When the zombie apocalypse comes to Little Haven, Anna (Ella Hunt) and her friends have to fight and sing their way to safety.

Anna and the Apocalypse is a relatively low budget film that I missed on release in 2017 due to its small cinema distribution but was absolutely delighted to stumble upon on Sky Cinema.

The film covers many bases. It is set at Christmas, features a zombie apocalypse, is a comedy and a musical. And thanks to a committed cast, fun script, good songs and many visual gags it absolutely hits the mark as far as feel good fun goes.

The film seemingly owes a lot to Shaun of the Dead and it is a wonder whether the scene set to “Don’t Stop Me Now” may have set off the spark for this film. Just like Shaun, Ella spends quite some time oblivious to the impending zombie apocalypse happening around her with one particular stand out musical number having her walk down her street with headphones oblivious to the chaos ensuing behind her. The film also features some hilarious zombie deaths as well as some that are direct homages to other zombie films.

Musically the film really excels as well. With a bunch of original songs that go into the hopes and fears of being a teenager on the verge of leaving school. All of the leads with perhaps the exception of Paul Kaye manage their songs admirably, with the stand outs being Ella Hunt and Marli Siu who gets to sing a particularly funny rendition of a Christmas song.

Given our current times it was a little jarring to see in the background the fact that the planet appears to be afflicted by a flu pandemic and lockdowns have been imposed. Hopefully we will not end up with zombies running around as well, but I suppose if we all start breaking out into song and being as funny as this film is it would be a little more bearable.