But by the next morning, their ho-hum spirits feel like a moot point in the wake of the zombie apocalypse. Anna and John encounter their first monster on their way to school and decide to take shelter back at their bowling alley, where they run into Chris and Steph. The audience and performers in the school’s Christmas show—which includes Anna’s dad and Lise—lock themselves in the cafeteria at the command of the uptight principal, Savage (Paul Kaye). Now, the group must reunite with their loved ones at school before it’s too late.
“Anna and the Apocalypse” shares much in common with Edgar Wright’s breakout zombie comedy, “Shaun of the Dead.” Each movie revels in the grotesque task of killing zombies, setting up comical ways for our heroes to fight back with vinyl records or pointy lawn ornaments. The scene where Anna puts in her headphones for an upbeat musical number as zombies tear through her neighborhood resembles the morning after the scene when Shaun repeats his morning routine without noticing zombies have eaten his neighbors and likely the convenience store clerk. McPhail also includes one quickly edited montage of the group getting into a car and driving away as a stylistic nod to Wright’s frenetic cuts.
The movie’s many pop songs add to that energetic spirit. Like a scrappier, naughtier “High School Musical,” the teens will sing about not fitting in, not having their feelings reciprocated. At times, the transitions to verse are a little rough, but some of the numbers are so bizarre, it’s easy to laugh. In one song, the principal chides students for tweeting their every empty thought, in another, a group of bullies kill zombies as they’re belting out a masculine tune. For Lisa’s Christmas show performance, she sings a filthy song so full of double entendres, it might have made Ernst Lubitsch proud. Of course, that’s not all she has in store, as mid-way through her song, six shirtless men in red shorts and suspenders flank her to drive home her number’s sexual overtones.
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