DVD Review: Anna and the Apocalypse

Anna and the Apocalypse
(DVD Anna)

This movie started as a short film in 2011, Zombie Musical, written and directed by Ryan McHenry. It was then expanded to this full-length feature film, following McHenry’s death, by writers Alan McDonald and Tommy Reilly, with music by Roddy Hart and Reilly. And the music is integral to this film’s success — there are over 15 songs, sung by various cast members, who break into song-and-dance numbers that seamlessly merge into the chaos and zombie killing.

 

Teenager Anna is looking forward to traipsing around the globe following the end of her senior year — a prospect that neither her over-protective father and her best friend don’t relish. Anna isn’t part of the “popular crowd” but she and her fellow misfit outsiders still form a tight bond. They tend to ignore the news reports of a global pandemic that appears to be turning people into zombies — until it starts to affect the people in their sleepy Scottish town of Little Haven. As the entire world appears to be dissolving into total chaos, Anna and her friends (and enemies) must fight their way through their zombie-infested town to their high school, which may or may not be the last safe haven.

 

The entire cast of this is terrific, particularly Ella Hunt as Anna and Malcolm Cumming as her lifelong platonic best friend John. The songs are at first a bit jarring, but quickly become one of the best parts of the film — it reminded me of watching the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode “Once More, With Feeling” — and all the actors have excellent singing voices. The make-up and special effects are grotesque but impressive. If the film verges occasionally into cartoonishness, it is allowable, as the entire concept seems outlandish. And yet, somehow it works!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to see the If You Like…Die Hard list of harder-edged action/suspense films set at Christmas-time.)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

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