Collected Item: “The Palimpsest of Anna and the Apocalypse: Film Parody and the Changing Depiction of Zombie Outbreaks”
First Name
Kyle
Last Name
Bishop
Department
English
Title of scholarly or creative work
The Palimpsest of Anna and the Apocalypse: Film Parody and the Changing Depiction of Zombie Outbreaks
Please add the abstract if submitting a scholarly work, or detailed description if submitting a creative work.
As zombies become increasingly ubiquitous, one might ask the question posed by Edgar Wright in his 2006 film Shaun of the Dead: if a zombie outbreak were to occur in real life, would anyone even notice? John McPhail provides one answer to this question in his zombie high-school musical, Anna and the Apocalypse (2017), by parodying the morning of the zombie outbreak. Wrapped up in a musical number made possible by self-absorption and noise-canceling earbuds, the titular Anna blithely sings and dances her way to school (via a noteworthy cemetery), completely ignorant of the chaos around her, a biting satire of the tech-fueled isolation of modern teenagers. By mashing up high-school dramas, romantic comedies, movie musicals, and Christmas films with a zombie narrative, McPhail uses comedic parody to make the subgenre exciting and new once more. Taking a memorable sequence from Shaun of the Dead and expanding it into a feature-length film, Anna and the Apocalypse not only reinvents the stereotypical “zombie outbreak sequence” but also offers scathing cultural criticism about contemporary teen life and high-school communities.
Primary Author or Creator
Kyle William Bishop
Citation (if applicable)
Bishop, Kyle William. “The Palimpsest of Anna and the Apocalypse: Film Parody and the Changing Depiction of Zombie Outbreaks.” Science Fiction Film and Television, vol. 19, no. 1, 2026, pp. 1–21.
Access rights
Copyrighted
Type of item
Scholarship
Publisher (if applicable)
Liverpool University Press
Web Link or DOI to work (if available)
https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/sfftv.2026.1