Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014)

Powerful

Excellent but underrated film

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

During a massive zombie apocalypse, a man who lost his family joins up with various other locals who've been affected by the ordeal to try to find a way to save his remaining family from the ravenous creatures as they encounter those attempting to study how the zombies function.This here turned out to be quite an impressive effort. One of the few bright spots for this one is the fact that there's a slew of stellar action scenes throughout here that play up the fun zombie encounters. From the beginning, where the opening shots of the crew retrieving the truck from a horde of creatures starts this out on a high note which includes the enjoyable and rather exciting battle in the suburbs where it attacks the friend in the garage during the photoshoot turning them into zombies as well as the family's battle to get out of their infested neighborhood. That offers this one with plenty to like and enjoy about it during the proper time which offers up plenty of great moments about them navigating out of the house battling the creatures and setting up the other fun encounters here. The inclusion of the government conspiracy saddled amongst the early action scenes gives this a solidly chilling air about it as the series of tests committed against the local abducted woman allows this to feature some creepy moments about their experiments. The idea of the van full of infected roaming around the countryside carrying on these experiments is a notably creepy idea to start with, and the various scenes showcased here offer up a great twist which is paid off with the later half involving the woman who's half-human, half-zombie that is given the especially powerful new powers of being able to control the creatures telepathically which has a lot of quality moments to like here. The idea itself is incredibly clever and unique which allows for more fun action to come in the final half as well. Coupled with the stellar make-up and gore effects on the multitude of zombies shown throughout here, this has more than enough to hold out over the few minor flaws featured. Among the few flaws here is the film's rather obvious lack of explaining anything that's going on. The concept of the billowing gas cloud they emit as being as source of ignitable fuel is a clever touch, maintaining the idea that the space virus is affecting people of a specific blood-type is ingenious and the military group experimenting on the zombies makes sense yet none of these elements are ever brought together to make any kind of cohesive storyline. These are all issues which play a big role in how the story plays out which is what makes it important to understand the different ideas at play here and is instead not even touched on at all. There's also the stinging issue of the low-budget being quite apparent and noticeable in here, offering up plenty of issues from the rather irritating CGI bloodsplatter to the silly costumes and the utterly irritating and frustratingly annoying shaking camera featured in the big action scenes that make it hard to realize what's happening. These here are what really hold it down.Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and drug use.

Within the first two minutes of the movie, I saw dozens of zombies being blown away by rustic-armor clad humans, with guns, pipes, chains and a double barreled shot gun. And I thought to myself......"Whoooweeeee. Finally!!" There are phenomenally created zombies shown with nice close up views of them AND in slow motion! No stupid tricks here to try and fool the audience into thinking anyone on set did quality, creative, professional work. None of that too-shaky camera syndrome and swift pass overs or dark settings that are typical of so many crappy zombie films of today. Then within 13 minutes, and most of it spent on some pretty decently edited realistic and clever fight/kill scenes...the film makers threw in a bit of humor. And I thought again to myself. "Yeaaaaahhhh Baby!" It's like someone knows EXACTLY the "odd" mix of entertainment I find irresistible in an apocalyptic movie and made one just for me..... I think I was feeling a bit giddy by that point. Honestly now, there are some night scenes but you can SEE. My point is the quality of this flick was obvious right from the beginning on up until the end. Then 20 minutes in (The story and pace is fast and exciting) there was a significant twist within the genera introduced. Different, but creative and believable. There were a few times the blood looked hot saucey/ketchupy, but on the whole, gore effects were top notch. With in this same 20 minute time frame, a good look at what the acting would be like thru out the movie revealed the same quality and attention to detail that the previous 20 minutes had exhibited on all levels. The characters were presented with complexity and diversity. The camera work was creatively very well done. I noticed a few editing slips, but nothing that made me lose focus on the entertaining journey I was on. Score appropriate and complimented scenes well without overwhelming them. With all of this in the first 20 minutes, what else do you need? A written invitation? Well, here ya have it. This movie busted outta the starting gate at full speed, top notch high octane quality, so If you like zombie and/or post apocalyptic films, do yourself a favor and don't miss this one. If you are like me and have sat thru sub par movies of this genera, just to get your zombie/apocalyptic fix, you will be as thrilled as I was with this one. It is truly a gem.

I tried 3 times to watch this movie and I could never make it through. I'm writing this right after the 3rd attempt. I like the ideas, the humor, the actors... but this movie is just yet another shaky-cam vomit ride.I suppose they are covering up for being unable to frame shots decently... Whole groups of modern directors seem to think that shaking the camera around is somehow a good idea.Sorry - but it's not fast or dynamic. It just induces seasickness and makes it look like you don't know how to use your camera gear.

WYRMWOOD is a high energy zombie flick from Australia that combines the road movie genre with a classic zombie apocalypse outbreak type horror yarn. It has a little of the verve of VERSUS but in the end I found it quite predictable and a little overwhelming.What's clear from the outset is that this is one step up from being an amateur film. The look of the zombies is cheap, especially with those Halloween party contact lenses, although there's copious gore to help make up for this. The acting is of a generally poor quality, but the film goes for a semi-serious approach so that doesn't matter too much.What WYRMWOOD does offer is action in spades. There's barely any plot, just a handful of characters battling both zombies and some sinister scientists bent on human experimentation. None of it made much sense to me, but the director works hard to infuse his film with vibrancy and momentum, and he does succeed in part.