Anna and the Apocalypse is a high school zombie musical set at Christmas . Which , apparently , sound awing . It vocalise so awesome though , you ’re believably guess there ’s no way it could bang up to that expectation . But I ’m felicitous to reveal that Anna and the Revelation of Saint John the Divine lives up to your arithmetic mean and then some . It ’s an absolute gust .
[ fall into place hereto see io9 ’s statement on this yr ’s Fantastic Fest . ]
Most of the succeeder of the celluloid is because it ’s not afraid to embrace each of its many genres and milk them for all they ’re deserving . First , it start as a gamey school film complete with its very own Breakfast Club . There ’s the pretty girl next door , Anna ( Ella Hunt ) , best friend who have a go at it her , John ( Malcolm Cumming ) , nerdy film friend ( Chris Leveaux ) , his musical theater girlfriend , ( Marli Siu ) , the socially witting lesbian ( Sarah Swire ) , the pretty boy bully ( Ben Wiggins ) and the asshole authorisation physical body ( Paul Kate ) . Those quality express their angst by singing , and from the first few bar of the first few songs you sleep with you ’re in dear hands .
Songwriters Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly have craft a toe - tapping , soda music soundtrack that evolves along with the movie . And allow ’s be honest . If the songs did n’t make you need to buy the soundtrack and secretly belt them out in your car , Anna and the Apocalypse would have had an even tougher uphill battle . But the song are wild attention-getting . They ’re the throttle that keeps the photographic film going , making its best consequence advantageously , and even some infirm present moment inviolable .
Those weaker moments , though , are few and far between . They mostly come in the first act as the characters are being established and tone is being set . There ’s a tidy sum to set up , include the Christmas mount and , finally , the zombi . Those zombi are largely introduced in a sequence that not too subtly mention Shaun of the Dead . Anna exit her planetary house and walk through the streets , blissfully unaware of the mount chaos that ’s happening all around here . Moments like this one are some of the moving picture ’s best . Yes , it ’s directly cite another work . But it also works to eases the moving picture from one genre to the next . It ’s transitioning from angsty adolescent melodious to gory zombie melodious , and tonal shifts like that are one of the many thing director John McPhail does so well with the picture show . It ’s constantly propel and by the time you ’ve endure from one pure tone or genre to the next , you do n’t even realize what befall . You ’re already there .
So Anna and the Apocalypse nails the high school clobber , musical stuff and Christmas stuff . What about the horror ? Yes , it complete that , too . There ’s just the correct amount of gore and gross , inventive kills to keep things unpredictable and soaked in rip , which , surprisingly , works well with the medicine .
If there ’s anything electronegative that can be say about Anna and the Apocalypse it ’s that as much as it really pass with flying colors each of its genres and blends them like an expert , it never elevates any of them . Where a film like Shaun of the Dead felt like a revelatory experience blending repugnance , Latinian language and comedy , nothing in Anna and the Apocalypse ever define the macrocosm on fervour . It just all works incredibly well . And really , that in itself is a minor miracle .
A motion-picture show like Anna and the Apocalypse is design to make you smile . Whether that ’s because of the teen material , music , zombies , or Christmas , it does n’t count . You are supposed to be well-chosen watching it . And not only will you be happy watching it , it ’s so much fun , it could even go a long way to turning musical sports fan onto horror , or repulsion fans onto musicals . It has that form of ecumenical charm .
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