#123 – Anna and the Apocalypse

Movie Zombie Musical Fans,

We did it again. We let Charlie pick a movie! Technically he picked this movie sometime in 2017 when he saw the trailer and assumed that it had been released already. But time has passed and we can actually watch it now. So the poster for this movie desctibes it as “Shawn of the Dead meets LA LA Land” which might be technically correct. But the feeling is more like “Low Rent Shawn of the Dead ajacent to High School Musical” if you can see what I’m saying here… Lets move on!

So Im not going to do a traditional recap, mostly because it’s been a week and I dont remember what actually happened scene to scene. I’m just going straight to….

Speed Round

• We are introduced to the high school kids, some adults and teachers, then 5 minutes in Straight in to a fully regular musical number. Like no jokes. Which might be fine if any of us were ready for that, but nope, it’s just 3 adult men watching High school kids sign their little hearts out.
• Evil Principal is Evil
• Checkovs Christmas Star
• Introduce side characters, interpersonal problems… what’s that? Another earnest high school kids song? Hit it!
• Mix in some forboding zombie scenes with a zany high school penguin dance? I like it!
• Overtly sexy Christmas Inuendo song! I love it! “Come on over here and unload your sack”
• But also she seems to be looking for her missing father the whole time. bad.
• Cut to next morning, Anna walking to school listening to headphones not noticing the zombie scenes all around her. Love it.
• knocking zombie snowmans head off, great!
• Evil principal in charge of school, I hate this guy. Oh he’s gonna sing a song? terrible.
• Bowling alley part, lots of good stuff here, fully bowling related kills. But it does have the thinnest wall in the history of construction.
• sad song, very serious.
• Escaping in the inflatable pool, pretty fun!
• asshole kids are good at killing zombies, predictable. They sing a song about it, less predictable.
• They at least have fun with this song!
• They cut through the worlds biggest indoor tree lot, WTF? is this a thing? weak. group is pared down, some sacrifices… sad.
• They get to destination school, but Evil Principal has let the zombies in. They dont show this because I think it would be totally unbelievable. But whats that? He sings another song. Still hate.
• They try to rescue their other friend, but she and the nerdy guy are bitten. They stay behind. Still sad.
• Anna overcomes the Evil Principal with the power of zombie killing song. Kind of fun.
• HE’S NOT WORTH IT! THIS NEVER PAYS OFF IN ZOMBIE MOVIES… to dangerous for morals!
• Checkovs Christmas Star Payoff.
• but her dad has been bitten, sad goodbye.
• Sad ‘we’re all gonna die or some of us already have” Song, Sad.
• Deus Ex… Oh yeah the other girl got away.
• Fully ends with either a Walking Dead or 28 Days Later style world.

Phew, this was sort of a hybrid recap and speed round. In reviewing the movie for this list I’m a little softer on it because it does have some good parts. But I think my initial thoughts still ring true. Zombie Comedy is a hard line to tread, this movie makes it even harder by leaning into the interpersonal relationships. If they kept it light they could have had the main characters killing bully zombies or terrible teachers. Instead Evil Prinipal character sticks out like a fuckhead because he’s playing it so big that he’s from another movie, maybe the fun movie that could have been made. That’s my main criticism, they forgot the fun.