WYRMWOOD APOCALYPSE
Australia, 2021, 88 minutes, Colour.
Luke McKenzie, Shantae Tabor Barnes-Cowan, Jake Ryan, Bianca Bradey, Tasia Zalar, Jay Gallagher, Nicholas Boshier.
Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner.
In 2014 the Roache-Turner brothers made Wyrmwood: the Road, a horror film in the Australian bush, the two brothers writing together, Kaya acting as director and Tristan as producer. They also made a horror comedy film in 2018, Nekrotronic. They now return to their Wyrmwood themes.
On the whole, this horror film has satisfied the fans. It is very reminiscent of Mad Max themes, the apocalyptic open road, vehicles, confrontations and fights. But, it is also a zombie film. The Apocalypse has happened 10 years earlier but is continuing, humans transformed into zombies, their continually being rounded up, taunted with cooked food, tortured.
However, there is worse for some of them, the Surgeon General operating in an outback bunker, with technology, but also with sinister basements. And there are some details of the operations going on, torture and death, all for the sake of producing some serum from the zombies but, especially, from hybrids, serums which will help preserve the health of the survivors. The Surgeon General is dressed in yellow protective gear, repellent face, and attended by a range of thugs, many of them wearing protective gas masks.
The central character is Rhys, who for 10 years has been rounding up zombies and hybrids and delivering them to the Surgeon General. He is a loner, his brother having been killed. We see his trailer, getting up in the morning, exercises, revving his truck, going on his rounds. He does not question what he is doing, treated as a corporal by the Surgeon General and his underlings.
The film opens with a gory sequence so that we know where we sit. And there are some gory sequences throughout – seeming to satisfy fans’ expectations. We have seen some fugitives, two aboriginal women, one of them needing medication to survive but taken while the other escapes. She has an encounter with Rhys who then overpowers her, taking her to the Surgeon General, then having a change of heart and saving her.
There is also an encounter with other hybrids, especially the fearsome Brooke, sometimes fierce, aggressive, in need of medication, along with her protector, Barry.
As expected, there is a buildup to confrontations, fights, dangers, rescues, explosions, the death of the Surgeon General…
Finance invested by Screen Australia as well as Screen New South Wales, reminding world audiences that Australian can make small-budget horror films as well as anyone else!
