Anna and the Apocalypse

When I heard from Fantastic Fest that there was going to be a UK-based, Christmas-set comedy/horror/musical, it immediately jumped to the top of my most anticipated film list. With an idea that unique, what could possibly go wrong? I found every minute of Anna and the Apocalypse to be cliche, tiresome and predictable. All of the jokes/gags were lowest common denominator/exactly what you would expect in any given moment from a writer with zero comedy experience. I didn't laugh once, and I'm a huge fan of UK comedy. I found each of the songs to be unoriginal, forgettable and not nearly as witty as they clearly thought they were. I go out of my way to watch musicals, so this might have been the most disappointing aspect to me. I understand that this film was shot in Scotland, but is it really that difficult to cast one person of color? The majority of the characters are high schoolers, and every actor in the movie, zombies included, was white (or light-skinned mixed). When I noticed that relatively early on, I had a feeling this would not be the most thoughtful film. I don't feel the need to speak on the zombie aspect of the film as I found it to be unremarkable in every way. Only one other time in my life have I walked out of a movie theater before the ending of the film, and the other time it was because of an insufferable audience. This was easily the most disappointing film of the year for me, but I can totally understand why someone would enjoy it. Hearing countless people call it "A cult classic in the making" made me think that a film with such a unique melding of genres would at least have something of an original approach rather than featuring a cookie-cutter plot, characters with zero depth and cliche after cliche.

What a massively disappointing conclusion. I have no idea how they could possibly mess up the second half this badly. The film starts off perfectly, a perfect commitment to the cheese and the campiness, genuine talent put into the songs, an awful lot of great slapstick, and over the top performances. And then they forgot what movie they were making. The film commits so much to its zombie film satire that it becomes an actual zombie film. It attempts to be sad, serious, dramatic. They start killing characters that have no reason to die because...? I am so incredibly disappointed. I laughed so so hard for like 35 minutes and then nothing.

Who knew you could have so much fun in an Apocalypse? Anna knew, that's who knew and she delivers with a very funny and welcome turn on the genre. This film walks firmly in the footsteps of Shaun of the Dead, a brilliant turn of events and a horror musical, doesn't get much better.

I just saw the first 20 minutes of this "movie" in a sneak preview. Bad, bad, bad. Combination of humour, musical, zombies and all done by actors with a heavy British accent just doesn't work in the Netherlands. At least 10% of the audience walked out after the first song began. Another 10% in the next few minutes. Maybe this works in the UK, but I'm afraid it's hard to take outside that area.

The best part of this film to me is it's ablity to not only combine two completely different genres (horror and musicals) seamlessly. It also shifts the seriousness of the film with out throwing the tone off at all. I also have to say the the songs and score fit perfectly in the film and are incredibly well done. It is some of the most fun I've had watching a film in a long time and hope to see more from these film Makers.