Review: Anna and the Apocalypse is the zombie splatter musical you never knew you needed

Brad Wheeler

Published December 6, 2018

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Anna and the Apocalypse

Directed by John McPhail

Written by Alan McDonald, Ryan McHenry

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Starring Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming and Christopher Leveaux

Classification: 14A/92 minutes

rating

School bells ring; are you listening? In the halls, brains are glistening. A ghastly sight, no one’s happy tonight – walking in a winter zombie land. Show tunes meet Shaun of the Dead in the delightfully gruesome Scottish horror-musical Anna and the Apocalypse.

Ben Wiggins stars in Anna and the Apocalypse.

Duncan McCallum/The Canadian Press

Ella Hunt is Anna, a melodious high-schooler in a Scottish hamlet beset by hoards of living dead. Her best friend is a likable dweeb whose romantic love for her is unrequited. She lives with her working-class father and, wait a minute, isn’t this a Molly Ringwald movie? Let’s call it Pretty in Red and enjoy a tuneful gore fest that involves a group of angst-ridden teenagers attempting to slash, bash and sing their way to freedom.

Not sure there’s a message to this film – other than high school being a living hell, and all will be fine if you can just make it out alive – but come for the bowling-alley bloodshed and stay for the song, dance and candy-cane carnage.

Anna and the Apocalypse opens Dec. 7

Follow Brad Wheeler on Twitter @BWheelerglobe

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