Australian zombie action up next on CA courtesy of bonkers new action horror WYRMWOOD. Like a cross between Walking Dead, Crank, Mad Max and Evil Dead, Wyrmwood is a riot from start to finish. Check out my review after the jump.
If like me you grew
up on a diet of outback action with the Mad Max movies and fell in
love with the zombie sub-genre of horror thanks to the original Dawn
Of The Dead, then maybe, just maybe you'll love the shit out of
WRYMWOOD: ROAD OF THE DEAD.
Australia is well
know for bringing us some terrific films, be it films such as the
stunt mad flick of Brian Tenchard-Smith like TURKEY SHOOT
or DEAD END DRIVE IN, the tense Hitchcockian thrills of
Road Games, the ultimate Car carnage flicks like Mad
Max or Stunt Rock or the simpler, more family
friendly films like Strictly Ballroom or Murial's
Wedding, there is no doubting that the Australian film
industry is an industry that plays by it's own rules and delivers the
goods time after time. What we have with Wyrmwood is a mash up of
everything that is so awesome about genre cinema, a
horror-action-sci-fi-comedy made on a minuscule budget but full to
the brim with some insanely cool ideas, although some are never
really fully realized, it doesn't detract from the overall kinetic,
almost hallucinatory visuals presented to us.
When an airborne
virus turns people into flesh eating zombies, a mechanic named Barry
must save his sister from a psychotic scientist and the military in
the Australian outback. Along with his new friend Benny, an Aborigine
and their zombie fuelled truck, they set out on their journey.
I don't want to
spoil the plot because there's some seriously funny moment and WTF?
Moments that might ruin the film for you.
The film has this
bonkers feel to it, as though the whole thing was filmed while on
speed. The kinetic zooming hand-held camera work works really well
with the actual plot and makes the film feel very very fast paced.
Even though the film does have a lot of hand-held camera work the
majority of it very very stable, as if it was shot using a steadi-cam
which, while the film does feel a little too in your face it also has
this quite cool fluid feel to some of it. One scene, set in a
laboratory seems to have been shot with a fish-eye lense and gives
us this really cool panoramic shot of zombies chained up against the
walls. The camera work is very Raimi-esq and reminded me of Evil
Dead 2.
Wyrmwood has some
definite laugh out loud moment and most of them come from the great
performance from Leon Burchill who plays Benny, his line delivery is
spot on most of the time. The rest of the performances are really
good too, my only gripe with the plot is the lack of character
background for Barry, the main character and Brooke, his sister and I
would have liked to have seen some more Road carnage but I guess
there's only so much that can be achieved on a small budget.
Other than those
issues, Wyrmwood is a riot from start to finish.
I've seen my fair
share of low budget to ultra low budget backyard zom-fests from
Biohazardous ('01), Stink Of Flesh and
The Dead Outside to Bong OF The Dead and
Dance Of The Dead but Wyrmwood kicks all their undead
asses in the zombie genre. While watching it I couldn't help but
think it would make a great double feature with Undead,
the zombie film from a few years back from Aussie directing siblings,
The Spierig Bros (Daybreakers, Predestination) as they both
have the same sense of humour and gore.
All in all WYRMWOOD:
ROAD OF THE DEAD is a blast. I dug every single minute of it.
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