Editorials
Just. Keep. Moving. Existential Angst With ‘Anna and the Apocalypse’
Aside from, say, my literal face, you’d have better luck finding a working Ninja Baseball Batman arcade cabinet than something uglier than 2020 and, unfortunately, the beginning moments of this new year. If you took a hint from my smidge of self-deprecating humor there, you’d also take no surprise in knowing I’m a masochist, apparently. I say that because this year — of all the years, holy crap — I chose to watch Anna and the Apocalypse for the first time, and a second time rather recently. Some would say this isn’t the greatest decision one could make during these trying times, and those people would theoretically be right.
Although, as it turns out, Anna and the Apocalypse is a lot more complicated — and a refreshing change-up for its genre — of a movie than its title, and synopsis, might suggest. For one thing, it’s a zombie/musical hybrid; picture it like Zombieland crossed with The Prom. But while that sounds tantalizing enough on its own, it’s actually a bit misleading. While it claims to be something more jovial and irreverent on the surface — which it certainly is, to a degree — the film is shockingly morbid and devastating in all the most profound ways.
The story is fairly simple: Anna (Ella Hunt) is on the verge of finishing her last semester before going off to study at university before a zombie plague breaks out and sends the town, and the rest of the country, into chaos. Anna and her crew of friends find themselves stuck in the middle of full-blown zombie anarchy, featuring musical numbers, run-ins with douchey guys you’re not exactly on good terms with, and plenty of the ole’ zombie smashing. Hey, Anna even ends up using a candy cane prop as her weapon of choice in the slaying! Fun! Sure, it’s a dire situation, but who amongst us hasn’t ever romanticized the idea of warding off zombies with our friends?
But then there’s, well, everything else. In Anna and the Apocalypse, one minute you’re watching a genuine banger of a zombie-killing-musical-montage, and before you know it Anna’s best friend is being mauled to death just before he can express the feelings he has for her. It’s shocking, exceedingly sad, and somewhat abrupt — but not necessarily in a bad way. Nearly the entire movie is filled with moments like these. Encased within its shell of jovial musical aesthetic and disregard for the rules is a tale that feels vulnerable; it feels a lot like an allegory for what it’s been like these last several months trying our best to keep pushing forward even as the world burns around us.
We — us internet folk, especially — often make jokes about the atrocities that life launches our way as some sort of safety mechanism. In a literal pandemic, and a literal storming of the US Capitol building, one only needs to log onto that blue bird app and you’ll be greeted by any number of funny posts that’ll distract you from the potential atrophy your mental state is undergoing. The pessimistic among us might say only the most privileged and unaffected of people could produce, or appreciate, humor during times like these, but that’s probably a bit unfair. Humor is comforting, and necessary, man. In real life, we have the internet and memes, and in Anna and the Apocalypse, there’s musical cheer. They’re distractions, but sometimes that’s all there is.
There’s one scene, in particular, that might resonate with this the most. Early on in the film, Anna and her friends camp out inside of a bowling alley just after the outbreak has truly started kicking off. As the night goes on, the group watches through the window as the army begins to move in, bombing the town to oblivion in an effort to keep things under control, all accompanied by a musical number. It’s a surreal, almost resplendent, sequence of characters standing by as the world is literally on fire. Yet the beauty of it, is that’s all the characters can do — that ever-familiar feeling of helplessness that sometimes, just as the crew does, you’re forced to simply go to bed and attempt to keep chugging along through.
By the end of Anna and the Apocalypse, nearly all of the gang is dead — including Anna’s own father, who she had been searching for the entire movie — and we’re left with the unlikely trio of Anna, her douchey one-night-stand pal Nick (Ben Wiggins), and Steph (Sarah Swire), who’s barely close with either of them, driving off, completely beaten-down, mortified, and unaware of what this horrible timeline has in store for them next. Getting to the end of 2020 was a lot like that. You’re (hopefully) not giving up, but it’s hardly an upbeat affair. The pain is still there, in spite of all cheerfulness you try to muster, and it sends a message about what it’s like living with tragedy and how, sometimes, all you can do is keep moving. Will it get better? Hopefully, yes, but that’s hardly even the point.
I consider myself a misunderstood ghoul; often times people are surprised and perplexed by what movies I find to be the most depressing. Sure, I’ve cried after watching any number of sad moments, from the ending of A Star is Born to Avengers: Endgame, but that’s different than the depressingly sad reality that the totality of this zombie/musical hybrid created. A movie that seems to be connecting to something deeper — something more real, almost in an exceptionally ordinary way — is what’s toughest for me. It sticks with you, because of how unceremonious it all feels.
Deciding to watch Anna and the Apocalypse this year, of all times, made for an incredibly depressing experience. It broke me; it chewed up my naïve and presumptuous self and spit me out onto the street to be run over; it enveloped whatever little serotonin I had with a dark fog of dread. In a way, it was as surprising, and relentless, of a movie experience as any I’ve had this year. It channels that feeling of existential angst we all have when witnessing the atrocities of the world more than its happy-go-lucky exterior would have you believe. But, at the same time, it also made the experience all the more powerful, and, unfortunately, relevant.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
You must be logged in to post a comment.