R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town

Directed by Peter Lepeniotis, R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town follows teenagers Mike (Marlon Kazadi) and Amy (Madi Monroe) as they’re forced to spring into action after a cursed movie transforms their fellow townspeople into zombies. It’s a reasonable-enough premise that’s employed to increasingly (and exhaustingly) underwhelming effect by Lepeniotis, which is a shame, ultimately, given that the movie does boast an innocuously watchable opening stretch that’s heightened by the personable efforts of its actors – with Kazadi and Monroe’s agreeable efforts matched by Dan Aykroyd’s brief but welcome turn as the filmmaker behind said cursed movie. It’s clear, then, that R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town‘s slow-but-steady downfall is due mostly to Rudolf Blahacek’s often distractingly low-rent visuals and a dumbed-down narrative littered with ineffective, juvenile elements, and there’s little doubt, consequently, that the movie wears out its welcome long before it arrives at its rather endless climactic stretch – with the final result a tiresome adaptation that might hold some appeal for very young viewers but few others.

*1/2 out of ****