Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014)

Okay this is the best zombie action I've seen in some of time; whereas The Battery was hip and careful, this is sloppy, has verve and gleefully throws itself around, it has a carpenter's love for things you can build with your hands that I like and just an overall air of messily practical filmmaking in the best spirit of Evil Dead and Braindead that just wants to revel in blood it throws up.

And this means that it doesn't try to make too much sense. A zombie apocalypse has taken place overnight following a meteorite shower, but the mythos is schematic and unserious, we see a few soldiers roaming the countryside in a van and a deranged scientist conducting zombie experiments in the back but this is so we can have these characters roaming around. The notion of a girl who comes to control zombies and emotive moments here and there I could do without.

And New Zealand is the ideal backdrop for the appeal this aimed to have; we see no cities and no cohesive social fabric being torn, there are only roads through sparse New Zealand bush, a garage here, a tunnel there, forests, so it all adds to that feeling of a bunch of young people letting loose with no larger narrative in mind other than the adventure of making up things in the wild.

Creativity here is not intellectual or really concerned with style, or bogged down in somber atmosphere; it is practical and freewheeling, the joy of splashing blood on a floor, slipping on it and filming the goof, what Raimi and Jackson did so well once upon a time. By the end the only fault I see is that they didn't push this gory slipperiness more, that they didn't make the sparse setting more iconic (Evil Dead and Braindead, and really every horror classic, are rooted in extremely memorable space) but this is still horror I endorse.

Fmovies: What I like from smaller budget movies are the fact that the cast and directors find different take on a genre.

Without spoiling any part of the movie I will simply sum it up in one sentence.

This movie is like a hybrid child of Mad Max, Shaun of the Dead and Bad Taste.

Don't view this in anticipation of outstanding acting or cinematography , as it doesn't try. This movie is just a fun take on a line of recent zombie flicks.

7/10

Okay, maybe not THE BEST 90 minutes of my life, but it's definitely up there!

I'm quite critical of movies and this movie didn't disappoint.

This movie starts at 100 miles an hour right out of the gate.

It's nail biting, exhilarating with enough humor to get your belly moving!

You can tell they didn't have a big budget, but the camera work and pace of the film definitely makes up for it.

Hats off to the Roach-Tuner brothers in their first feature film.

Looking forward to part 2...?

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead fmovies. I was hooked, yup, despite my love for excellent production values and well written scripts, (which this certainly doesn't have) i loved every stupid, gory moment.

Get in some beers and whatever else you like, invite round your geekiest friends, kick back and enjoy.

As you'd expect from an Ozzie film it has bags of humour, some is even clever.

As zombie movies go this is a belter - there's some excellent ideas in here that may well influence future zombie films - and some ridiculous ones as well - 'A zombie powered car? Never!', but there is, I swear to you.

It's a non-stop blood fest, plenty of stupid deaths and the most unlikely car chase/shoot out in the history of Zombiedom - topped off by the most unlikely and luckiest of coincidences ever - but what the heck - it doesn't try to be serious or logical - this is pure fun from the pen of an obvious 'B' movie zombie fan.

Don't look for meaning or deep character development, there isn't any. In fact don't look for or study any of it - just let it wash over you like rivers of blood.

My one dislike was the Aboriginal guy being stereo-typically stupid. If i were to do a rewrite he'd be the hero and use wise words from the ancestors and dream time spirits. But apart from that I have no complaints.

ENJOY!!!! RRRRRRAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR....................

It was a thrill ride just like Mad Max Fury Road, with a team of strangers teaming up to survive the Zombie apocalypse that's going down. One of the best and craziest Zombie movies I've seen. It's exactly the roller coaster I would expect from the land down under.

Unlike Fury Road, however, the story is lacking. It's not a good ridiculous it's more of a stupid ridiculous

The filmmakers make it seem like the story is unimportant, which is true. No one needs to know why Zombies exist only that they do and Wyrmwood totally goes out there with the genre.

The weak story does not overshadow the amazing action, set designs and costumes in the movie, as well as the ensemble cast.

It was so much fun to watch.

Wyrmwood just doesn't take the time for overdone social criticism, nor stops on boring character development and social interactions.

It goes straight for the big shots instead, and it does it greatly. A lot of action, great camera work, a lot of gore (the ideal measure for a zombie flick), and the right touch of comic reliefs makes this movie a gem that has nothing to envy on the referents of the genre, like Resident Evil. Except of course the presence of Milla Jovovich :p

I was greatly surprised by the quality of this film, I can only argue on some unexpected (and unnecessary) low blows, and a script that seems too crazy sometimes. But if you can let that pass and just go with the flow, I guarantee you'll certainly enjoy this one.