Anna and the Apocalypse is bloody holiday fun

Ella Hunt in Anna and the Apocalypse. Image courtesy Orion Pictures.

On a visceral level, the chaos-laden Anna and the Apocalypse delivers exactly as it promises. It takes place in the days leading up to Christmas, so there is ample holiday decorations and holiday weaponry. The musical numbers are plentiful with a few rather catchy tunes to replay on Spotify. There are a ton of zombies to demolish with creative flair, particularly a rather eventful bowling alley scene that showcases the filmmakers' ingenuity in blood spattering. And it has a sense of humor that ranges from silly teen jokes to some wicked gallows humor. The movie is fun and infectious, a nice little holiday flick that veers off the beaten path. And it could have been a whole lot more than that.

Ella Hunt stars as the eponymous Anna, a high school girl who dreams of exploring the world before college, much to the consternation of her father (Mark Benton). Alongside her best friend/wannabe romantic interest John (Malcolm Cumming), Anna navigates the rigors of high school, intersecting with ambitious student reporter Steph, (Sarah Swire), aspiring chanteuse Lisa (Marli Siu), her boyfriend Chris (Christopher Leveaux), handsome jerk Nick (Ben Wiggins), and intense headmaster Savage (Paul Kaye). Their dreary high school life ends when an infestation of zombies invades their small town, forcing Anna and her friends to fend for survival against an army of the living dead.

The movie certainly has a spark to it, a joy for dismembering zombies and big, bold musical numbers. But Anna and the Apocalypse still feels like a missed opportunity. The combination of horror, comedy, musical, and holiday occasionally conflict to undermine one another, undermining the premise's selling point. Some of the filmmakers' push for comedy lightens the horror elements, resulting in a movie that is more gory than scary. The songs are a little too hit or miss, coming in to either lessen the horror or stall the movie's momentum and character progression. 

The latter is an overarching issue, as Anna and the Apocalypse doesn't give itself enough time to develop either it's world or it's universe. Blending the zombie film with the musical short changes the character development needed to make their fates matter. Musical numbers are often shortcuts to building characters, revealing motivations openly and effectively. Yet the songs don't cover enough of the space, leaving folks like Nick and Lisa to fulfill their arcs through awkward exposition. The filmmakers using a lot of throwaway lines to compensate for missing potential visual indicators or elaboration from characters. Considering how important these little details are – most notably the existence of a military base never mentioned in act one – skipping over those details muddles the story. And it's especially confusing given how religiously Anna and the Apocalypsefollows Chekhov's Gun, with little things like confiscated car keys or a prop falling apart introduced in act one become very important in act three. It's a weird to introduce some elements and bring them back while trying to patch plot holes with exposition, making some of the plot points a little too obvious and blunt at time

Then again, considering Anna and the Apocalypse's horror and musical roots, subtlety is less important than it would be otherwise. And the filmmakers throw in a couple of surprising deaths to avoid having an apocalypse go easily for a collection of mostly untrained teenagers wandering around a land of doom. The deaths would have hit harder had the film invested more time in character development, but the deaths fit the film's melancholy soul.

Like many a great musical, many an excellent horror flick, and several pretty good holiday movies, happiness is hard to find in Anna and the Apocalypse. The characters' circumstances are consistently riddled with disappointment and hopes for a better tomorrow. Anna is very close to making it out, but the end of the world quashes her dreams of exploration. She does not end the movie in a better place than she started it. The reasons she may have stuck around town are gone, but in the cruelest twist of all she has nowhere else she can go. All that's left is to drive headfirst into the miasma, with neither direction nor clarity to guide her.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

 

Rating: R

Run time: 97 minutes

Genre: Horror

tl;dr

What Worked: Premise, Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming

What Fell Short: Character development

What To Watch As Well: Shaun of the Dead, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

It's ever so hard to keep up appearances amid the zombie apocalypse

Lily James stars in "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." Image courtesy Sony Pictures Entertainment.

“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” technically offers everything its title says it will. The gist of the plot from “Pride and Prejudice” are there along with the characters and the drama they create, and the film chucks in a few zombies to make things a little ghastlier than the Jane Austen novel had to offer. It delivers what it promises, but the quality in which it does so is mediocre and dry, the two genres conflicting frequently and the poor special effects and cheapness spoiling the whole affair like uninvited zombies at a dinner party. They always take the best brains first.

Following the footsteps of the zombiefied adaptation of the Austen novel, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” concerns social engagements of the five Bennet sisters: Elizabeth (Lily James), Jane (Bella Heathcote), Lydia (Ellie Bamber), Mary (Millie Brady) and Kitty (Suki Waterhouse). The last three are of little import to this story and shoved off to the sidelines to be plot devices; it’s the first tow their mother (Sally Phillips) tries to promote to suitors. It doesn't take too long for Heathcote to catch the eye of the exorbitantly wealthy Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth), and the two fall into love immediately during one of several party sequences. James though is a little more sarcastic and independent than the other Bennet women, making it a little more difficult to find a proper husband. One suitor, Booth's friend Mr. Darcy, (Sam Riley), is a little too blunt and standoffish; the other, George Wickham (Jack Huston), exceeds his rival in charm but lacks a sense of integrity and harbors mysterious designs toward the James. Parson Collins (a very hammy Matt Smith), a cousin of the family, also pursues James' hand with little success.

All that only covers the first three words of the film's title. The last two lurk around the edges of the story; as the film explains it, a zombie outbreak that swept through England has returned with a vengeance and threatens the future of the country.  Fortunately, the Bennet women are very well trained in fighting the undead, as is Riley's Darcy, who spends much of the film stabbing or bludgeoning things with sharp objects. Still the zombies, many of whom can speak and maintain their British mannerisms, are forming a master plan to take over London for good, and it might be up to James and Riley to stop it.

You'd figure adding the threat of the walking dead to this scenario would perhaps add a heightened sense of urgency to the proceedings; after all, any romantic moment has the potential to be curtailed easily by a surprise zombie bite. But “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” never takes expediency into account, leaving the audience to wait for the characters to finally reach the proverbial fireworks factory. The fact that reaching said goal often results in low-quality action sequences and poorly rendered zombie kills makes everything all the more disappointing.

“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is a rather frustrating film not because it has any real chance of being good – the premise and the February release date make that a high improbability – but because it does retain a chance to be interesting. Yet it rarely even rises to that level, with the genres conflicting so heavily the more appealing parts of both are lost in the process. Adding the zombie subplot cuts down on the amount of screen time afforded to the Bennet sisters, whereas the slow burn of the period drama sucks the life out of the zombie film (pun quasi-intended). Writer/director Burr Steers does have one scene where the two meld together, although it happens to be a moment with nary a zombie in sight.

The main issue is wide lacuna between the quality of the two films within “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” The Austen half is fine; it's hard to go too wrong with the “Pride and Prejudice” formula and there is a reason why the book is so revered. The zombie film, though, is dreadful, over-the-top and well-trod, relying too much on the novelty of the idea to carry it. The film especially rings hollow when the zombie-film dialogue infects the Austen-inspired prose, effectively eliminating whatever verisimilitude remains from the film universe. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” has two audiences it needs to serve, and its efforts to satisfy both renders the entire project as a silly, asinine pipe dream.

Review: Two and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 118 minutes (One hour and 48 minutes)

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Viewers searching for something tacky heading into Valentine’s Day.

Take the whole family?: Stick with the rating for this one; it has all sorts of blood and body parts splattering across the screen.

Theater or Netflix?: Might as well wait for it for the streaming options.

Does the film maintain its feminist bona fides?: On the surface it does; the women in it do defend themselves on a frequent basis, and it does pass the Bechdel Test. Then again, the female characters often lack complexity – the zombification removes vital character development for the Bennet sisters – and director Burr Steers' camera has a habit of ogling his female stars whenever possible. It's arguable and it would make for a fun essay, but I lean toward the film being more about objectification than independence.

Watch this instead?: “Shaun of the Dead” remains the highlight of the nascent and ill-explored RomZomCom genre, a wonderful mix of horror, comedy and romance with just a dash of British humor too . How's that for a slice of fried gold?