Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead Blu-ray Movie Review

Down (under) of the dead.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 2, 2015

Some regular readers of Blu-ray.com may have noticed that there are certain templates we use from time to time, as in our giveaway verbiage or (with me, anyway) the codec and aspect ratio data that I mention in the video section of the review. It’s become obvious to me with the release of Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead that I simply need to make a new template offering up the litany of Australian shot and/or based Apocalyptic and/or post-Apocalyptic dramas. The short list in this weird subgenre includes On the Beach, The Mad Max Trilogy (and of course its recent reboot Mad Max: Fury Road 3D), Tank Girl, The Rover and These Final Hours. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead plies much the same territory as that aforementioned Mad Max franchise (as even one of the pull quotes emblazoned across its cover art alludes to), but it works in a cheeky (rotting or otherwise) element by making this particular post-Apocalypse one of the zombie variety. An almost paradigmatic low budget offering, in much the same way as George O. Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead was in fact, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead displays a blacker than black sense of humor while also offering up several exciting set pieces which, if minimal by action blockbuster standards, should still deliver the goods for those who prefer their threats to shamble rather than run. (Romero's Dawn of the Dead is another film mentioned in the cover art's pull quote.)

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead engages in some clunky plot structuring, plopping the viewer down in media res, with some human survivors relaying memories of the still developing zombie incursion, but then veering off into a sidebar that has no connection to these reminiscences, and then finally winding the story back to where it began at about the halfway point through the film. The two main male characters are an Aborigine named Benny (Leon Burchill) and a mechanic named Barry (Jay Gallagher). Benny had been out camping with his brothers when a weird meteor shower passed overhead in the clear star filled night in the outback, evidently the cause of the ensuing troubles. The next morning Benny discovers one of his brothers already dead and the second brother transformed into a zombie. Meanwhile, Barry is awakened by his daughter, who informs her dad and Barry’s wife Annie (Catherine Terracini) that there’s someone in their kitchen. When Barry investigates, he comes face to mottled face with a zombie who is marauding through the family refrigerator. A scuffle ensues, and Barry, Annie and their little girl manage to get to the family car to try to hightail it out of there.

The sidebar, which repeatedly detours the film into a kind of bizarre analog to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (replete with a mad scientist singing and dancing), involves Barry’s sister Brooke (Bianca Bradey), who is involved in some perhaps illicit photography in a garage, only to have her subject and another participant become zombiefied. While the evidently martial arts skilled Brooke is able to deal with the situation, she can’t get out of the garage due to a horde of zombies waiting outside. She does manage to get a phone call off to Barry, urging him to get to Bulla Bulla to rescue her. A bit later a military team arrives, evidently scouring the countryside to take out any offending zombies, but also to take Brooke hostage for some initially unclear reason.

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead attempts to give Barry enough of a putative backstory to develop empathy for him as an actual character, but really the film is just a hyperbolic series of set pieces and frankly any of the characters could have been utilized for the various scenarios without much narrative disruption. There’s much less attention paid to either Benny or (especially) Brooke, and the Brooke - Mad Scientist (Berryn Schwerdt) plot angle almost seem like they’ve been shoehorned from another film.

This is the first feature film from Australian brothers Kiah Roache-Turner, who directed, and Tristan Roache-Turner, who produced. Both of the siblings share the screenwriting credits. Whatever the narrative issues Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead encounters, there’s little doubt that the Roache-Turners are extremely facile filmmakers. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead has a very arresting visual style, one that cartwheels from extreme color grading to almost total desaturation and back again, while also offering a glut of inventive if slightly vertigo inducing framings. While the film is a little too self-consciously “stylized,” the overall premise and pitch black humor prove that you can’t keep a good Australian zombie apocalpyse movie down (under or otherwise).

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, and IFC Midnight with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. According the IMdb the film was shot with the Canon 5D, but as the Roache-Turner brothers detail in their interesting commentary, there was a lot of tinkering done with the image in post. This is one of the most aggressively color graded features in recent memory, with fascinating (if derivative, as the Roache-Turners themselves confess in their commentary) elements like blood red foliage against an otherwise more or less totally monochromatic frame. Other sequences are virtually monochromatic, while others are pushed in various directions, from a dusty outback brown to more traditional thriller tropes like cool blues and thick yellows. What this all means is that detail can fluctuate rather wildly from moment to moment, with some shots looking impeccably sharp and well detailed and others appearing to have been shot through Vaseline (and this is putting aside some hallucinatory special effects for Brooke POV shots). Digital grain has been added to give the film a roughhewn texture in some sequences. As a stylistic experiment, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is arresting, to say the least. It may not be the most consistent viewing experience in terms of general sharpness, clarity, grading and/or contrast, but it's never dull.

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead features a great sounding lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track, one which offers a lot of "splat" whenever a zombie's head doesn't quite survive a bullet (or hatchet or fist), as well as providing ample support for a glut of other effects, from gunshots to the snarl of zombies chewing through flesh to a really interesting score by Michael Lira, one which sounds like it's using a "prepared digidaroo" (for want of a better term). The low end on this track is suitably boisterous and aggressive, but midrange and upper registers are also utilized effectively (the zombies tend to screech at times). Dialogue is presented very cleanly and clearly and is always well prioritized. For the record, there's also a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track on this Blu-ray as well.

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Wyrmdiaries: Behind the Scenes of Wyrmwood (1080p; 49:29) has some really fun behind the scenes footage, including some great looks at how the impressive makeup effects were achieved.


• The 7 Minute Teaser Scene (1080p; 8:14) is a variant version of the zombies attacking the armored truck in a field.


• Crowdfunding Video 1 (1080p; 6:01) offers the Roache-Turner Brothers talking about the film and showing scenes.


• Crowdfunding Video 2 (1080p; 4:14) has a really funny opening you won't want to miss.


• Storyboards by the Director (1080p; 1:32)


• Trailers (1080p; 4:23)


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 19:30)


• Commentary with Roache-Turner Brothers finds the first feature film commentary from the siblings a pretty chatty affair, though they get into elements like their decisions regarding structuring and how various effects were accomplished.

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead would have been better without the overly convoluted story structure, one which was obviously geared to start the film out with a bang (as the brothers address in their commentary), but which tends to bifurcate the story in an unhelpful way. It's even weirder that the film is cast initially as a reminiscence when the Brooke storyline just wanders in from a nearby screenplay. But these qualms aside, the film is a ton of fun and provides more than enough head exploding action to satisfy most zombie fans. Visually arresting though probably a bit overstuffed stylistically, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead boasts excellent technical merits and a good supplementary package and comes Recommended.