Writer(s): Alan McDonald and Ryan McHenry
Starring: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Sarah Swire, and Paul Kaye
Just about every time my wife and I
decide to watch a movie, that begins another set of specific
decisions that often take longer than the movie itself: What genre?
What style? Something funny, or serious; scary or lighthearted?
Violent or not? The list goes on and on until, inevitably, a fight
breaks out, and we finally just settle on something neither of us
really care to watch all that much.
And that’s what made Anna and the
Apocalypse such a refreshing change of pace: the moment I read it, I
decided we were watching it. (While that came off as controlling, it
was simply because my wife was at work, and I knew it was something
that would be just as down her alley as it was mine.) A
Christmas-themed zombie-holiday musical? How in the world could that
possibly fail?
The plot is simple: as members of a
high school rehearse for a Christmas play, under the watchful eye of
the evil, aptly-named Arthur Savage, who also happens to be both the
play’s director and school’s vice-principal, a zombie attack
occurs in real life, leaving the school’s inhabitants to fend for
themselves. As we can gather from the title, the focus is on Anna, a
cute teenager who had a much-publicized fling with a cocky student,
much to the chagrin of her best friend, John, who not-so-secretly
wants her.
The whole project reminds one of the
Hulu show “Freakish”, if that were written and directed by people
with actual talent, and with random musical numbers thrown in for
good measure. I say that not to poke fun at that awful show (although
I did), but because that’s the feeling I got during the school
scenes—even the sets look very similar (although I guess all
schools look pretty similar on the inside). There’s also the
movie’s similar focus not on the zombies, but on the characters
themselves, who are all normal teenagers going through “normal”
issues all on their own, to some extent.
It has all the makings of a true
Christmas classic—and maybe even a zombie classic—but it's
partially done in by just how serious it takes itself. The musical
numbers are upbeat and lively, and there's a good amount of humor,
but it inflicts a lot of pain on its characters, both physical and
emotional, to the extent that, despite all the polish and razzmatazz,
it all just stops being fun. I was reminded, at least in story arc,
of American Pie, a movie that also wanted to explore emotional
themes, and apparently felt the best vessel for that was in a movie
that featured a character fucking an apple pie. The same idea holds
true here: are people really going to go into a sing-song zombie
movie wanting, or expecting, to come out feeling somewhat depressed?
The production values are obvious here,
with great choreography in the dance sequences, polished music
tracks, and solid acting across the board, especially from Ella Hunt
as Anna, and a deliciously over-the-top Tony Kaye as Arthur Savage.
Unfortunately, it seems to have the same identity issues as many of
the characters it portrays, trying to do too many things in order to
appeal to as many kinds of people as possible. It's like the
intelligent geek who refuses to accept his seat at the nerd table,
and instead desperately attempts to fit in with the popular bunch—and
we all know how that ends up.
RATING: 6.5/10
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