Delightfully shaggy and low-budget, this cheeky indie marries song, dance, the undead, and the holidays<\/b>
\nWe\u2019re accustomed to horror movies using creativity and artistry to cover up their low budgets; a filmmaker can create plenty of scares with one set and a cast of four. The low-budget musical, on the other hand, is expected to provide splashy razzle-dazzle and grandeur with the same economy of means, and it\u2019s a tougher genre to make succeed on a dime. That said, if you\u2019re willing to overlook a little scruffiness at the edges, it\u2019s a Christmas miracle that the Scottish import \u201cAnna and the Apocalypse\u201d works so well as both a horror movie and a musical.
And \u201cChristmas miracle\u201d should be taken literally, because this is a holiday movie as well. And if you don\u2019t think the undead mix well with musical numbers and gaudy Yuletide decor, \u201cAnna\u201d might be the movie to change your mind.
It\u2019s a film that the protagonist of \u201cHeathers\u201d might call \u201cteen angst with a body count\u201d: High-school senior Anna (Ella Hunt), mourning the death of her mother, has put off telling her father, Tony (Mark Benton, \u201cEddie the Eagle\u201d), that she wants to go to Australia rather than heading directly to university. Anna\u2019s best pal John (Malcolm Cumming) pines for her despite those feelings not being reciprocal. Newspaper editor Steph (Sarah Swire, who also choreographs) has been dumped by her girlfriend and abandoned by her vacationing parents for the holidays.
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All these mini-dramas get shoved to the background, of course, when the zombies emerge. And while \u201cAnna and the Apocalypse\u201d doesn\u2019t rewrite the rules of any of its genres \u2014 Anna and John sing the upbeat \u201cTurning My Life Around,\u201d oblivious to the carnage unfolding behind them, in a scene very reminiscent of \u201cShaun of the Dead\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s got a real spark of joy, even when the story turns grim. And while this might be a comic and tuneful zombie saga, it doesn\u2019t mean that every likable character is going to make it to the final fade-out.
As musicals go, \u201cAnna\u201d is closer to \u201cLa La Land\u201d or \u201cThe Last Five Years\u201d than to \u201cMoulin Rouge!\u201d: There\u2019s only one elaborate moment of group choreography (\u201cHollywood Ending,\u201d a song about adolescent disappointment), with most of the songs involving just a handful of performers. But plenty of tonal flavors are represented, from upbeat (the aforementioned \u201cTurning My Life Around\u201d) to the yearning (\u201cBreak Away,\u201d \u201cHuman Voice\u201d).
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Anna\u2019s ex Nick (Ben Wiggins) gets to fancy himself a \u201cSoldier at War,\u201d as the zombie outbreak lets him put his bullying to practical use, and there\u2019s even a saucy holiday song, \u201cChristmas Means Nothing Without You,\u201d which ups the innuendo ante from \u201cSanta Baby.\u201d (The music and lyrics are by Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly.)
The main cast (including Marli Sui and Christopher Leveaux as a pair of high-school sweethearts) nimbly balance the film\u2019s multitude of tones; Hunt, in particular, makes a forceful and empathetic leading lady, while Cumming charmingly steals scenes as the goofy BFF who\u2019s never going to be the BF.
But Paul Kaye (\u201cGame of Thrones\u201d) goes overboard as the school\u2019s power-mad headmaster, shooting for the kind of grand grotesque usually played by \u201cRocky Horror\u201d creator Richard O\u2019Brien. Compared to the rest of the performers, he appears to have wandered in from the Christmas panto show next door.
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There\u2019s a fascinating story-behind-the-story to \u201cAnna and the Apocalypse\u201d: Filmmaker Ryan McHenry, the man behind the viral \u201cRyan Gosling Won\u2019t Eat His Cereal\u201d clips, made a \u201cHigh School Musical\u201d-inspired short called \u201cZombie Musical,\u201d but he tragically died of bone cancer before he could make the feature.
His friends took up the cause, hiring John McPhail to direct the film; for someone working with limited means, and shooting on locations rather than sets, McPhail brings the film a cohesive look, less slick than \u201cHigh School Musical\u201d but more along the lines of songs breaking out in the midst of a European \u201cDegrassi\u201d knock-off.
Those charitable enough to watch a musical that doesn\u2019t feature overhead cameras sweeping over hundreds of chorines may enjoy \u201cAnna\u201d for its humble charms. And if those assembly-line Hallmark flicks made you think there was nothing new in the world of Christmas movies, get ready for a breath of fresh air \u2014 one that smells like both pine needles and blood.<\/p>\n