Road of the Dead

Before the multitude of the crappy zombie movies you've seen lately, back in the day in 1992, Australia was producing a zombie movie that remains cool even today, made by a little known New Zealander called Peter Jackson. It mixed zombies with comedy, original ideas and wacky Aussie characters.

23 years later Wyrmwood is an obvious homage to Braindead, but adding a few elements of its own. The main character, almost a dead ringer for Bruce Campbell in The Evil Dead, is trying to get to his sister's place in the middle of a zombie plague. Not only are there zombies everywhere, but petrol has become not flammable. The only solution: rig a car to the gasses that zombies breath out and make an armored truck running on zombies. Meanwhile, the sister is being captured by sadistic psychopath military types in order to experiment on her.

There are many references to cult films, like The Evil Dead and Mad Max, and the ending of the film leaves a lot of place for sequels. This is not a perfect film, but considering that it is an Australian zombie movie made with unknown actors and probably a low budget, there was no chance it could have been. Instead we are treated to a wonderfully original film, made by people who clearly enjoyed playing with the genre and love the same movies that we do.

Bottom line: more than anything, this is a fun film. If you liked Braindead or The Evil Dead you will like this one as well. It opens an interesting idea, also used in the season finale of Z Nation, of the zombie whisperer. People die or live based on luck more than anything and it is refreshing to see this in an era when nobody ever dies, for fear of antagonizing the viewers. I recommend it, I enjoyed watching the film!

Wow! Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is a glorious achievement for which I send out my thanks and congratulations to all involved. Not only does it deliver 98 minutes of pure, wicked entertainment but manages to do so with uncommon pace, humour, style and energy.

With deft cinematics, competent CGI, solid acting and buckets of gore it has a stand-out quality that's rare and hard to bottle - especially on a modest budget. There are after all few genres that can boast such a catalogue of pure stinkers as can 'the zombie flick.' The storyline isn't necessarily one to explore too deeply but that doesn't really matter. This movie revels in its' own nonsensical journey. Bizarre characters and zombies are hurled at us non-stop, with a side-order of break-neck road chaos and a good few laughs - this viewer was left sated.

Somewhat in the spirit of such splatterfests as Feast (2005) or The Rage (2007), Wyrmwood doesn't take itself seriously but it's abundantly clear that the film making process was. Serious talent is on display here and I for one will be keeping an eye on the Roache-Turners to see what's next.

**geek alert**

As a working photographer myself I must mention the pleasing and somewhat unconventional style of cinematography - particularly the use of wide-angle. I thought the grading, editing and post production generally to be superb. I was surprised and overjoyed to later discover via IMDb that this was in fact shot using the Canon 5D (presumably Mk III). Amazing results. I had presumed this was shot on Reds.

I finished this movie about an hour ago and already I can't wait to see Wyrmwood 2! Great stuff! 7/10

Having watched many zombie films of all different types over the years, I am happy to say that Wyrmwood is an interesting take on the genre. I can't say too much about why I like this film and I would suggest going into it without doing much research into it.

What I will say is that there is a decent amount of action and some very unique and creative twists on the zombie phenomena. Some of these work better than others, though to be fair the film has a somewhat playful dynamic so the unorthodox creative liberties will be appreciated fans who enjoy a bit of silliness.

The bizarre plot devices and comically stoic characters like Frank (Keith Agius) contrast well with the always sombre lead Barry (Jay Gallagher). That said, the character development of Benny is a bit problematic. What starts out as cringe-inducing stereotyping quickly moves to what might be construed as racism. It could be the case that this is an attempt at a deeper social commentary on the genre or Australian film, but that might be a stretch given the overall tone of the film.

The practical effects are decent and the use of CG, while not perfect, doesn't take away from the experience. There are some gory shots but these are nothing that more skirmish viewers wont be able to handle if they are familiar with the genre.

There isn't really too much in the way of character development and the plot is fairly light, but the pacing and the way the film jumps between a couple of different story lines makes the film enjoyable to watch.

One of the things that makes this film stand out is the somewhat surreal and often mysterious cast of characters. It might be the case that the filmmakers left the characters underdeveloped on purpose. Either way the somewhat larger than life characters work well with the overall ambiance of the piece, especially when reflecting on a certain theme revealed by Frank. The Doctor in particular stands out (just how long has it been since the dead started rising again?).

In the end viewers are likely to be left with some unanswered questions, but it is forgivable if we take this to be a slightly different zombie universe than we are used to. Ultimately Wyrmwood is a fun and enjoyable film that will be particularly enjoyable for zombie fans, partially because it unapologetically refuses to be held back by the unspoken rules of the genre.

Although the film is not perfect, I salute the filmmakers for taking some risks and ultimately producing an interesting take on an otherwise tired genre.

WYRMWOOD is a high energy zombie flick from Australia that combines the road movie genre with a classic zombie apocalypse outbreak type horror yarn. It has a little of the verve of VERSUS but in the end I found it quite predictable and a little overwhelming.

What's clear from the outset is that this is one step up from being an amateur film. The look of the zombies is cheap, especially with those Halloween party contact lenses, although there's copious gore to help make up for this. The acting is of a generally poor quality, but the film goes for a semi-serious approach so that doesn't matter too much.

What WYRMWOOD does offer is action in spades. There's barely any plot, just a handful of characters battling both zombies and some sinister scientists bent on human experimentation. None of it made much sense to me, but the director works hard to infuse his film with vibrancy and momentum, and he does succeed in part.

Okay this is the best zombie action I've seen in some of time; whereas The Battery was hip and careful, this is sloppy, has verve and gleefully throws itself around, it has a carpenter's love for things you can build with your hands that I like and just an overall air of messily practical filmmaking in the best spirit of Evil Dead and Braindead that just wants to revel in blood it throws up.

And this means that it doesn't try to make too much sense. A zombie apocalypse has taken place overnight following a meteorite shower, but the mythos is schematic and unserious, we see a few soldiers roaming the countryside in a van and a deranged scientist conducting zombie experiments in the back but this is so we can have these characters roaming around. The notion of a girl who comes to control zombies and emotive moments here and there I could do without.

And New Zealand is the ideal backdrop for the appeal this aimed to have; we see no cities and no cohesive social fabric being torn, there are only roads through sparse New Zealand bush, a garage here, a tunnel there, forests, so it all adds to that feeling of a bunch of young people letting loose with no larger narrative in mind other than the adventure of making up things in the wild.

Creativity here is not intellectual or really concerned with style, or bogged down in somber atmosphere; it is practical and freewheeling, the joy of splashing blood on a floor, slipping on it and filming the goof, what Raimi and Jackson did so well once upon a time. By the end the only fault I see is that they didn't push this gory slipperiness more, that they didn't make the sparse setting more iconic (Evil Dead and Braindead, and really every horror classic, are rooted in extremely memorable space) but this is still horror I endorse.