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It’s a musical. It’s a Christmas story. It’s a zombie movie. Not usually three things you see mashed up together, but this is what this movie is. It was enough to get me to click the play button to watch the trailer. And yeah, despite it being a zombie movie, I wanted to go see it. I could only hope it would live up to the teaser, and that the comedy and songs would distract me from the potentially scary stuff.

My first concern, as with any new musical, was the music. For some reason, contemporary musicals just fail to really get me with any of their songs, and I usually forget the melodies by the time the last note fades. This one was hitting them out of the park each time. I found myself trying to memorize the lyrics while the song was still playing hahah! I very much enjoyed them, maybe one or two were a bit meh for me but overall I loved it. I plan to get the soundtrack when it becomes available. Which, apparently (thanks for looking it up Keith) will be at the same time as the official movie release, this Holiday Season.

I have too give a special mention to Sarah Swire, who played the role of Steph, and blew me away with her voice. I just wanted to hear her more. She was great in her role as well. But yes. Please sing more.

In the lead playing the title role of Anna was Ella Hunt, who was really easy to watch. She managed to make the character of a “I’m a pretty teenage white girl who’s good at everything without trying but my life sucks” somehow not infuriating to watch. The writers evidently gave the character some depth to begin with, but it still could have gone very wrong. She reminds me of a cross between a younger Anne Hathaway crossed with a bit of Emma Watson. So well done, Ella.

The movie as a whole really surprised me. It was enjoyable the whole way through, and believable in a way most zombie movies (the few I have seen, anyways) usually fail to be. Comedic timing was great, and the unexpected intense feels speckled throughout the story were powerful and real. On that note though, fuck you very much hahah! I was not prepared for feels of that magnitude, and the metal head dude sitting next to me for real started sniffling and wiping his eyes.

This is the other actor I feel needs a special mention. Paul Kaye in the role of Headmaster Savage. Because every zombie movie needs that one fucker who makes the apocalypse worse for everyone else, apparently. Paul brings it in spades. He looked so familiar to me the whole time I was watching him, I couldn’t place him. Turns out he played the lead in this old movie I loved, It’s all gone Pete Tong. He was super expressive in that as well. He was perfect, he made you want to slap him every time he opened his mouth.

So yes, I very much enjoyed this movie, and I will very likely take my boyfriend to see it when it hits theaters. And yes, the zombies did manage to scare me a bit… It doesn’t help that after watching it, I walked home in a thunderstorm and found my entire block was out of power.

Because of course it was.