Anna and the Apocalypse (2018)

Anna and the Apocalypse is the kind of movie that sounds like a pitch meeting gone wrong. A Christmas zombie musical set in a Scottish high school, starring a cast of unknowns, based on a short film by a director who died before the feature could be made. On paper, it's a disaster. On screen, it's one of the most inventive genre films of the 2010s.

Directed by John McPhail and released in 2018, the film follows Anna (Ella Hunt), a teenager in the fictional town of Little Haven who is planning a gap year to Australia, much to her widowed father's dismay. Then the dead start walking, and Anna's post-graduation plans become significantly less relevant.

The Cast and Characters of Anna and the Apocalypse

Ella Hunt carries the film. She sings, fights, grieves, and jokes with equal conviction, and the fact that she was relatively unknown at the time makes the performance even more impressive. Anna is not the typical final girl of horror tradition. She's stubborn, sometimes selfish, and genuinely conflicted about her future. Hunt gives her enough texture that the musical numbers feel earned rather than forced.

Malcolm Cumming plays John, Anna's best friend who is hopelessly in love with her and too decent to say so at the wrong moment. Sarah Swire is Steph, a sharp-tongued American exchange student whose activist energy becomes surprisingly useful when civilization collapses. Christopher Leveaux and Marli Siu round out the friend group as Chris and Lisa, a couple whose relationship gets stress-tested by the undead.

The real scene-stealer is Paul Kaye as Mr. Savage, the school's power-hungry headmaster who uses the zombie outbreak as an excuse to build his own little authoritarian kingdom inside the school. Kaye plays him with a theatrical menace that fits perfectly in a musical. His solo number, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now," is the film's darkest and most entertaining sequence. Mark Benton brings quiet warmth as Anna's father Tony, stuck inside the school and separated from his daughter for most of the film.

Songs That Actually Earn Their Place

The music was composed by Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly, and the soundtrack is stronger than it has any right to be. "Hollywood Ending" opens the film as a full-cast ensemble number that establishes the small-town setting and teenage restlessness. "Turning My Life Around" is the film's most clever sequence: Anna and John walk to school singing an upbeat pop number about fresh starts while zombies shuffle past them unnoticed in the background. It's funny, perfectly staged, and sets the tone for everything that follows.

"It's That Time of Year" is a cheerful Christmas pop song performed by Marli Siu that could genuinely pass as a real holiday radio single. "Soldier at War" gives Ben Wiggins a surprisingly earnest ballad. And "Human Voice," a group number in the school library, hits a note of genuine emotion that the film earns through 45 minutes of careful character work.

Not every song lands with equal force. The film has 13 musical tracks, and a few feel like they exist because the genre demands a number at that point in the story rather than because the scene needs one. But the hit rate is high enough that the soundtrack works as a standalone listen.

Is Anna and the Apocalypse a Christmas Movie?

It is. The entire film takes place in the days leading up to Christmas. The school is rehearsing for a Christmas show. Decorations hang from every surface. "It's That Time of Year" is explicitly a Christmas pop song. The zombie outbreak happens on Christmas, and the contrast between holiday cheer and undead horror is not just set dressing. It's the whole point.

The film uses Christmas the same way Gremlins does: as a setting that amplifies the absurdity and the stakes. When someone gets bitten next to a light-up Santa, or when a zombie lurches through a tinsel-covered hallway, the juxtaposition does the comedic and dramatic heavy lifting. Strip away Christmas and you lose the film's identity entirely.

The Story Behind the Film

Anna and the Apocalypse exists because of Ryan McHenry, a Scottish filmmaker who wrote and directed a short called Zombie Musical in 2010 while studying at Edinburgh College of Art. The short was shot in five days at Dumfries High School and earned a BAFTA Scotland New Talent nomination for Best Director. McHenry began developing a feature-length version with screenwriter Alan McDonald and producer Naysun Alae-Carew.

In 2013, McHenry was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. He died in May 2015 at age 27. McHenry was also known on the internet for creating the viral Vine series "Ryan Gosling Won't Eat His Cereal." When McHenry died, Ryan Gosling posted his own Vine eating a bowl of cereal in tribute.

John McPhail took over as director, and the team shot the feature in early 2017 over five weeks in Port Glasgow, using a former school building as the primary location. The film premiered at Fantastic Fest in September 2017 and received a US theatrical release through Orion Pictures in November 2018. It holds a 77% score on Rotten Tomatoes and earned roughly $673,000 at the worldwide box office. Three different cuts of the film exist: the US theatrical version at 93 minutes, the international cut at 97 minutes, and a director's cut at 108 minutes that adds a darker song for Paul Kaye's character.

Where It Falls Short

The pacing wobbles in the second act. Once the characters are split into groups and making their way toward the school, the film settles into a cycle of walk, talk, fight, sing that loses some momentum. The zombie action itself, while serviceable, never reaches the inventiveness of the best horror comedies. The budget was modest, and it shows in the scale of the set pieces.

The tonal shifts can also be jarring. The film asks you to laugh at zombie kills one moment and then feel genuine grief the next, and not every transition sticks the landing. But when it works, the emotional whiplash is part of the appeal. The final act delivers consequences that a lazier film would have avoided, and the last musical number, "I Will Believe," is genuinely moving precisely because the film has the nerve to go dark.