A washed-up musician teams up with a teacher and a kids show personality to protect young children from a sudden outbreak of zombies.

Little Monsters from writer-director is a surprisingly hilarious and heartfelt Zombie movie. I bet you never thought you would read that sentence. It’s weird, I get it. Not since Shaun of the Dead has there been such a consistently uproarious zombie movie. What’s more, they add the cutesy element of kindergarteners!

Our film opens with snarky man-child and loser musician Dave (Alexander England) as he and his girlfriend appear to be what is an endless argument/battle. At dinners, in the store, while driving, these two hate each other. After a particularly bitter argument, Dave lands on his sister Sara’s (Nadia Townsend) couch, only to be awakened the next morning by his 5-year-old nephew Felix (Diesel La Torraca), staring at him curiously.

The two actually hit it off wonderfully and, in an effort to help his sister, Dave begins taking his nephew to school in the mornings where he meets the stunning Miss Caroline (Lupita Nyong’o). Falling for his Felix’s teacher, Dave agrees to help chaperone a class field trip to the Pleasant Valley Farm petting zoo. Unfortunately said zoo just so happens to be located 5 m’s from a U.S. Military base conducting experiments on reanimation.

Before you know it, the base is overrun with flesh-eating zombies and it is up to Miss Caroline and Dave to keep the children calm, and above all, safe. Thrown into the mix is grating Teddy McGiggle (Josh Gad). A children’s show, TV celebrity who’s true colors show once disaster strikes. Mayhem ensues and the ruse of it all being a game gets played out as Dave and Caroline work together to keep the children safe and escape the farm. To make matters worse, the military’s solution to the matter is to bomb the farm. Will Dave, Miss Caroline, Felix, and his classmates escape before the impending destruction?

Abe Forsythe’s script is consistently funny, occasionally uproarious, and remarkably disciplined in its structure and plot points. It efficiently establishes our flawed hero, the angelic and innocently mysterious Miss Caroline, and a savage sense of humor, then it gets right into the action. The teacher, the kids, the man-child, and the TV star are trapped in a gift shop, banding together and fighting against the hordes.

As the angelic Miss Caroline, Nyong’o is superb. Showing her comedy chops, she entertains the kids with renditions of Taylor Swift songs on her Ukelele one minute and bounds through hordes of zombies to fetch a backpack the next.  Alexander England is a brooding anti-hero with exquisite comedic timing and an endearing charm. Then there are the kids. None are allowed to become caricatures of brats, but are kept innocent, funny, and even unknowingly clever at times.

Seriously, Little Monsters was a slapstick, tongue-in-cheek, zombie comedy that fulfilled all of its obligations and then some. Gut-busting humor, stomach-churning gore, and a story that pays of and how.