Yet another movie from the other side of the planet that has surprised and enthralled me. Wyrmwood takes the zombie apocalypse to the land of didgeridoos and drop bears, and what a movie it is.
Just when I think I am done with Zombie movies, and the style couldn’t be more stale, someone comes along and creates a new spin on it that pulls me back in. Wyrmwood takes place in the Australian Outback, mainly along the roads between isolated small towns, hence the subtitle “Road Of The Dead”. This alone would be almost enough to set it apart from other zombie movies, but Wyrmwood goes a bit deeper with story, characters, and general tone creating a totally fleshed out world. No pun intended.
The cold open for Wyrmwood jumps right into the action and never really lets up. Three guys are dressed as if they are in the sequel to Heat, body armor, face masks, and carrying really big guns. The men rush out of a shed, hook a truck up to a tow chain and begin to pull it back into the shed. Their actions and the noise it creates attract the attention of a horde of zombies waiting just past the truck. The men, and the truck, slowly creep back into the shed, all the while slaughtering one shambling corpse after another. The door slams shut and the Wyrmwood has already let the viewer know, this is going to be a hell of a ride.
Wyrmwood isn’t so much a departure from the usual Zombie flick as it is a stylish retelling of it. Much like 28 Days Later changed how the zombie apocalypse was handled and how zombies were no longer seen as slow moving, lumbering, flesh eaters, Wyrmwood creates a new vision of a very dark future. Celestial bodies wreak havoc on everyone and everything on earth.
When this movie wants to get dark, it pulls no punches. There were moments in Wyrmwood where I genuinely felt terrible about the events unfolding on screen. The main character, Barry, has to go through things that no person should ever have to go through. Terrible, terrible things. But even amidst all this horror and gore, there manages to be a moment or two of outright hilarity. Moments when I went from cringing in my chair to literally laughing out loud during the same scene. The mix of the two never felt forced or ham-fisted. This is due largely to the writing but also to the great acting.
The secondary story, that then becomes the main story, is subtly ratcheted up as the movie barrels towards the climax. What seemed to be a hopeless venture turns out to be the ultimate power trip by the end. Characters that have gone through hell the majority of the film end up, arguably better, because of it.
Though Wyrmwood borrows a bit here and there from other zombie films, there was never really a scene or a moment that felt “stolen” at any point. The twists that are in place by the end of the film aren’t obfuscated in a way that is meant to be a “surprise”. As things build up, there’s no question what’s going to happen next, but because of the nature of the movie, I was left waiting for the moment when everything fell into place so that I could see how big the metaphorical explosion would be.
I’m gushing about this movie, and I don’t care. Wyrmwood was just the shot in the arm that I needed with this marathon to keep me going another couple weeks. It is currently streaming on Netflix, but I can honestly say that this one is worth paying for. Either renting or purchasing directly to view. Seriously a great film, and one that I will surely revisit again and again.
*(I joked on Twitter that this movie looks basically how I pictured a visit to Australia to see Cal would look. There are several of the “laugh out loud” moments that deal directly in Australian humor. That’s just another fun perk of the film.)
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