Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse  is a forthcoming comedy about a zombie apocalypse in the vein of zombie action/comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. Co-written and directed by Disturbia screenwriter and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones helmsman Christopher Landon, Scouts Guide centers around the juvenile antics of a troupe of boy scouts tasked with surviving an onslaught of the undead (in a purely satirical fashion).

Landon's low-budget horror comedy - once upon a time known as Scouts vs. Zombies - will be released by Paramount Pictures on VOD just seventeen days after it sees an initial theatrical release, in an undisguised effort to make as much bank on what was a smaller production from the major motion picture studio. But despite its small production size, the studio is making an effort to promote the film months ahead of its theatrical bow.

In a new red band trailer for Landon's post-modern, George A. Romero-legacy picture, the film's star Tye Sheridan (young Cyclops in the forthcoming X-Men: Apocalypse) leads his fellow, presumed nature enthusiasts on what was meant to be a bacchanalian send-off upon the eve of their last camp-out. Upon entering a local strip joint and meeting a dancer who wants more than a few singles (and some leering gestures to satiate her own carnal desires), however, Sheridan and company find themselves in for a lot more than they bargained for. The trailer then proceeds largely how you'd expect from such a genre picture - with enough explicit gore and sexual innuendo to earn its R-rating.

No doubt Paramount has an idea of the limited appeal that Scouts Guide will have, and as such their planned release strategy has been conceived and taken into account according to the film's relative artistic merits. Releasing the film on VOD services shortly after its October 2015 release should hopefully curry favor with those otherwise unwilling to see the film in the theater for its release over the course of the Halloween holiday but might give it a try through streaming services from the comfort of their own home a few weeks later.

From the footage released so far, Scout's Guide looks like a distracting-enough piece of cinematic debris that might just stick to an audience of a certain age (perhaps those of its protagonists). No matter how good (or not good) Landon's film proves to be, it certainly qualifies as an alternative horror option to Paramount's other scary movie release for the Halloween 2015 season, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse will open in U.S. theaters on October 30th, 2015, before it becomes available on VOD shortly thereafter.

Source: Machinima