Review of Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014) by Seamus F — 26 Feb 2015

I've been keeping my eye on this one for a while. A crowd funded, Aussie zombie flick, these guys had a killer campaign, shooting a teaser sequence that really blew you away. A couple of years later, they raised the money and completed the film and even got a one night, nation wide cinema release on February, Friday the 13th. And you bet your ass I went and saw it.

Now you have to remember that this is still an ultra low budget flick and this will jar some people initially. It takes a bit to get used to some of the acting, sound design and the general look of the film. The cinematography picks up as the film progresses. It starts out quite rough, a lot of shaky cam and the focus comes in and out which proves distracting. But it's like they got better as they went along and it gradually becomes smoother. But saying all this, this is a kick ass zombie film.

The poster sports the Tagline: Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead. But I think it should be Mad Max meets Evil Dead, because this movie is pretty much a direct homage to the classic horror. It has a bit of a slapstick style, the cinematography utilises a lot of wide angle lens work and hectic action sequences. One liners are spat out and the main guy even looks like Ash. It's pretty cool.

I'm kind of over zombie movies of late, but Wyrmwood does bring a little something extra to the party. I won't give anything away but these elements definitely went a long way to make this one stand out from the pack. Unfortunately they do fall back into typical zombie movie cliches and don't push their new ideas as far as I would have liked. In the third act of the film it feels like the characters seem to be wandering through the bush with no real goal in sight, until trouble finds them, and kind of slowed things down. As mentioned before the man vs. zombie scenes are full on, and verge on awesome, but some sloppy editing lets it down. The directing and acting in general is pretty woeful, but once you get used to it, you can just roll with it.

So there is a lot to pick on here, ultimately it is the film's low budgetness that hurts it the most. But I expected this going in and was able to put most of it to the side. I did have a lot of fun with it and in the end that's all that really matters. I recommend tracking this one down on DVD or VOD, but only if you're in the right mindset, and you'll have yourself a time.

3/5.

'Big time' - Barry.