Zombie Films

“Anna & the Apocalypse”

Released very early in the year, this is a Christmas musical with a zombie twist. If you were to combine High School Musical with Shaun of the Dead you would get this. The little town of Little Haven is celebrating the holidays, but a zombie apocalypse threatens to bring down the fun. It’s a cute premise that works for a while, but really runs dry after a while and gets bogged down by the inability to really develop its characters. The songs are cute and well performed by the cast led by Ella Hunt, but I think we needed more of them. The movie is short, but after the first 45 minutes or so, I was like, I get it and I’m getting bored.

Rating: (**1/2)

“The Dead Don’t Die””

Here is another comedy with a zombie twist, but this one has a lot more star power and isn’t a musical. I think a little music would’ve livened things up a bit because this is a really drab and dull film. Directed by Jim Jarmusch, he brings his sense of style to the genre and unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. It’s very slow and much of the humor is extremely dead pan. Bill Murray, a Jim Jarmusch regular, leads the cast as the sheriff and he seemed as bored as I was watching this. It came across to me as a vanity project by the director and the audience was feeding his whim. I know Jim Jarmusch can make some pretty great films (Stranger Than Paradise & Night on Earth), but this ain’t one of them.

Rating: (*1/2)