Described as Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead, recent release Wyrmwood is a hilarious, gore-filled zombie film with a distinctly Australian feel.
The low-budget film is made by brothers Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner and set in a post-apocalyptic Australian Outback where zombies are wiping out humanity. With resources running low, a small group of survivors resort to using methane gas emitted by the undead to power their modified vehicles in a race for survival.
Through combining comedy with splatter, the film has been compared to the early work of Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi.
After being partially crowdfunded through IndieGogo, Wyrmwood premiered at America's Fantastic Festival in September and has now arrived in New Zealand.
I spoke with co-writer and producer Tristan about zombies, influences, diversity and what makes his film unique.
There are walking zombie films and running zombie films, but your film has both. Could you not decide which is cooler?
Nah we just wanted to get in there and make it a melting pot. We love the original, George A Romero-style slow zombies. But then when 28 Days Later came along with quick zombies, they really kicked ass. We wanted to meld the two together and give our own film a bit of a unique taste.
Some of the cast and crew with Tristan Roache-Turner crouching on right
For the first part of Wyrmwood it's a refreshingly straightforward zombie flick, then you introduce some unique elements. The zombies as methane gas producers that can power vehicles is very original; do you see it as the defining feature of your zombies?
Yeah, probably. Right back when we first started that was the original hook that we wanted to build the film around. So I guess that's our zombies' defining feature, but then we have a mind control element thrown in as well.
How did you come up with the idea of zombies emitting methane gas, and that gas then powering vehicles?
It just popped into my head when I was watching a documentary called Food Inc, which is about how bad the fast food industry and all that shit is. They have a section on cows and how they produce methane. I had been talking with my brother about making a zombie movie and when I saw these cows producing methane gas, I thought, why don't we make our zombies produce methane? Then we can use it to power our cars, how cool would that be? It's f**king funny.
Talking about zombie films, especially from this area of the world, we have to talk about Braindead. It's my favourite Kiwi film. How do you feel about it?
I f**king love Braindead, man. It's my second-favourite Kiwi film, my first-favourite is Bad Taste. That scene where he goes nuts with the lawnmower - f**king hell that scene is awesome! But I'm a super big Bad Taste fan. Derek is one of my favourite characters in cinema history, I just love the dude. Especially the bit where he dives into the alien's head with the chainsaw, saws through its body then comes out the other end and says "I'm born again." I love that shit.
The chainsaw scene in Bad Taste and the lawnmower scene in Braindead are absolute classics. What's your favourite deadly use of a tool in Wyrmwood?
We've got a zombie-powered truck with a harpoon gun mounted on the top of it. There's a scene where they go fishing for zombies and they harpoon one and it just gets absolutely nailed. There's nothing like a bit of harpoon action, especially such a big one mounted on a badass 4WD.
It's clear Mad Max was an inspiration for your film. How strong an influence were those films?
Me and my brother grew up watching films like Mad Max, the second one was one of my favourite films as a kid. We took a lot from it and are very heavily informed by it. I've always loved the cars, the kickass vehicles they have in it. The look and feel of the dirty, gritty body armour and stuff. We were very much inspired by Mad Max 2.
And how great do these Fury Road trailers look!
Dude they look f**king phenomenal! I can't wait, I'll definitely be heading to the cinema for that. George Miller is the man.
Wyrmwood mixes humour in with the blood and guts and it's often kind of a distinctive Aussie humour, like Braindead had a very Kiwi humour to it. What do you think defines Aussie humour?
It's probably the larrikinism. There's always a bit of beer-swilling jokes in there and relaxed, friendly banter. Not taking yourself too seriously is also important.
The Australian Outback is presented as a pretty creepy place in your film, despite how beautiful it looks. Was that intentional?
The Australian Outback is a creepy place, there's some pretty chilling stuff out there. We tried to get as much of it in the film as possible. And it is very beautiful as well and we were stoked to get out there and get some of the really beautiful shots we did. We shot probably about half of the film up in the Blue Mountains. We tried to make the best use possible of this beautiful country of ours.
Some people consider Australia a bit backwards when it comes to race relations. You have a multicultural cast in Wyrmwood and it's not mentioned in the script. Was that something you'd planned to do, or did it just happen?
Nah we didn't think too much about it. Leon Burchill plays Benny in the film and he just sort of fell into our lap. We wrote the role not specifically for him and we had a different guy who was going to play it, but he couldn't make the dates of the shoot. So we used Leon, he got recommended to us and he just slotted perfectly into the character and brought an indigenous feel to the film, gave it a lot of character and spirit. He was awesome. So we didn't plan that, it just fell into place and it was an absolute stroke of luck to get him.
You also have a strong female character in the film who isn't playing eye candy or a damsel in distress. She's fully kickass. Was that important for you?
That was definitely important to us and something we planned right from the start. She is a good-looking girl, but we really wanted to make it as clear as possible that she wasn't a generic damsel in distress. She doesn't get saved by other people, she's constantly saving herself.
Towards the end of the film there's a big fistfight between two men. What were your inspirations for that scene?
It would definitely have to be They Live. It's f**king awesome and I've always loved the big fight between Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David. It's got big bodyslams, big fisticuffs - you don't see enough of that in cinema these days. We both really wanted to have a big punch-up in the film and I was definitely inspired by that one in They Live.
There is a lot of zombie pop culture out there at the moment, it's a pretty crowded genre. What would you say to someone with zombie fatigue to get them to watch Wyrmwood?
Well it's not a generic zombie movie. It's got zombies in it, it is post-apocalyptic, but it's also a road movie and also an action movie. There's also an original slant to it with the zombies breathing out methane, which powers cars. But to someone who is really fed up with zombie movies, I'd say: "Mate, just chill. Don't f**king watch a zombie film if you don't want to now. It's out on DVD, so let it simmer for a while and when you want something zombie-ish and original, just jump back in with this."
I read that you're already working on Wyrmwood 2, how is that going?
That's actually a total hoax. We didn't put that up, someone has just chucked it up on IMDb, probably one of the actors. We don't have any plans for a sequel at the moment, although we'd love to do one down the track, or maybe a TV series. But the next film we're doing is a really cool, kickass, R-rated Ghostbusters type thing. It's got a very sci-fi, scary feel to it, like HP Lovecraft. And if you like Wyrmwood, you'll like this. We are trying to make it a bit smoother with a more professional production, but we want to keep that fun, action feel with a few scares.
...
Wyrmwood is out on DVD and Blu-ray in New Zealand now.
3 News
source: newshub archive
