Anna and the Apocalypse

Pre-dating Disney's "Zombies" musical by a year, "Anna and the Apocalypse" is the decidedly un-family friendly R-rated teen angsty holiday zombie musical you didn't realize you needed. Set at Christmastime, the teens of a small Scottish village contend with both the undead and still having to go to high school. Our heroine, Anna, is having problems with her ex-boyfriend, while her platonic guy friend secretly pines for her, not to mention her dad, who's the school custodian is on her case about her wanting to take a gap year before starting college. Throw in a mean-girl competition over who will star in the school holiday pageant and this film is positively "High School Musical" meets George A. Romero (in a super fun way, that is). Ella Hunt is charming as Anna, as well as pretty badass, wielding a deadly prop oversized candy cane as a weapon. However, although Anna is an endearing protagonist, most of the supporting characters are mostly paper-thin high school movie archetypes and the teen drama elements are all pretty familiar. Overall, the film's mash-up premise and Hunt in the lead as Anna goes a long way to make "Anna and the Apocalypse" enjoyable escapist nonsense.

If you don't like Musicals, don't even bother. Although I guess there is always a first time for everything isn't there? But generally speaking, this probably will not make you like them any more than you already (don't). I'm not a big fan myself, but from time to time I do tend to watch them.

The singing is pretty good, the choreography is also decent. They try some bigger pieces, though it never reaches full insane mode. Which you might find good or bad, depending on your taste. Another important thing is the violence and the blood though. This is not for the faint hearted. And while it is not the first musical to dabble into horror, there are not that many out there to compete with

If you have been waiting some time for a horror-musical-teen-comedy-Christmas-movie, then it has to be said the wait is over. Anna and the Apocalypse boldly goes there. It centres on a group of teens who find themselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Why is there a zombie apocalypse? Not important. But it is a good excuse for some serious genre mash-up action. I am not necessarily a natural audience for this kind of thing but I would say you would need to be being a bit overly harsh not coming away from this one with some positive feelings. It is a very likable film with some ambition to do something new.

The star of the show here for me was certainly the very beautiful Ella Hunt, who plays the title character. Clearly a performer with some definite star quality and versatility and one for the future hopefully. The rest of the cast are good too it has to be said, and it was nice seeing old Dennis Pennis himself, Paul Kaye, appear as an unhinged headmaster. It has to be said that the comedy is a bit uneven to say the least, although there are some good jokes sprinkled throughout about evacuation selfies, Justin Bieber and all the rest of it but I found it only sporadically funny if I am honest. The horror side of the fence is covered with the usual zombie violence which is visceral and creative enough to keep us interested. The songs were actually quite a welcome injection, as it was with those that the film was at its most distinctive. And also, quite pleasingly, things are not rounded off with a Hollywood ending either, which I thought was the right way to go for this kind of thing.

On the whole, while this is definitely a bit hit and miss, I commend it for its ambition and fun-factor. When a film has the good grace to at least try something new, it deserves a chance and I wish it the very best.

Anna and the Apocalypse is a fun film that starts excellent and finishes ok. The early songs are extremely good and worthy of any high end musical out there. The lead Ella Hunt is a star in the making with not only great vocals, but a believable performance as Anna. Whilst she could stand firm in any west end musical, I feel her talents are destined to stay with the silver screen, as she is able to capture beautifully subtle facial expressions which make the character very likeable and real.

The support vocals and acting are very good from some and ok from others, but overall it never lives up to the strength of the opening 30 minutes.

The horror zombie element was very well done and a similar quality to Shaun of the Dead, but I wonder if this could have actually been two separate films. One musical and one comedy horror, as it did both fairly well, but for me they didn't mesh together well enough to sustain for the whole run time.

Not enough cool zombie kills for horror fans and not enough quality songs for musical fans.

Overall though, I enjoyed the film and would recommend it to any fan of either genre.

This is a solid 6 for me. It's an interesting concept which is not easy to pull off. And this is ultimately where it falls down. It's not a horror, comedy or musical but it tries to be. Not as smart as Shaun of the Dead.

The comparison with Shaun of the Dead does it no favours though. Shaun of the Dead is a masterpiece. This is not.

I enjoyed this though. It's entertaining. Could have been gorier though.