One of the best performances comes from that of the school principal, Miss Strict played by none other than ‘90s pop icon RuPaul. She really gave one of those performances that really makes the viewer wonder why she isn’t in the more films, or at least on some preteen TV show?

It is Trick or Treat time again, and it seems that Apple Computers has decided that they will hand out a tasty free candy to all kids who use their iTunes software.

For the month of October, iTunes is letting people download a 60-minute film titled “Zombie Prom” in celebration of Halloween.

It’s nice that Apple is giving out some great fun-sized candy, instead of a really lame popcorn ball that one would expect to get from a major company around a holiday.

“Zombie Prom” is part parody and part tribute to great musicals like “Grease”. The film follows a simple ‘50s plotline in which a rebellious youth enrolls in perfect and pristine school, he falls in love with the perfect school girl, then kills himself because he can’t have her—OK so it’s not as much from the Sock Hop, but it does well to evoke nostalgic feeling of the era in which it was though that a Formica desk could save you from nuclear fall out.

It’s not the greatest of modern musicals, but it’s horrible either. It instead falls somewhere in between, parts were great parts were off, but over all well worth the few minutes it takes to download.

Musicals have come a long way since the golden age of cinema. They survived for quite a long time, then fell from grace, surviving in only the weakest of forms (the children’s animated feature) but in the past half decade or so they have made a resurgence.

But these new musicals are all flash and fancy. They lost the wholesome goodness that “Zombie Prom” actually brings back.

It’s filled with music of all styles; songs are very quick and pass almost too fast, while other songs strongly evoke the melodies of yesterday. It is really unfortunate that some songs are less than a minute. If they were longer, this film would be great.

The lighting of the film really helps evoke the golden age of musicals. Everything is so bright and warm that even the zombie is loveable.

This zombie may be lovable in his Fonzie-esque grace, but he’s not all that believable as the living dead. The main and only reason for this is that the green rotting flesh that covers his whole body seems to have missed his lips. Nothing is more distracting than his big bright red lips that pulse with the life pumping through the actors dancing heart.

The acting in the film is strange; it’s not too cheesy, but yet not real enough, the actor all take themselves with a grain of salt. They know they are making a film about a zombie that sings, so they have fun with it.

One of the best performances comes from that of the school principal, Miss Strict, played by none other than 90’s pop icon RuPaul. She really gave one of those performances that really makes the viewer wonder why she isn’t in the more films, or at least on some preteen TV show?

But, then again I don’t think that Disney or Nickelodeon would like all the controversy that having a cross-dressing lifestyle advocate as a regular would bring from families that think that that kind of lifestyle is better left to the U.S. Congress.

Speaking of Congress, the film also pays tribute to the golden age of comics, where stories about zombies and other monsters were prevalent, before the Comic Code was created to prevent children from being harmed by such filth.

The film uses some very nice editing between live footage and comic stills to tell the story. There is even pop up word bubble to emphasize lines in songs with adds a very nice comic book touch.

Overall the film brings all its crazy components together fairly nicely. It does have the possibility to become a cult classic, or at least become a performance from a small-town community-acting troupe next year at this time.

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