The Canadian-made adaptation of the R.L. Stine young adult novel of the same name, Zombie Town, is making its broadcast debut on the fabulous Hollywood Suite as part of its Halloween programming. Providing a nice paycheck for some classic Canadian comedians like Dan Aykroyd, Bruce McCulloch, and Scott Thompson and wrangling in an appearance from Chevy Chase, you’d expect some laughs. But sadly, Zombie Town is bereft of them, making Disney Channel movies look like Emmy winners by comparison.

The town of Carverville is named after its most famous resident, horror film director Len Carver (Dan Aykroyd). After 30 years of self -imposed exile, he announces that he is coming out with a new film. Set to debut at the local cinema, owned by life long friend Richard Landro (Henry Czerny), the film has the town buzzing and excited for its debut. Well, almost the whole town, as cinema employee and high school bully target Mike (Marlon Kazadi) hates horror films and is dreading the night. But after Carver drops off the film print the day prior, Mike can’t help but message Amy (Madi Monroe), his lifelong crush, and let her know. Madi convinces Mike to play the film early for her, but what they don’t know is that the film itself will turn the entire town of Carverville into soul sucking zombies.

Yes, that’s right, soul-sucking zombies. In this universe, the zombies’ eyes light up and put everyone they meet into a trance, without the rational biting or bloodshed. The horror aspect in this film is so underdeveloped that it would have a hard time giving preschoolers nightmares. Of course, this is the point as this film squarely aims itself at a preteen/teen market, but even children might have a hard time getting into this one. It’s poorly written and features some truly awful supporting acting. It also appears that the effects budget is down to the bare minimum as most of the effects carry the look of a teenager working on Final Cut Pro in his basement . I’ve seen YouTube creators make more convincing zombies.

Aykroyd is slumming, and he knows it. He’s using the film to slip in shots of his crystal skull vodka along the way. Chase isn’t even in the film for a total of 5 minutes and is top-billed. McCulloch and Thompson, 2/5th’s of Canada’s greatest comedy troupe The Kids In the Hall, look utterly annoyed that they have to wear zombie makeup and prosthetics during the film. And don’t even get me started on what they do to Henry Czerny. The man is a Canadian acting legend who has faced off against the likes of Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford. To see him reduced to a withering zombie that’s played up as him just being dumb is just disgraceful. I felt bad for him. The two teen leads are fine enough I guess, but man do they lack any chemistry whatsoever. At no time did I feel that this couple needed or should be together.

We had an excellent R.L. Stine Goosebumps adaptation from Disney Plus last year. That adaptation made me think there was hope that this would carry on a string of better adaptations of the author’s work, but sadly Zombie Town is one of, if not the worst of the bunch. It’s a difficult, barely watchable mess that seems to have paid a lot of people to barely do anything. But hey, if the after credits shot of Aykroyd extolling the virtues of the crew after being wrapped is true, then at least the set sounds like it was fun. Too bad none of it translated onto the screen.

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