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Movie review: Anna and the Apocalypse

23 Sunday Dec 2018

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All I saw were the words Christmas zombie horror musical and I said to myself, “I’m in!”
It may sound like a strange combination, but to this deranged and perhaps delusional genre fan, it screamed potential cult flick and a must see, but would it live up to the buzz or flatline?

Based on the BAFTA award winning short film, Zombie musical by Ryan McHenry (which is actually kind of awesome too and I’ll post a youtube clip of it at the foot of the review for those that are interested) and adapted to feature length by director John McPhail, who does his best to draw out the apocalyptic harmonies with drama, and twinges of gore.

Anna and the Apocalypse’s greatest strength is not just the upbeat music among the bloodlust, but the beating heart of its central characters. There is plenty of time spent building on their backgrounds that by the time things inevitably go wrong you actually give a damn about their survival.

Central to the characters is the titular Anna played by Ella Hunt, who dreams of getting far away from the dead Scottish town of Little Haven, only to awaken to a zombie outbreak and must fight tooth and nail to not only survive but reach those she had tried so desperately to leave behind – her friends and family.

In support is a cracker of a cast in the best friend who keeps hanging onto the hopes of winning Anna’s heart, John (Malcolm Cumming) who incidentally has some of the best lines in the movie; the star-crossed lovers, Chris (Christopher Leveaux) and Lisa (Marli Siu); Anna’s ex and complete tool, Nick (Ben Wiggins); and Anna’s father, Tony (Mark Benton).

Stand out performances though come from Paul Kaye (most notable of late in HBO’s Game of Thrones as Thoros of Myr) as the slightly unhinged headmaster, and looks like he hasn’t this much fun on-screen since his Dennis Pennis days; also relative unknown Sarah Swire, who plays a lesbian outcast editor of the school newspaper. She nails this role with her cross of stifled, uncomfortable social behaviour, combined with grit and “bad-ass” zombie killing action.

If I were to hurl any criticism at this film though, it’s that Anna doesn’t bring enough of that grit herself to the fight, and despite being described by her friends as “always finding a way out of things”, she rarely does and often relies on those friends to get her out of a jam. That’s not to say that Hunt doesn’t execute her role well, because she does. Just some more time and care spent on the writing, could have lifted her character to greater heights.
The other sticking point for me is that the comedy whilst worth the odd-chuckle, never reaches Shaun of the Dead style humour. If the wit had been that little bit sharper, we could have well had a movie that would have easily verged on classic status.

The Diagnosis:

The thought of a musical may have some of you running for the hills, but Anna and the Apocalypse is a well-crafted film that embraces its characters before ripping out their bleeding hearts to the sounds of pop-infused drama and soul that make this a thoroughly enjoyable movie.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Patient Zero

17 Monday Dec 2018

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It felt for a while that this film would be in a permanent state of flux and never be released. Generally this never bodes well for its production values and overall receptiveness.

While it doesn’t necessarily blow your mind, Patient Zero does stand taller than your average straight-to-video release.

A lot of this has to do with its lead Matt Smith, a still underrated actor who is perpetually trying to shake his EleventhDoctor (Doctor Who) persona that lifted him to the spotlight. As it so happens, this film was supposed to pave his way into distancing himself from his iconic role and enter the film industry. Thankfully Smith landed another role that he has made his own as Prince Philip in The Crown in the interim.

All this is background fodder to Smith’s career path, but the fact that Patient Zero faltered in its cinema release shouldn’t deter people away from watching it, as it is a fairly stable narrative with enough of its own identity in an already clouded zombie horror genre.

Smith plays Morgan, a guy who was caught in his car with his wife when the outbreak occurs and lynched upon by the infected. Both he and his wife were bitten, but somehow, Morgan didn’t turn and is now able to communicate with the infected as a result.

Now holed up in a base that contains survivors and is run by the military in a Day of the Dead style scenario, Morgan utilises his gift to interrogate the infected with the curious aid of classic vinyls. (Apparently music has an intense effect on the psyche of the infected and as such Morgan uses this as a form of torture device in order to get information.) The aim is to find and locate patient zero and to snuff out the virus in order to save humanity.

Smith is an affable leading man and holds his own both physically and mentally on screen, with plenty of decent dialogue to chew on, allowing him the freedom to move and play with his role, including a love triangle between his wife, (still alive, but quarantined) and virologist Dr. Rose, portrayed by Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer.

Comedy support is brought in the form of fellow GOT actor John Bradley and the steely, play-it-by-the-book Colonel Knox (Clive Standen) channeling Rhodes with every ounce of determination to shut down the testing facility, brings the early inner conflict to the team.

It’s the arrival of Stanley Tucci however when things get really interesting. Tucci is The Professor, an infected zombie brought in for questioning but appears to be immune to all the known tricks. He hams it up to the nth degree, but delightfully keeps it under the right side of believability and feeds off Smiths lines effortlessly.

His arrival spells a significant turning point in the movie and propels the drama on to a suitable conclusion that mildly satisfies.

The Diagnosis:

It’s an apocalyptic zombie survival movie that offers enough of a difference to make it worth a watch, but doesn’t deliver enough bite to keep you salivating, slipping all to easily into safe and predictable territory.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Overlord

06 Thursday Dec 2018

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From Iron Man to Iron Man II, throw an AC/DC track on a film trailer, and it automatically makes it awesome.
That appears to be incontrovertible, and the extra cool thing is, as a band they have been around for so long, they are practically their own genre.
Which means you could make another 10 trailers for 10 separate films using 10 different Acca Dacca songs, and they would all be fierce!
And this is even taking into account that they’d all sound the same…. but not really… (but yeah really. Ish).

Anyway, this brings us to the JJ Abrams produced WW2 horror film Overlord, which – as just mentioned; because of its soundtrack alone – appears to promise much. But does it deliver hells bells or more dirty deeds done dirt cheap?

The rumour that it was a Cloverfield prequel (which is bound to happen if the words “horror” and “Abrams” are mentioned in the same sentence) is a nice one, but not really warranted.

For a start, the Big Bad is pretty much as you’d expect based on the afore-mentioned trailer (zombies born of science!) so thematically we’re not talking space Godzilla.

Plus, the one thing that ties Cloverfield and Cloverfield Lane (I think it’s safe to say we’re all retconning Paradox out of our collective memory) is that they are brilliantly constructed and well unfolded films – they both keep moving at a real page-turning pace.

And that’s where Overlord falls down. Its opening 15 mins IS breathtaking – although it is spoiled just a tad by the fact Tom Cruise already sort of did it in Edge of Tomorrow (ie: airdrop on a war zone ahead of schedule due to plane-blowing-‘upage’).

But from there it gets a little bogged down in pace by not really giving you anything that keeps you guessing, or shouting “sick twist bro!” in your head.

In fact, from this point onwards the tension is fine but not seizure-inducing – and the filmmakers decision to spend time on some character interaction (as opposed to not jumping straight into the next action piece) is to be commended.

overlord flame torch

But before too long you do find yourself wishing it’d get on with it.

When it does it’s not exceptionally ground breaking – although the tension and scares are certainly there. And there is one more moment that you’ll be YouTubing for years to come, as it’s an awesome scene. But apart from that you are left with a taste of this-could-be-great-but-it’s-definitely-under-cooked…. parmigiana.
And that’s just good chicken that (whilst good) will let you down.

If you do see this movie, give it an IMAX level viewing (or if it lines up in your neck of the woods – 4DX) because trust me,the louder this film is when you see it, the better your ride will be.

The Diagnosis:

Although not terrible, it definitely could have done with another layer of messed up, or one more smart idea, or just some good old fashion clever dialogue.
From that point of view, Dead Snow was a better Nazi Zombie movie.

  • Antony Yee