A kindergarten trip to a petting farm is gatecrashed by a zombie outbreak in this Australian zom-com, or perhaps a zoombie movie.

You don’t have to be Edgar Wright to understand that even in comedies, you have to shoot the zombie sequences like horror. And yet this is the third film this year with a zombie’s grasp on such a basic principle, underserving the undead moments and failing to follow through on its kindergarten vs. zombies premise. Writer/director Abe Forsythe compensates with plenty of inappropriate (ie. Australian) humour, some of which works and some of which is a psychotic children’s entertainer played by Josh Gad.

The kids do provide a degree of charm missing from Zombieland 2 and The Dead Don’t Die, energised by likeable performances from Alexander England and Lupita Nyong’o as the kindergarten teacher so competent she’s basically Blue Peter Nyong’o (though her teaching method of playing Taylor Swift songs on a ukulele should be cause for suspension). It’s odd that such a low-budget Aussie flick was able to afford Nyong’o and Taylor Swift songs, given the singer’s notorious commercialism. In any case, One Cut of the Dead did more with less.

Little Monsters is a passable little Ghoul of Rock ditty about the superhuman power of those who teach little kids, even if it is as one-note as Taylor Swift.