So last night I saw the cinematic abortion that is Fantastic Four, and after fighting off the urge to obliterate the memory of it with an entire handle of gin and more Taco Bell than can be legally consumed, I decided that I needed to watch something to cleanse my pallet and restore my faith that movies could actually be, ya know, good. So with that, allow me to welcome you to the next instillation of my unending series “Eh, What’s New On Netflix?” Seriously, this column has gained sentience and will surely outlive us all. We are doomed to be its servants, for it no longer needs us, but without it, we are hopeless. Yippee for fun times!
The movie I choose is called Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, as I’m sure that you would know if you read the fucking title of this article that you clicked on. Its an Australian zombie movie that tells the tale of a talented mechanic named Barry (Jay Gallagher) who, after being forced to kill the undead versions of his wife and daughter, sets off to find his sister (Bianca Bradey). This is complicated by the fact that she has been captured by a shadowy government organization that insists on doing mysterious and horrifying experiments on her. Barry is aided on his quest by a rotating cast of survivors, most notably Frank (Keith Agius), a no-nonsense motherfucker who looks just like Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead, and Benny (Leon Burchill), a man incapable of taking anything seriously and who is my new favorite human being.
The poster for Wyrmwood boldly claims that it is “Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead,” but that’s only half true. Yes, a lot of the design elements owe a lot to the Mad Max series. There is an awesomely decked out Death Truck, and Barry wears a mask that looks like a blackened version of Lord Humongous’, but there isn’t a lot that reminds me of Dawn of the Dead outside of the presence of the zombies.
Behold, the Ayatollah of Rock ‘n’ Rolla!
Instead, the editing is lifted straight from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series, and the sections involving the mad scientist are reminiscent of George Romero’s Day of the Dead. Also, the poster kind of reminds me of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and that’s always a good thing
Now there may be some of you out there who believe that this is a bad thing. “It is the poor film that steals from it’s superiors,” you say with a smug tone of voice that cause the rest of us to break into spontaneous bouts of face-kicking. But i say that you are wrong, sir and/or madam!
What Wyrmwood actually does is borrows some pieces from the great films of the past, and then adds its own heaping helping of imagination to the mix and creates something that is genuinely original and fascinating to behold. It takes the idea of Mad Max‘s pragmatic and re-purposed style and makes it a bit more immediate, showing us the creation of these amazing weapons of death. They take the idea of the doctor in Day of the Dead training a zombie to be obedient, and expand on it by giving a character, after some “medical” injections, the ability to telepathically control the undead. The editing..is straight lifted from Evil Dead, but if you’re gonna steal, why not steal from the best?!
And after all this, I haven’t even gotten to that fact that the zombies are created by an apparent Biblical comet that heralds the end of days, and gasoline no longer combusts, so in order to power their truck, Barry and his gang utilize the power of burning zombie breath! Zombies as a renewable source of energy that force you to haul an angry and rotting, yet living corpse around in the back of your ride! How is this not the greatest thing in the history of ideas? If you don’t think that is rad as all shit, then you and I are very different people and I don’t care to talk to you any more.
The zombie genre has been done to all hell is recent years. Everyone and their grandmother has made a zombie movie, or written a book about zombies, or made a game where you face off against zombies, or made a crossword puzzle where every answer is “zombies”. Heck, the go-to hack DLC for any game now is a zombie level. The whole thing has gotten so repetitive and dull. Wyrmwood is the rare piece of entertainment that makes me care about the walking dead again. It does enough to set their ghouls apart from the ever growing hoard, all the while being a fucking blast to watch!
I began my evening thinking that cinema and the art of filmmaking may have reached a new and catastrophic low, but leave it to a low budget indie horror/thriller from the Land Down Under to restore my faith in all things righteous and good. Australia, you’re alright in my eyes. Gimme a call if you’re ever in town, I’ll buy ya a drink.
