WYRMWOOD: ROAD OF THE DEAD (Kiah Roache-Turner). 98 minutes. Opens Friday (June 18). Rating: NN See listing.
There are two kinds of zombie movies, really: the ones that play on the horror and dread of surviving in a world where your friends and family are trying to eat you, and the ones that use the premise as an excuse to play with makeup effects and gunshot wounds. Not that the second type can’t be fun, of course, but you really have to get the tone right.
The first half of Australian film Wyrmwood: Road Of The Dead – written by brothers Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner, and directed by Kiah and produced by Tristan – is a reasonably grim example of the serious zombie movie, tracking a handful of characters who’ve survived a mysterious plague that’s converted most people into ravenous flesh-eaters.
Relatives are lost, friends are splattered. Husband and father Barry (Jay Gallagher) somehow survives and finds a new purpose as a taciturn action hero elsewhere his sister Brooke (Bianca Bradey) is abducted by military goons and experimented upon by a mad doctor for reasons that are never really explained.
But, then, there’s a lot that’s never really explained. Stuff just happens, usually because the Roache-Turners think it’ll result in a cool image. Sometimes they’re right: a sequence where Barry and a handful of mates gear up in sports equipment to wade through a cluster of zombies looks great and makes perfect sense within the world. But other ideas, like zombie breath being a viable source of fuel, don’t really click the way they ought to.
If you want nothing more than to watch zombies get mowed down in elaborate ways while a bunch of actors shout at each other, Wyrmwood: Road Of The Dead certainly offers that. But I’m afraid it doesn’t offer much else.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
