Back to the Apotheosis in Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals 2025 Remount

The apocalyptic implications

My friends asked if I wanted to watch The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals for my birthday last week. I did, and by some wonderful luck, the Remount version from 2025 dropped officially on Youtube. It was a perfect birthday present, especially to show people who hadn’t gotten into Hatchetfield lore yet.

I’ve written about *The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals before, a horror parody where the title character finds himself trapped in an alien zombie apocalypse where the zombies sing and dance around him. If you like musical theater, this show is a love letter. I used to find it super dour, especially compared to the second musical in the trilogy Black Friday*, but these days it feels comforting.

The team doesn’t just up the budget and production value while keeping most of the original cast. Production also makes longtime Hatchetfield fans question the franchise’s multiple timelines.

I will be talking about the original and Remount version, so try to watch both on YouTube, where Team Starkid has made them available, if you haven’t already. This is your SPOILER warning.

A Very Strange Loop and Journey

Like I covered in an article last year, the trailer for the Remount hints that we aren’t just seeing a post-pandemic update of the show. Paul finds himself predicting his coworkers’ questions and statements, feeling a sense of deja vu. He goes, “Oh no” with his love interest Emma after realizing this has all happened before and will happen again. It hints that this staging isn’t just improving on eight years of worldbuilding. We’re also seeing a show that plays over and over again.

What practical changes emerge? We have more consistency regarding the Hatchetfield lore; the musical eldritch being causing the apocalypse is named Pokotho, and he only wants other beings, planets and star systems to reflect his voice. While the script mainly remains the same as it did in 2018, so Pokotho doesn’t appear, the meteorite bearing his zombie curse mimics his face.

Why the hints in the trailer? Is it suggesting that we are seeing the story of Pokotho conquering humanity over and over again? Is his ego that big? (According to Nightmare Time? Yes, it is that big.)

What does the loop theory mean? The answers may cover some questions I had about the original staging.

How Much Remains of the Original Characters?

Professor Henry Hidgens asserts that as soon as someone sings, they die. The zombies assimilate them. Paul fights back the whole time after singing, pulling the pin on a grenade to blow up the meteor, hoping it will stop the invasion. Still, we find out that it wasn’t enough, and Pokotho turns him into a singing leading man, a form of personal hell for the original Paul.

The Remount hints that the original personalities can appear, if only for a brief moment. Nora’s husband Sam battles his body when she begs him to stop singing and talk to her, while Paul’s boss Mr. Davidson finds himself unable to speak to his wife about a sexual fantasy he was compelled to sing about in front of a freaked-out Paul. If this is the case, then Pokotho is torturing the original humans further by making them believe they are going through the motions before starting the story again. He keeps a tiny fragment of their real selves alive.

On the flip side, the Remount also shows that the zombies can force others to participate. The original stage musical had the living characters stare at the singing and dancing, while in the new one everyone has to move their feet. Such brainwashing adds to the horror of this show being on loop.

Related to that thought…

Did Emma Die?

The original musical left it ambiguous if the Hive killed Emma at the end of the show or left her alive to torture her. While the creators believe this is the case, canon doesn’t confirm it. She’s the last human standing as far as we know, and the singing didn’t change her. The question is why they healed her leg, since letting Emma bleed out would have assimilated her sooner.

I had always assumed that Emma was kept as a sort of trophy. The last human on Earth not assimilated, who retains her mind but finds everyone she knows turned into a singing zombie. It’d be the worst possible fate, getting reminders of how she failed to stop an apocalypse.

Emma is more likely dead in the Remount. Why? Because she appears in the opening chorus with the same wardrobe and hairstyle as she does during the finale. The Emma we see in the show, like everyone else, probably imitates her last moments while alive if the aliens don’t allow that original personality to resurface.

What Is (And Isn’t) Inevitable

The loop theory hints that Pokotho’s ego might do him in, considering other characters can possibly access the Hatchetfield multiverse. Black Friday had General MacNamara insist that if one timeline gets saved, then all of them do. There is a chance to stop the loop if that scenario happens, and bring back everyone who dies. Hadestown has the same hope, that Hermes retells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to find one version where Orpheus doesn’t turn around too early.

Paul and Emma couldn’t find their happy ending in this world. No one could, except Pokotho. But maybe, the more times that the audience watches the show, the closer that another Hatchetfield timeline comes to saving this one.

So let’s press that Play button when you feel ready. Watch Paul fight these zombies again. It may be the last time he has to do it.