EXCLUSIVE : WAMG Talks To CHRISTOPHER LANDON – SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

In SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, three scouts and lifelong friends join forces with one badass cocktail waitress to become the world’s most unlikely team of heroes. Recently, I sat down with director Christopher Landon to talk about the film. I have to add that he is an incredibly wonderful interview! I had a blast talking with him, as you will see below!

When their peaceful town is ravaged by a zombie invasion, three scouts will fight for the badge of a lifetime and put their scouting skills to the test to save mankind from the undead.

The first question I have to ask is how this movie come about?

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : How did this wack-a-doodle thing get made? [Laughs]

Yeah! It’s a lot of fun! 

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : So, I just finished PARANORMAL ACTIVITY : THE MARKED ONES, which had a lot of comedy in the beginning of it. So, Paramount called me up and said ‘We have this script called SCOUTS vs. ZOMBIES, which was the original title, and I instantly thought ‘either this is going to be awesome, or really stupid,’ and it was both… and I was really happy about that. [Laughs] I read it, and I was like ‘this is a surprisingly sweet movie.’ It was written, at the time, as PG-PG13, and I was like ‘that’s a hat trick.’ I don’t know how you can make a zombie movie for kids. So, I went back to them and I said ‘You know what? I think this is cool. I think this could be really funny. I think it should be Rated R, and I think it should be gory, and I think it should be balls out crazy! I was surprised that they were like ‘OK! Go for it!’ When they said ‘Go for it!’ they really meant it. so in my dream bag of what I would want to see in this kind of movie… I got to pull all of that stuff out… and they were really supportive of that. It just, kind of, evolved. I think I wrote a couple of – I think I wrote two drafts – and then the next thing I knew we were off and making it. It was surprising too. I think that size of the movie is hard to get made right now. You’re either dealing with very small, Jason Blum style 5 million dollar movies, or your GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. There’s very little in between now, and so the fact that the studio was willing to make this movie was impressive. The fact that they were willing to make a movie with no real major stars was impressive, but also that they really supported me in my vision to make a movie that felt like THE GOONIES, and felt like GREMLINS… that was a throwback. I wanted to make an 80’s style movie. It was pretty cool.

It’s great that you mention GREMLINS and THE GOONIES because it does have that 80’s kind of feel. You have the friendship, but you also have the raunchy elements… you have the boobs! 

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : The boobs are there! [Laughs] By the way, it’s funny because my friends all make fun of me because I’m gay, and they’re like ‘Why does the gay guy always have boobs in his movies?’ [Laughs] I’m like ‘I don’t know! They just keep popping up!’ It’s horror!

It’s horror! There should be boobs! [Laughs] It’s cool that you threw that stuff in, because a lot of horror today sort of misses the mark on the themes and patterns of 80’s films. What other influences did you have going into this? 

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : My big influences, of course, was THE GOONIES, MONSTER SQUAD was there, but then there were echoes of SUPERBAD. That was something that I really loves, and felt like kind of had a place in this movie. Even, in a weird way, and this is the weirdest reference, but STAND BY ME. There was a tinge of that, and you’ll see that in the campfire scene. I really wanted to sell the idea of this friendship, and of these three guys, and the experience that they’re going through. I think it’s a very relatable thing… to be in high school, and to find yourself at a crossroads in your friendships, where you’re outgrowing a friendship, or you’re at least in the process of reevaluating a friendship because you want to trade up to things that don’t really matter, which is something that I talked about in the movie. So, I really wanted to capture it all in a very relatable story, but then still deliver the ridiculous headpieces, and the scares, and the fun, and all that kind of stuff.

When it comes to the comedy in this film, and how dirty it goes how did you find the balance between it and the horror, and was there anything that went too far that you couldn’t put into the movie? 

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : Ok, oh man. I’m gonna get in trouble. Let’s see what we can print here. So, um… I … First of all, I always tend to follow the ‘South Park’ rule of comedy, which is that I don’t think that anything is sacred. I think that life is meant to be laughed at as much as possible. I have a gallows humor that I grew up with, so I don’t find anything particularly taboo. I never felt like I was personally crossing a line. I know that in terms of personal taste, for some, I have. There are moments in the movie… there’s one moment in the movie that tends to offend some people. I’m not going to say what it is, but that’s the one that kind of makes me… I find it kind of interesting because people are offended at this one particular scene, but then they’re not offended by other stuff, and I’m always like ‘That’s so weird to draw a line in the weirdest places.’ But, I wrote one scene that ended up not making it. I had to come up with a pretty quick replacement for it because the studio got cold feet. I will tell you what it is if you want to hear it. I’ll get in trouble for what it is, but I don’t care. [Laughs]

Of course I wanna hear it! [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : So, there’s a scene in the movie where out scouts encounter a homeless zombie, and they have a sing-a-long with the zombie. You saw the movie?

Yes. I saw it last night.

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : Ok. So, they do a sing-a long. The original version of that scene was, and this is why I was gonna go to hell… They’re walking down the street and they see a school bus off to the side of the road, and it turns out that it’s a short school bus… and an intellectually and developmentally disabled child comes off the bus, and they can’t figure out if he is a zombie, or it’s part of his disability. So, they are debating back and forth on if they should shoot him or not, and he keeps getting closer, and closer. It was hysterical! [Laughs] It was hysterical, but horribly mean and offensive. So, the studio…

That was NOT the direction that I thought you were going! [Laughs] #00:08:24.9#

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : So, they were like ‘We’ve been really cool about everything, This one is not ok with us!’, which was tough, because I knew it was going to be the funniest scene in the movie. It’s so wrong that it’s right. I know most of my audience would have been you… and they would have died laughing, but I would have gotten hate mail! It wasn’t even one of those ‘I can fight for it’ moments, it was the head of the studio calling me, saying ‘We won’t let you make the movie if you keep this scene.’

Oh, yeah! That was the line in the sand! [Laughs] 

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : But it was really funny! [Laughs] It was a really good scene!

So, I’m guessing this won’t be on the bonus features either?

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : No. This will not be on the bonus features! I literally was trying to find a way to shoot both somehow without them knowing… like, I was gonna swap the cards out, and find the actor, and do the whole thing, but there was no time in the schedule, and it was literally one of those that if I got caught, I could get fired deals. So I was like ‘Fine. I won’t do it…’ It’s a really tough scene to watch for me, because while I’m so proud of that moment, and I think it plays really well, and it’s definitely quirky and funny, It always reminds me of the one that got away!

Wow! Where do we go from here in the interview? [Laughs] Cloris Leachman! Super excited about that! How did you convince her to do this? [Laughs] 

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : She’s amazing! YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN was one of my all time favorite movies, so I’ve been a fan of hers ever since then. It was really just a call. It was a ‘Will you do this?’ and she said yes! I heard ‘Oh, she’s pretty out there! She’s really crazy, and fun to work with!’ but there is nothing that prepares you for this woman. She shows up. She’s a force of nature. Her first day on set, I was waiting by her trailer, because I wanted to be there when she arrived – she’s a legend, so you have to show your respect. So, I’m standing there with Logan, and she pulls up, and she’s already in character, and she’s clawing at the window like a zombie [laughs] looking at me. She gets out of the car, and the first thing she says to Logan is ‘I’m gonna eat your ass!’ [Laughs] I was like ‘You’re gonna be so much fun to work with!’ and she was! She was crazy, and she would tell the funniest stories! Every night, when we would wrap her, I would walk her to her car. We would do an arm in arm, and I would take her though set… and as I walked her through set she would literally go to every single crew member [whispers] ‘Goodnight’ [as she was flipping them off]… [Laughs] She’d flip everyone off! We had one night where we had a crowd of looky-lou people watching in the neighborhood… kids, and everyone… and when she came out, she flew two birds at them [laughs] and I was like ‘You’re a nutcase! I love you!’

That sounds amazing! [Laughs] 

CHRISTOPHER LANDON : It was pretty fun. We were always laughing, and it was tough sometimes because there were times when we really needed to get the shit moving faster. It was hard because we had really funny people on set that made you laugh all the time.

SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE hits theaters tomorrow

Official Website: http://www.scoutsandzombiesmovie.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScoutsVsZombiesMovie

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScoutsVsZombies

#ScoutsVsZombies