OVERLAY REPORT

In the 2017 musical horror-comedy *Anna and the Apocalypse*, the "secrets" characters keep are central to their development, often serving as metaphors for the anxieties of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. The following are the specific secrets and hidden motivations of the main characters: ### **1. Anna Shepherd (The Gap Year)** Anna’s primary secret is her plan to **take a gap year and travel to Australia** before starting university. She keeps this hidden from her widower father, Tony, who is a janitor at her school and expects her to follow a traditional educational path. The secret is revealed early in the film when her best friend, John, accidentally blurts it out during a car ride, leading to a major rift between Anna and her father just as the apocalypse begins. ### **2. John (Unrequited Love)** John, Anna’s best friend, is **secretly in love with her**. Throughout the first act, he struggles to find the right moment to confess his feelings. While Anna clearly cares for him, she only sees him as a "best pal." This subverts the "Nice Guy" trope: rather than a romantic payoff, the film uses his secret to highlight the reality that "Hollywood endings" rarely happen. Even when the world ends, his love remains unreciprocated, a fact they both eventually acknowledge. ### **3. Steph North (Identity and Abandonment)** Steph is an American transfer student who harbors a few interconnected secrets: * **Sexual Orientation:** She is a closeted lesbian. She mentions a "girlfriend" who won't spend Christmas with her, which is a source of significant emotional pain. * **Family Abandonment:** It is heavily implied that her parents moved to Mexico and essentially left her behind to fend for herself in Scotland. * **Social Justice Reporting:** She secretly works on a "subversive" social justice editorial titled "Forgotten at Christmas, Our Homeless Shame," which is suppressed by Vice Principal Savage. Her focus on the "homeless" serves as a secret metaphor for her own feelings of displacement and lack of a traditional home. ### **4. Nick (Trauma and the "Hunter" Persona)** Nick, the school bully and Anna’s former one-night stand, initially appears to be a one-dimensional "jerk." However, he is hiding a deep trauma: **his father was bitten by a zombie and asked Nick to kill him.** Nick reveals this secret to Anna late in the film, explaining why he seems to "enjoy" the carnage so much—he has rebranded himself as a "hunter" to mask the guilt and pain of having to kill his own parent. ### **5. Vice Principal Arthur Savage (Totalitarian Nihilism)** While Mr. Savage is the overt antagonist, his "secrets" lie in his mental state. He secretly views the students as "zombies" (metaphorical mindless sheep) long before the actual outbreak. His secret motivation is a **desperate need for total control**. When he realizes the world is ending, he abandons all pretenses of being an educator and intentionally lets zombies into the school to "thin the herd" and rule over the survivors as a tyrant. ### **6. Tony Shepherd (The Final Bite)** At the climax of the film, Anna’s father Tony keeps one final, tragic secret: **he has been bitten**. During his struggle with Mr. Savage, a zombie manages to bite him. He hides the extent of his injury for a few crucial moments to ensure Anna focuses on escaping the school rather than trying to save him, ultimately sacrificing himself so she can have the future she dreamed of.