Director: John McPhail
Year: 2018
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
Trying to prepare for a Christmas program, a group of high-school students put off by their teachers' attempts to prepare them for the outside world is suddenly confronted by a massive viral outbreak unleashing a horde of flesh-eating zombies upon the community and must try to get away alive.
Review:
There was quite a lot to really enjoy with this one. Among the better aspects on display comes from the exceptionally fun and enjoyable setup that provides this with a solid central group of characters. Focusing on the miserable nature of their existence in the town with overbearing teachers pushing their agendas on students or attempting to curtail their sense of fun to spruce up the Christmas pageant, their desire to remain free and independent allows for a great deal of sympathy to emerge on the students. The musical montages and dances throughout here carry this along quite nicely by helping to enhance their likability that much more not just with some catchy tunes but also allowing for a connection with them to understand their plight to further the films' rather adept growing-up storyline.
That allows for a solid setup to generate the films’ highly-effective and cheesy zombie encounters. Trading not just on the goofy such as the opening encounter through the streets where her song-and-dance routine is the cause of her being unaware of the chaos around the community, but the later encounters at the bowling alley or the public roadway where they meet up with the roving gang of military students offer up somewhat more serious takes on these types of encounters. The finale where they return to the school to face off with the hordes left behind and confront the ravenous creatures but also the last remaining human villain carries on the fun with some suspenseful sequences, a slew of creative and inventive deaths dished out to both parties and featuring plenty of great gore for these as well as the great make-up on the zombies themselves. Overall, these factors combine together for a lot to like about it.
There are some minor issues at play here that do creep up in this one. The main drawback is the film’s rather obvious instances where it lacks any form of common sense to put a major sequence into motion. The setup with the headmaster running the school is the major one, with his whole plan contingent on the students returning which he would have no way of knowing that they’d show up or had even survived. The whole setup would have made no sense had he set everything in motion without the group appearing later on, much like a strange remark uttered about the military being around. This setup was initially offered as a potential backup plan for their escape and we get nothing about it at all which is a bit underwhelming, which all combined are the issues holding it down
Overview: ****/5
A spirited and highly entertaining holiday-themed zombie/comedy, that there’s not much really holding it down which mostly stems from barely problematic factors anyway makes this one a fantastic hybrid of styles. Those who are intrigued due to the varying forces brought together or are fans of any of the different elements within this will have a lot to like here while only those that find themselves turned off by any of the features here should heed caution.
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