A ZOMBIE musical made in Scotland is set to be “this generation’s Gremlins”, according to its director.

John McPhail’s Anna and The Apocalypse sees a group of high school students sing, dance and crush the skulls of zombies as they attempt to spend Christmas with their loved ones.

On general release on November 30, the highly entertaining film features show-stopping dance routines set to songs by Scots musicians Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly, and is based on a script written by Alan McDonald and Ryan McHenry.

McHenry was originally intended as the director of Anna and The Apocalypse, which is based on his 2011 short film Zombie Musical, but the Dumfries-born director passed away in 2015 at the age of 27.

At the time McHenry was known for his humorous viral videos Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal and the Hollywood actor, who made a tribute to McHenry shortly after his death, gets a shout-out in the big-hearted movie.

“I sadly never met Ryan,” says McPhail, who explains that the late filmmaker’s friends chose him to direct Anna and The Apocalypse upon seeing his first feature Where Do We Go From Here?

“It’s not a traditional Scottish film; it’s a romantic comedy, a coming-of-age film,” he says. “They said they expected it to be a bit twee but came along and loved it. They said they had been looking for directors but hadn’t found the right fit. When they saw Where Do We Go From Here, they thought: ‘That’s the kind of thing we want.’”

Shot in and around Port Glasgow in the biting-cold January of 2017, Anna and The Apocalypse shares elements of romcom and John Hughes-style teen drama as well as big showbiz numbers and plenty of blood-splattering gore.

In one stand-out scene, Anna (surefire future star Ella Hunt) and her best pal John (Malcolm Cumming) make their way to school, singing about how great it is to be alive. Headphones plugged into their lugs, they are each oblivious to the zombie apocalypse breaking around them. Rather than be terrifying, it’s a comical, slapstick sequence which is laugh-out-loud funny.

There’s plenty more humour to be found in macabre headmaster Mr Savage (played by Paul Kaye, known to many as his alter ego Dennis Pennis), a lewd version of Santa Baby sung by budding cabaret singer Lisa (Marli Siu) and in the biting quips of the teen team, especially those of Steph, a politically asute American left to try and enjoy Christmas in the small Scottish town on her own.

She’s played by Sarah Swire, another star-in-the-making in a cast which also features Christopher Leveaux as Lisa’s film geek boyfriend and Mark Benton as Tony, Anna’s recently widowed dad.

For all the gore and daftness, Anna and the Apocalypse is grounded in real-life emotion, its characters facing credible dilemmas and the prospect of loss.

Remarkably for a film which seems to mash as many genres as it does zombie heads, the tone never feels grating or inappropriate.

“It was never going to be an out-and-out horror,” says McPhail. “My transitions are very important to me, and what you are trying to do is to signal things to your audience, take them with you. So when Anna and are John are running out the door, there are all those horror tropes that don’t go anywhere. That’s me saying: ‘All you horror fans, get ready, we’re going into horror mode’ but it’s funny, it’s not there to scare you.”

The real horror aspect, McPhail says, comes in the movie’s final act.

“By that time, the shit is really hitting the fan,” he says. “We know the characters’ ambitions and dreams and desires; you’ve laughed with them and almost cried with them, and now you are terrified for them. That was always my plan, to try to juggle those genres.”

McPhail says it was vital to him that Anna and the Apocalypse was a collaborative effort involving all cast and crew. Made for a very modest £1.5 million, it looks incredible, thanks partly to Sara Deane’s sharp photography and meticulous production design by Ryan Clachrie.

It’s dedicated to the memory of McHenry, and the late filmmaker’s co-writer Alan McDonald was on hand to advise McPhail.

“I wanted him there,” the director says. “On the day when I got the job, Alan handed me a copy of the script and said: ‘Here you are, it’s yours now, bye.’ I said: ‘Na mate, this isn’t how this works. It’s me and you, we do this together.’”

Before filming began McPhail phoned each member of the cast, which he hand-picked himself.

“I wanted to tell each of them that this was a collaborative process,” he says. “I said: ‘I want you to come in on that first day of rehearsals and we’re going to talk about this and we’re going to talk about that. I want you to go away and think.’”

He adds: “These amazing kids – I call them kids but they’re all in their 20s – were incredible. I used to just beam. The moment they were on set there was this little bolt of energy. They themselves have so much to be proud of.”

The group of friends may not be household names just now, but McPhail says he’s hopeful that will change. “When I pitched the film I was like: ‘I want this to be this generation’s Gremlins,’” he says. “I want this to be that Christmas movie that you put on because you’re sick of watching the Muppets’ Christmas Carol or It’s A Wonderful Life. Though it’s a little bit of the anti-Christmas movie, it’s still Christmassy, it’s still special.”

Anna and The Apocalypse (Cert TBA) is on general release on November 30