend. If they could have shown both at the same time, they probably would have.
Scouts had the good sense to note that while the boys themselves come in all shapes and sizes, scouting is a social death sentence. The undead deer the boys clonk before their town goes to Hell has a better chance of being invited to the dance party than either uptight All-American scout Ben (Tye Sheridan) or slacker scout Carter (Logan Miller). Carter’s big plan is to ditch nerd scout Augie (Joey Morgan) during the camp out and earn his Coed Entaglement merit badge. Earning that badge, however, ain’t gonna be easy – 1) Augie’s not as gullible as he looks, 2) Ben is really wishy-wishy, 3) they’re dressed like scouts and 4) in the interim, the town has 
been taken by zombies.
Leave it to teen-age boys – finding their neighborhood eerily vacant and suddenly in need of urban renewal, the one detail that didn’t go amiss was “no bouncer outside the strip club.” The part where the zombie pole dancer goes through with her routine until her head falls off? Odd. Very odd. As sexist indulgent moments go, I was a bigger fan of Carter getting to second base with a trapped exposed zombie before running away. I’m not going to ask your forgiveness for enjoying this moment. In the club, they are saved by adult entertainer Denise (Sarah Dumont), who runs the show until the boys find some balls.
You might have guessed by now, this isn’t exactly a thought piece; this is the kind of film in which a kid feels up a zombie because he can and a human-eating situation is diffused with an improvised karaoke sing-a-long to “…Baby One More Time.” You know what? I gotta work on my Britney Spears badge. And, you know, I gotta work on my Britney Spears badge.
Oops, I said it again.
♪Oh baby, baby
How was I supposed to know?
That something wasn’t right here
Oh baby baby
I shouldn’t have fled on toe
And now you’re something I fear
Show me how you’re so hungry
Yum yum baby
‘Cause I need to know if I’m a snack
Your ravenous is killing me
I kinda mean that literally
When you’re not here, I’m still complete
The lunch bell’s gonna chime
Eat me, baby, one more time♫
Rated R, 93 Minutes
D: Chistopher Landon
W: Emi Mochizuki, Carrie Lee Wilson & Christopher Landon
Genre: Hell on Earth … and scouting!
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Boy Scouts
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Zombies
♪ Parody inspired by “…Baby One More Time”
