Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Within the first two minutes of the movie, I saw dozens of zombies being blown away by rustic-armor clad humans, with guns, pipes, chains and a double barreled shot gun. And I thought to myself......"Whoooweeeee. Finally!!" There are phenomenally created zombies shown with nice close up views of them AND in slow motion! No stupid tricks here to try and fool the audience into thinking anyone on set did quality, creative, professional work. None of that too-shaky camera syndrome and swift pass overs or dark settings that are typical of so many crappy zombie films of today. Then within 13 minutes, and most of it spent on some pretty decently edited realistic and clever fight/kill scenes...the film makers threw in a bit of humor. And I thought again to myself. "Yeaaaaahhhh Baby!" It's like someone knows EXACTLY the "odd" mix of entertainment I find irresistible in an apocalyptic movie and made one just for me..... I think I was feeling a bit giddy by that point. Honestly now, there are some night scenes but you can SEE. My point is the quality of this flick was obvious right from the beginning on up until the end. Then 20 minutes in (The story and pace is fast and exciting) there was a significant twist within the genera introduced. Different, but creative and believable. There were a few times the blood looked hot saucey/ketchupy, but on the whole, gore effects were top notch. With in this same 20 minute time frame, a good look at what the acting would be like thru out the movie revealed the same quality and attention to detail that the previous 20 minutes had exhibited on all levels. The characters were presented with complexity and diversity. The camera work was creatively very well done. I noticed a few editing slips, but nothing that made me lose focus on the entertaining journey I was on. Score appropriate and complimented scenes well without overwhelming them. With all of this in the first 20 minutes, what else do you need? A written invitation? Well, here ya have it. This movie busted outta the starting gate at full speed, top notch high octane quality, so If you like zombie and/or post apocalyptic films, do yourself a favor and don't miss this one. If you are like me and have sat thru sub par movies of this genera, just to get your zombie/apocalyptic fix, you will be as thrilled as I was with this one. It is truly a gem.

Writer & director Kiah Roache-Turner's horror shocker "Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead" lives up to Empire Magazine's description: "Mad Max Meets Dawn of the Dead." Roache-Turner and his brother Tristan co-wrote this atmospheric, adrenalin-laced, larger-than-life, high-octane hokum that wallows in blood, gore, and more during its lean, mean 98 minutes and keeps you poised on the edge of your seat. Roache-Turner must have seen the entire "Mad Max" franchise because this movie puts on the brakes only occasionally with its slam-bang, self-propelled depiction of the survivors of a zombie holocaust who have almost as much to worry about from the government as they do the zombies infesting the countryside around them. "Wyrmwood" differs from the usual zombie movie because the Roache-Turner brothers have added a wrinkle or two to the genre. The zombies here breath a gaseous haze that enables the humans to use them as a source of energy to fuel their vehicles. Apparently, since life on Earth has taken a turn for the very worst, fossil fuels can no longer make conventional vehicles run. Presumably, everything started one night with lots of falling stars. The filmmakers are never elaborate about all the details that contribute to this confluence of dire events. Furthermore, the heroine of this incredibly entertaining nonsense, becomes a pin-cushion for unethical government experiments, and she mutates into somebody who can exert mind control over zombies and compel them to carry out her commands. "Wyrmwood" also lives up to its road picture origins, too. Roache-Turner delivers some dizzy camera work of cars careening down narrow, two-lane roads through the woods to escape zombies. The sound design bolsters the effect since every time that you see a zombie, it is shrieking like a gutted sow and running in slow-motion. You may seen many zombie movies and have the formula down pat, but "Wyrmwood" tweaks the formula for superb effect. The upgrades that Kiah Roache-Turner delivers makes this light years better than anything "The Walking Dead" has done during its many seasons.Barry (Jay Gallagher) gets up one night when his tweener daughter Meganne (Meganne West) informs him that an intruder is in their kitchen. Barry walks in on the zombie and a life & death fight ensues with the zombie pinning Barry to the floor. Barry's wife Annie (Catherine Terracini) stabs the zombie in the back with a knife but to no effect and then sinks an ax in the thing's spine. Managing to escape from the zombie's death grip, Barry wretches the ax out of his back and lops off the zombie's head. Barry remembers that his sister Brooke (Bianca Bradey) had called him from a nearby town and warned him about the infestation and pleads for him to come rescue her. On the way to the town of Bulla Bulla, Barry's wife and daughter turn into zombies, and he kills them with a nail gun. Afterward, he tries to kill himself with his own nail gun, but he has exhausted his supply of nails. Eventually, Barry hooks up with a garage load of blokes, and they burst out of confinement, running down zombies, and tear off down the road. "Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead" takes zombie movies to another level.

All I can (and all I need) to say is this is well worth watching. I'd avoided it since it came out on DVD simply because of the the front cover. Turns out that is just poor marketing. The film is a traditional zombie film in many ways (unlike the superb Maggie) but it is so much more because it avoids the stereotype story-line while sticking to the genre-standard zombies.I loved it because of the twist in the story-line - it's not a twist-in- the-tail, it's a whole new take on how the story could go. The acting, direction and photography are all pretty much top notch too which surprised me as I though it was a budget potboiler (because of the DVD cover as mentioned before).

I purchased this movie solely because it is a zombie movie, and I had no prior knowledge about what it was about or if it was any good or not. But I had good memories from the last couple of Australian zombie movies that I have watched.Now having seen "Wyrmwood", I will say that it was entertaining and a rather unique movie in its own way. It was, as the director and producer said, a mix between "Mad Max" and "Dawn of the Dead". However, while "Wyrmwood" is entertaining, it wasn't a movie that will stand out as particularly memorable amongst the movies in the zombie genre.Personally I didn't appreciate the thing about the woman being able to control the zombies. It was just too stupid in my opinion. And I am not overly much a fan of fast, agile, running zombies.The acting in "Wyrmwood" was good for a movie of this type, and that helped the movie along quite nicely.And while this is a zombie movie, then zombies and the zombie make-up is a thing that can't fail or be slacked upon. And the movie-makers didn't fail here. The zombies were abundant and had adequate make-up. And there was also a fair amount of blood and gore - for the gorehounds out there.If you enjoy zombie movies that doesn't follow the generic and arch-typical formula, then chances are that you will get a lot of enjoyment from "Wyrmwood".