CREDIT: PARAMOUNT PICTURES (2015)
Desperately trying to be both funny and scary, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse misses its mark by a dead cat.

What happens when you take Superbad and add some boy scouts and zombies? The answer is Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, a movie that follows three teenage boys on a quest to find themselves, redefine themselves and survive the encroaching horde.

To start, the special effects and makeup are well done. While occasionally on the side of B-movie gore levels, the gross parts generally still manage to entertain. The zombies are rather convincing, with the hilarious exception of the zombie-animals, which brings to the movie a taste of the old ’80s campiness.

Speaking of a taste for the old, the observant viewer is likely to find some interesting nods to old zombie action movies. The most obvious is a weapon-building scene straight out of the Evil Dead movie series. With a lot of the humour being clearly directed at a male teenage audience, small touches like this add appeal for older viewers.

The overall plot is fairly standard coming-of-age/zombie movie fare. There’s the standard awkward love story mixed in with the geeky guy finally getting the girl of his dreams. The result is predictable, but still enjoyable.

That said there were definite problems with Scouts Guide. As funny as the movie is at times, the pacing during funny scenes is often off, lasting for far longer than necessary as if to say to the audience, “Do you get our joke? Should we give you more time? Do you get it now?”

This would be bad enough if it weren’t for the fact that so many of the jokes pander to the lowest common denominator. There are a few gross-out jokes that would make even Adam Sandler cringe. Well, maybe not. We all know Sandler knows no bottom when it comes to his hunt for a cheap laugh.

One “comedic” moment of the film, however, is notably problematic. At one point a particularly busty zombie gets caught in a fence and one of the three main characters sexually assaults her. In the movie, this is laughed off as him “seizing the moment” with only the gentlest of reprimands for an action that is not only very illegal, but also incredibly wrong.

This type of laughing off the physical assault of a woman is so sadly typical in movies like this that it almost feels pointless to comment on. It’s especially disappointing in a movie that made a point of having the most badass character be a woman, albeit a woman who is also talked about primarily as a sexual object.

Despite its many flaws, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse does a decent job balancing humour and horror. It’s just disappointing to watch yet another movie decide that getting the audience to laugh is more important than having a soul.