A Very Genre Christmas: Anna and the Apocalpyse (Dir John McPhail, 1h 38m, 2017)

In the immortal (and lucrative) words of Noddy Holder, "IT'S CHRIIIIIIIIIISTMAS!" Another year of reviews almost done, just one month left to cover films full of festive cheer and seasonal favourite. Time to kick back, talk about schmaltz, whether a certain 1988 film is or is not a Christmas movie, ridicule Rankin Bass, and the other traditions. Oh. Wait. We don't do that here. We are explorers of the furthest edge of the Christmas movie, its curious outreaches where the holiday movie pops up in the most unexpected places. We've talked action-heavy Christmas movies, we've talked those films that stand on the doorstep of being part of the holiday canon, and this year we're traversing into four different genres (the musical, the western, horror, and action), in order to find new traditions, new beloved Christmas Classics.

And what better place to start than Scotland, and with a cult zombie Christmas musical? For, whilst the musical is about as Christmassy as they come-after all, this is the preserve of Bing, Astaire et al (see the classic Holiday Inn and White Christmas for just how effective this formula still is), and the season is becoming overstuffed with all sorts of horror-themed turns on the classic Christmas figures, nobody (well, except for Danny Elfman and Henry Sellick) seems to have ever put the two together, and fewer still have gone for a straight zombie musical. A zombie musical, though, was the dream of the late Ryan McHenry, whose short, entitled, ahem, Zombie Musical, quickly became the talk of the town in the Scotish film industry.

The original short can still be found on McHenry's YouTube channel here and masterfully matches the intensely choreographed, breaking into song without warning, world of the musical (Henry taking influence from Disney's High School Musical), and the bloody, enjoyably gory and often squeamish-inducing world of the zombie horror film. Small wonder it was promptly picked up to be adapted into a feature length film, with Scots musicians Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly (more recently to be found winning Daytime Emmys for their work on the 2020 revival of the beloved Animaniacs, and Scots comedy Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour) fleshing out the musical half of the film.

Tragedy, sadly, struck with McHenry dying of cancer before the script for the film was completed, with co-writer Alan McDonald, otherwise noted for the short One Night in Sutherland Hill which also uses the background of urban Scotland and matches horror and the mundane lives of teenagers to superb effect, taking over the mantle of bringing McHenry's story to life, with Scottish mainstay, John McPhail directing. It could have been easy for Anna to become either weighed down by darkness, or become overly santified by its beholdeness to the very nature of the musical. It is neither. It is so much more. It is a film about the season's best, and worst, excesses, given form by the shambling undead, but shot through with a charming central cast, excellent songs, and a superb central performance.

We begin with Anna herself, (Ella Hunt), her widower father, Tony (Mark Benton), and John (Malcolm Cumming), her best friend and a budding artist, travelling to school; not only does this perfectly set up the Christmassy mood, wit the first of Hart and Reilley's songs, "Christmas Means Nothing Without You" a nigh perfect slice of Christmas pop that manages to feel like practically every major pop Christmas song of the last couple of decades, but it perfectly adds to the atmosphere, as the talk of Christmas and planning for futures is derailed by Anna dropping a bombshell on her father that she plans to travel after school. Still rowwing, the trio arrive at school, and go their separate ways, Tony still angry at Anna for what he sees as a foolhardy throwing away of her future.

From here, the film introduces its supporting cast, from the socially minded Steph (Sarah Swire), who is trying to report on the growing homeless population in the local area, to Chris (Christopher Leveaux), an aspiring, if somewhat uninspired film-maker, to the arrogant Nick (Ben Wiggins), who has history with Anna. Against this, we have the upcoming Christmas variety show, and the tyrannical figure of Mr Savage (Paul Kaye, he of Dennis Pennis fame), who cuts a ferocious and rules-minded sense to the film that has shades of Chris Eccelstone's sadistic and Major West of 28 Days Later. This extended sequence, containing the first two musical numbers ("Break Away", in which our main trio of Anna, John and Steph seek for something beyond their provincial lives in Scotland with a masterfully done pop-punk inflection, and "Hollywood Ending" which proceeds to jab fun at the "I Want" song that "Break Away" so obviously is, and puts a dampner upon it) not only shows the Hart and Reilley duo at their best, but also masterfully captures precisely the choreography and cinematography of the very films it lampoons

However, stormclouds are brewing, with the infection-only briefly hinted in background news reports-beginning to overtake the town as the lingering horror of the situation slowly becomes apparent, as the hordes of the undead begin to make their appearance. Against this, the film places its funniest sequence, the school's talent competition-including enjoyably ridiculous and fishy jam "The Fish Wrap" featuring two people rapping whilst dressed penguins, and Lisa, Chris's girlfriend and Anna's friend, who shocks the audience with the salacious (and in the growled words of Mr Savage, "filth") of "It's that Time of Year", a knowing pastiche of similiarly double-entendre-stuffed Christmas crooners. Meanwhile, Anna and John have a heart-to-heart at their job, and the next day, make their way to school, unaware of the encroaching hordes, the incredibly upbeat "What A Time To Be Alive" perfectly juxtaposed with the chaos, carnage, undead, and utter breakdown of society around them.

It's here, also, that Anna and the Apocalypse begins to tap into two things. One, completely intentional, is the shlocky gore of Romero's zombie movies, Evil Dead, and its most obvious influence, the British Zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead, as our duo merrily bounce to school to the positively upbeat "Turning my Life Around" to a background of total chaos, and carnage. Meeting each other, and beginning to realise that everything is not quite right, they off a snowman-dressed zombie, and make their way to the bowling alley to meet up with Steph and Chris, only to find more zombies in wait, finally making a refuge once they have dispatched these zombies. Here, uninintentionally-indeed, its only a theme that comes into frame with hindsight, is that much of the film's focus on a mysterious pathogen comes eerily close, especially as our heroes bunker down, to a premonition of the 2020-2021 pandemic, our heroes turning, as the next song, the lo-fi "Human Voice" plays, to their phones in search of solace, as civilisation, including their idols and popular culture collapses around them.

Meanwhile, at the school, Mr Savage has begun hoarding sanitiser and instigates a lockdown in the school, and the army carries out an abortive and ultimately suicidal campaign against the undead, leaving the town practically over-run by the undead. From here, the film turns on a dial, masterfully turning into what, in essence, is a musical about staying human, or succumbing to baser instincts-in short, zombie movie bread and buttter. We see Nick and his henchmen devolve to macho headhunters, killing the undead with a faintly alarming glee to the impressively catchy "Soldier at War", helping the quartet to make their way across what remains of their home town-however, this comes with a high cost, with Nick's friends butchered and John bitten and brutally disembowled by zombies, with our bruised and bloodied heroes arriving in school to find that Mr Savage has gone essentially native, loosely allying with the zombies to destroy what's left of humanity, Nick seemingly sacrificing himself so that Anna and her friends can save her father.

The true villainy of Mr Savage is revealed in his (practically a villain) song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now", as the school is revealed to still contain multiple of the undead, and that he has trapped our remaining heroes in the school, as he mocks them behind blast shutters, and convinces himself that humanity is beyond saving. The encroaching undead, however, don't stop our heroes making their way to Savage's office to reclaim Steph's car-keys, but in their attempts to escape, so Chris, and Lisa, who the group have found in what remains of the school, are bitten, and succumb to their fates. Thus, Anna stands alone against Savage and his zombie hordes, in an ending that marries the best of musical finales with the best of zombie movie spectacle, before the survivors head out into an uncertain world, the feeling of a Romero or Russo zombie movie entwined, in brilliant small-scale genius, with the freedom of the endings of so many musicals.

Anna and the Apocalpyse is not just a good zombie movie, nor just a good musical, but masters that balancing act with aplomb. It very well may be the best independently made Christmas movie to come out of the British film industry in the last decade, matching wit, and warmth, blood and guts, and a-in hindsight, given its focus on contageon and illness, a remarkable salience and impact that does nothing to take away from what is a rollicking good ride. A new holiday classic.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Like articles like this? Want them up to a week early? Why not support me on my Patreon from just £1/$1.00 (ish) a month! https://www.patreon.com/AFootandAHalfPerSecond