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'Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse'
Opens Thursday, Oct. 29, at theaters everywhere; rated R for zombie violence and gore, sexual material, graphic nudity, and language throughout; 92 minutes.
Crude humor and gore rule in "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" a horror comedy feels as if it was made by drooling boys too young to see it without their parents.
Scouts Ben (Tye Sheridan), Carter (Logan Miller) and Augie (Joey Morgan) go on a camp-out, even though Carter persuades Ben to ditch Augie, the one who doesn't think being a scout is lame, to go to the senior class' secret party. When they get into town, though, they discover it deserted — except for the mass of zombified neighbors and the shotgun-slinging cocktail waitress Denise (Sarah Dumont), with whom they join forces to escape town and save the senior kids, including Ben's crush Kendall (Halston Sage).
Director Christopher Landon ("Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones"), reworking a script by Carrie Evans and Emi Mochizuki ("College Road Trip"), gets mileage out of a slew of puerile gags involving zombies exposing or losing various body parts — even enlisting Cloris Leachman, in her creepiest role since "Young Frankenstein." The jokes and the ridiculous gore generate some laughs, but the moments of heartwarming scout bonding stop the movie dead.
'Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse'
Opens Thursday, Oct. 29, at theaters everywhere; rated R for zombie violence and gore, sexual material, graphic nudity, and language throughout; 92 minutes.