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.
Comics
‘Spider-Noir’ Comic Changes Explained: How the TV Series Reinvents Marvel’s Darkest Spider-Man
A little while back, I wrote an article chronicling the Hellraiser franchise’s affinity for Film Noir and touched on how that genre has, historically, always been connected to horror.
This connection can be observed in everything from the cannibalistic serial killers of Frank Miller’s Sin City to the disturbing criminal plots fueling neo-noir thrillers like Stuart Gordon’s underrated King of the Ants. That’s why it came as no surprise when I finally sat down to watch all eight episodes of Prime Video’s recently released Spider-Noir series and was confronted with plenty of classic horror tropes.
What did come as a surprise, however, was how showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot approached these horror elements when compared to the 2009 comic book that the show is based on. From the heavily altered rogue’s gallery to an equally terrifying yet completely different origin story for Nicolas Cage’s take on the webslinger, there are plenty of changes here that I feel might be of interest to genre fans.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to take a closer look at all the adjustments that Spider-Noir made to the story in order to bring this incarnation of Spider-Man to life in all of its monochromatic glory (unless you watched the True-Hue color version of the show, in which case you’ll be treated to a surprisingly comic-booky palette that you don’t usually see on television).
The Dark Origins of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir
Our first order of business should be to examine the origins of the Noir comics themselves. Originally published as part of the Marvel Noir alternate universe that reimagined several characters as hard-boiled crime-fighters, Spider-Man Noir became the most successful book in the entire run. This highly politicized story about Peter Parker coming to terms with the capitalist evils of the Great Depression seemed to have struck a nerve with audiences looking for a darker take on the wall-crawler, which is likely why we’d soon see several sequel stories as well as a video game adaptation of the character in 2010’s underrated Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Of course, it wasn’t just Spider-Man’s darker disposition that made this version of the character a hit, as 1930s New York City was depicted as being much more hostile than what we generally see in the standard Marvel Universe. From Peter’s powers coming from an Eldritch Spider God that spawns man-eating arachnids to Vulture being an ex-Freak-Show Gimp with a taste for human flesh, you can definitely understand why this Web-Head isn’t pulling his punches.
Unfortunately, this alternate universe was a little too popular for its own good, with each subsequent sequel/adaptation further diluting the political anger and classic horror influences that fueled the original comic-book run in order to appeal to a wider audience. Spider-Man Noir was nearly unrecognizable once we got to the Spider-Verse crossover that turned the character into a household name, though this would at least lead to an interesting adaptation in 2018.
The Classic Horror Influences Hidden Throughout Spider-Noir
Jack Huston as Sandman in ‘Spider-Noir’
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally translated Spider-Man Noir to the big screen, with Nicolas Cage bringing the character to life in an unexpected case of pitch-perfect casting, he was still mostly relegated to comic relief as his nazi-punching antics and over-the-top edginess were played for laughs. However, while this version of the character had little to do with the comics that spawned him, Spider-Noir’s newfound popularity eventually resulted in the announcement of a darker live-action spin-off – a spin-off that I was cautiously optimistic about.
While the showrunners ultimately decided to go in a completely different direction than the 2009 comic, the new team of writers appeared to understand Noir as a genre in ways that even the folks at Marvel Noir couldn’t quite grasp. That’s likely why 2026’s Spider-Noir boasts plenty of horror elements, just not in ways we’ve seen them before.
The series is obviously borrowing tropes and aesthetics from period-accurate monster movies, with Universal’s 1930s output being a particularly big influence. From the re-imagining of Sandman and Tombstone as tragic figures to The Spider even being operated on by a mad scientist with hilariously antiquated techniques, this bizarre collection of super-powered freaks could have easily shown up in a classic creature feature.
The scares aren’t all retro, however, as the showrunners also injected plenty of body-horror into the mix during their attempt at unifying the origin stories for all these larger-than-life characters. Hell, the Spider himself is now revealed to have gained his powers after being bitten by a half-mutated Man-Spider during World War I, and the aforementioned mad scientist keeps a disturbing collection of failed experiments in her basement, proving that not all of her patients were lucky enough to simply gain superpowers after being experimented on.
Nicolas Cage Reinvents Spider-Man Noir for Television
Ben Reilly/Spiderman (Nicolas Cage) in SPIDER-NOIR
Photo: Aaron Epstein/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC
I also really appreciate how Cage insists on depicting Ben Reilly as an arachnid trapped inside of a human body, with his uncanny physical performance and classic Hollywood impressions keeping your eyes glued to the screen while also providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
I still think it’s a shame that the character is no longer politically motivated, and I miss the detail about Uncle Ben having been cannibalized by Vulture after his social activism ruffled too many feathers, but at least this time our protagonist actually feels like someone who could have been written by Raymond Chandler if he were a fan of Superheroes.
In fact, the writers nailed the snappy back-and-forth that Noir authors like Dashiel Hammett used to refer to as the “riposte”, and it’s fun to see supervillains being depicted as horrific movie monsters instead of specialized henchmen – with The Spider feeling like just as much of a Freak Show attraction as the rest of them. Purists might be put off by the lack of reverence for the source material, but I think that’s a small price to pay when even the show’s most clichéd moments intentionally harken back to the golden age of Hollywood.
That’s why I’d argue that Amazon’s Spider-Noir isn’t really an adaptation, but rather an equally valid take on the same premise that inspired Marvel back in 2009. And in a world filled with recycled storylines that only serve to advertise future releases, I’d rather have two completely different visions of the same character than a straight-up retelling of the same handful of ideas.
At the end of the day, there’s enough space inside this comic fan’s heart for both man-eating Vultures and a Cronenberg-inspired Man-Spider. And if you’re also a fan of nostalgic creature features with comic book flair, I’d highly recommend this street-level superhero story with a spooky twist.
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