“Do you stay awake nights worrying about zombies?”R.L. Stineposed this question about his standalone novelZombie Town. The author is arguably best known by most readers for his incomparableGoosebumpsseries, in which some stories have already beenadapted for film and television. Now,Zombie Townis getting the big-screen treatment, too, with both Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase starring in the upcoming film. Check out theZombie Towntrailer below:
In the footage, Len Carver’s (Aykroyd) first zombie film in 30 years will premiere in Carverville (“Home of the greatest horror filmmaker”) on Halloween night. And when the movie itself starts turning Carverville’s citizens into the living dead, Carver insists that only a man named Mezmerian (Chase) can help end the carnage. But when Mezmerian insists the answer to fixing things lies in destroying the film prints, the zombies at the theater get very upset when the movie screening abruptly ends.
Mission: Impossiblealum Henry Czerny also stars in the horror flick alongsideSaturday Night Live(SNL) alums Aykroyd and Chase.Zombie Townis directed by Peter Lepeniotis, while Michael Samonek and Michael Schwartz are credited as co-writing the screenplay with Lepeniotis. Unfortunately, for R.L. Stine fans, the trailer reveals that the movie owes very little to the source material.
Related:Why R.L. Stine’s Adult Horror Books Should be Adapted Into Film or TV
The Zombie Town Trailer is Scary for All the Wrong Reasons
R.L. Stine’s young adult horror taleZombie Townis headed for the big screen, but the trailer represents a movie that seems to only take the most basic elements of the book into consideration. The premise ofZombie Townbeing shown in a movie theater and the undead “running” amok are present and accounted for, but much of the story has been altered significantly in the teaser footage.
The trailer seems to focus more on the character of horror filmmaker Len Carver (Aykroyd) rather than Mike (Marlon Kazadi) and Amy (Madi Monroe) — she’s actually named Karen in the book. The focus on Carver is an obvious attempt to sellZombie Townas a new team-up vehicle for Aykroyd and Chase who’ve shared the big-screen together before in comedies such asSpies Like Us, Caddyshack IIandNothing But Trouble. The problem is that the bookZombie Townisn’t about them. Rather it focuses on 12-year-old Mike and his friend Karen.
Mike and Karen spend every Saturday together, and they’d originally planned to go skateboarding. But when the threat of thundershowers puts the kibosh on any outdoor activities, Karen — she loves scary movies — talks Mike — he hates scary movies — into going to the theater to seeZombie Town. The entire story revolves around these two characters who start out just watching the film. That is until the living dead leaves the screen behind and overruns the theater — and now the friends are scrambling to stay alive.
After they manage to escape the theater, Mike takes Karen back to his house where they discover his whole family has been zombified! No spoilers here, but in the very last chapter a horror filmmaker known as Martin McNair — he’s not named Len Carver — makes a brief appearance, which is followed by the second of the book’s two twist endings. There isn’t even a character named or representative of the trailer’s sage, Mezmerian (Chase), in the story at all.
If ever there was an author whose material could benefit from streaming,The Haunting Hourtelevision series not withstanding, it’s R.L. Stine. That way his wonderful young adult horror, and even his more adult-oriented material could be faithfully adapted in a format that better serves his short stories, too.
