Zombies 3 is out on Disney+, and the latest installment in the beloved musical movie series has added aliens to the mix. If the town of Seabrook didn’t already have its hands full with zombies, werewolves, and college acceptances – now an intergalactic group of teens wish to participate in the annual cheer-off. As everyone gears up for a competition like they’ve never experienced before, cheerleader Addison (Meg Donnelly) realizes the time she’s spent searching for her place on Earth may mean she has more in common with the visitors than she expected.
The trio of aliens introduced in Zombies 3 are telepathically connected: the athletic A-lan (Matt Cornett, HSM: The Musical: The Series), defacto leader A-li (Kyra Tantao), and enthusiastic A-spen (Terry Hu). While they are in search of a new home, the people of Seabrook start to make the town seem like a palatable option. Zombies 3 also stars Milo Manheim as Zed, Chandler Kinney as Willa, Ariel Martin as Wynter, Pearce Joza as Wyatt, Trevor Tordjman as Bucky, Kylee Russell as Eliza, Carla Jeffery as Bree, James Godfrey as Bonzo and Kingston Foster as Zoey.
Screen Rant spoke to Cornett, Hu and Tantao about the aliens’ secret mission to Seabrooke and what made them most competitive on the set of Zombies 3.
Screen Rant: Welcome, friendly neighborhood aliens. What can you tell us about your people’s mission?
Matt Cornett: First of all, I have to say love myself some Screen Rant. I have watched more Screen Rant that I can even count.
It’s really exciting; aliens are here to search Seabrook for their map to their Utopia, because they had to leave their world due to unfortunate circumstances. They had a scout that did come, and was trying to scout different planets, and then the scout crashed here. Now they’re just trying to figure out what the scout had found out, so now we’re here trying to find this map.
They go through a lot of crazy things, and they kind of create a lot of…
Kyra Tantao: Havoc?
Terry Hu: But also, memories and connections.
Speaking of connections, Terry, I have to say that I was obsessed with Aspen getting in touch with their human emotions – and the people that they get in touch with. What can you tell us about that?
Terry Hu: What I can tell you is that I think Aspen has quite a fun, formative journey along this way. I’m excited to see how everyone responds to Aspen’s own experience. Aspen’s super excitable, so I think it really fits well that they have this storyline involving love and connections.
Kyra, everyone obviously is a little musical, but you have a very different musical background. Can you talk about transferring from the punk scene to Disney musical?
Kyra Tantao: Yeah, I got this job, and I was like, “Whoa, you guys sure?” I come from this rock, punk background. But even before that, I was a little musical theater kid, so I was taking it back to my roots with this. And it was really cool.
Honestly, the music in this movie is not punk rock, but it goes hard. That was really exciting, to be a part of something with a soundtrack that sounds like this one.
All of you get a little carried away by the spirit of competition in this film. Can you each say one thing that you’ve been most competitive about in your lives?
Matt Cornett: I’m a sports lover, and any kind of sport that I ever play, I’m so competitive. I just love to win and, in sports, that’s all there is to it. We play a lot of spikeball on set; we played so much spike ball, and I was always the guy that… If I lost, I would be like, “Run it back. Let’s go again. We’re going again.” Yeah, I’m going until I win this.
Terry Hu: Firstly, I want to say we’re competitive because it’s easy to be. Because we have literally – No, I’m sorry. On a personal level, I think chess. I’m competitive about chess, yeah. Also spikeball, but mainly chess.
Matt Cornett: Terry’s just so good at chess, because Terry has such a crazy smart brain. Terry will always be a thousand steps ahead of you in chess.
Kyra Tantao: I’m more of a cheerleader, to be honest. When everyone was playing spikeball at the park and everything, maybe I jumped in once or twice. But I like to enjoy the game, watch, and go, “Rah rah!”
Zombies 3 Synopsis
It’s Zed and Addison’s final year at Seabrook and things are better than ever. The town has finally accepted monsters as a part of Seabrook and has become a safe haven for monsters and humans alike. Zed is on the cusp of receiving a football scholarship and becoming the first Zombie to ever attend college (and he’s excited to join Addison who has already been admitted). Addison is excited to mark the opening of the town’s brand new “cheer pavilion” by inviting cheer teams from all over the world to compete in an “international cheer-off.”
However, the town is shocked by the arrival of a new group of intergalactic outsiders – Aliens, who show up to compete in the cheer-off. Though they begrudgingly allow the Aliens to stay for the competition – the monsters and humans of Seabrook grow suspicious when they discover that the Aliens may be looking for more than a friendly competition.
Check out our other interviews with Zombies 3 stars Milo Manheim & Meg Donnelly as well as Chandler Kinney, Ariel Martin & Pearce Joza and Trevor Tordjman, Kylee Russell & Carla Jeffery.
Zombies 3 is now streaming on Disney+.
