Review by Quin
This movie is great! I just had to get right to the point. After all, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead doesn’t waste any of its 99 minutes, and I wanted to pay it the respect that it has so clearly earned. This is a fast moving, fun, inventive, well-made, well-acted, grisly ride that finally makes running zombies worth getting excited about.
We are first introduced to a group of men clad in armor that resembles wearable protective sporting equipment – hockey masks, shin guards, etc… Within seconds, they are shooting and decapitating zombies. Next, we see three women in a garage in the middle of a photo shoot. Again, very quickly, one of them suddenly grows agitated and in no time at all, one of the other women has her throat bitten open. The survivor, Brooke, is able to call her brother before men in gas masks drug and abduct her. Her brother, Barry, lives with his wife and daughter. He notices something is wrong when a deranged man is standing in his kitchen, going through the refrigerator. There is a struggle but the family is able to get out and drive away. The plan is to make it to Bulla Bulla to find Brooke, but along the way, Barry’s family becomes infected. Barry meets up with the hilarious Benny on the road, portrayed by the Aboriginal pot comedian and actor Leon Burchill. Then they meet Frank and another guy who isn’t around very long but proves to be incredibly useful to them. And so begins their adventure, killing zombies on the way to Bulla Bulla.
There have been volumes written on the argument over which are better – slow zombies or fast zombies. I won’t reopen the debate here. I’ll only say for me, as a lifelong fan of the classic Romero zombie (and a guy who didn’t like 28 Days Later at all) I am pretty quick to dismiss a movie the minute the undead start doing their warm-up stretches. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is indeed a movie with probably the fastest moving zombies ever. But I’m happy to say that I was on board with all of it. There are two main things that helped me through the initial sigh I began to let out as I saw the dead were getting up and running – the quick pacing of the film as a whole and the super creative elements that the script injects into the veins of a genre that is rotting and beginning to smell.
The film is getting compared (by pretty much everybody) to the Mad Max films mixed with zombies. I don’t disagree. But I can list countless Australian films that take place on the road. Australian films ranging from Wake in Fright and Bad Boy Bubby to Rabbit Proof Fence and The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert are all about travel and adventure. It’s the common thread I’ve noticed that draws me to films from that part of the world. But it doesn’t seem to be particularly futuristic. And apart from the zombie problem, the world doesn’t have that post apocalyptic look to it yet – at least no more than the endless landscape of Australia already has. From a design standpoint, the men in their armor do resemble Master Blaster if his top half was replaced with Jason Voorhees. Fortunately, the film creates its own vision. The direction and cinematography are particularly enjoyable. Gore is used pretty excessively, but blood smears across the screen in a way that enhances composition and adds to the already lovely use of color.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is the first film for brothers Kiah and Tristan Roach-Turner. Kiah directed it and the two wrote the script together. As first time films go, it doesn’t get much better than this. The acting is great as well. Along with Leon Burchill as Benny, another standout is a mad scientist of sorts played by Berynn Schwerdt. With his goggles and hazmat suit and maniacal laugh, you’ll root against him, but he might just disco dance right into your heart just a little.
Just one more thing, I’m staying away from revealing some twists that occur. They’ve been mentioned in almost every other review of this film, and I have to express my disapproval. I will say that along the way, things are revealed about the nature of the zombie apocalypse that are completely new. But at the same time, there is a bit of a throwback to the pre-Romero zombie. Back in the days of White Zombie and I Walked with a Zombie – when a zombie served a much different purpose. Cheers to the Roach-Turner Brothers for the updated reference. It’s truly brilliant and fun. I definitely would love to see a whole series of Wyrmwood films.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is available now on VOD in the US from IFC Midnight.