WYRMWOOD: APOCALYPSE (2021)
Label: 101 Films
Region Code: B
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 78 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround, English PCM 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Kiah-Roache-Turner
Cast: Bianca Bradey, Jay Gallagher, Luke McKenzie, Nicholas Boshier, Jake Ryan, Tasia Zalar, Shantae Barnes-Cowan
Australian brothers Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner churned out a rambunctious and gut-splattering Ozploitation zombie flick with Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014), and now eight years later we finally get the sequel to it; but, was it worth the wait? Hell Yeah! I would strongly recommend watching or re-watching the first film to get caught up prior to seeing the sequel, as it took me a bit to remember what had happened in the last film. To sum it up a zombie virus brought about by a meteorite has swept through Australia, some are immune to it, but other survivors were transformed into methane-spewing undead hungry for flesh. Also, gas is no longer combustible for some odd reason, but some genius figured out they could harness the mouth-exhaust of the zombies to fuel generators and vehicles.
This time out we have a bad-ass soldier Rhys (Luke McKenzie), who is the twin brother of a baddie character The Captain from the first film, who has a sweet secured base he calls home, he is contracted by a guy called the General Surgeon (Nicholas Boshier) to procure the undead and the living alike, and he is presumably using them to find a cure for the zombie plague. What he's really using them for is to liquify there brains into an glowing green elixir that fights off his own zombie infection. The surgeon also has a keen interest in capturing siblings Barry (Jay Gallagher, Nekrotronic) and Brooke (Bianca Bradey), returning from the original film, as Brooke is a white-eyed human/zombie hybrid who can somehow mind-control the undead, which would prove quite useful to the demented Surgeon General, and his corrupt military counterpart The Colonel (Jake Ryan, Wolf Creek TV Series). New major players include another set of sisters, Grace (Tasia Zalar) and Maxi (Shantae Barnes-Cowan, Firebite), who are initially captured by Rhys for the Surgeon, are apparently kin to a character named Bennie from the last film, one of who which is also a coveted hybrid. Eventually all the characters paths cross in various ways and the blood and guts start flying, pretty much non-stop.
The sequel does good work in keeping with the kinetic playfully deranged zombie-action that the first film trafficked so well in. You can sum it up nicely as the raw early works of Peter Jackson (Brain Dead) and Sam Raimi (Evil Dead 2) by way of George Miller (Mad Max), though this sequel does offer much less vehicular carnage that the first, but that's no slight - it has some fantastic gore-gags, great zombie make-ups, and intense action moments with inventive camerawork. These include numerous exploding heads and my personal favorite: hybrid Brooke battling a zombie-cyborg controlled by a VR headset by the General Surgeon. The amount of absurd and over-the-top gore, both practical and digital, keeps this firmly in the splatstick arena. It's definitely not to be taken too seriously and it's easy to have a chuckle with, particularly when the film channels it's inner Dr. Strangelove with the Surgeon General losing control of his arm at certain points, which I guess could also be a nod to Raimi's Evil Dead 2.
Like the first film this is a scrappy and bloody blast, it only runs 78-minutes and it never gets hung up on itself, it's constantly moving forward, and it never got dull. Kudos to Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner for making another kick-ass zombie action flick, here's hoping it doesn't take another eight years to make this is trilogy.
Audio/Video: Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021) gets a region B locked UK Blu-ray from 101 Films, presented in 100p HD widescreen (2.35:1). Audio comes by way of uncompressed English DTS-HD MA 5,1 and PCM 2.0 with optional English subtitles. It looks and sounds great, this is slightly more polished than the first film and it's a solid A/V presentation from 101 Films. Sadly, this is a barebones affair, zero extras. However, if you're an extras junkie the region A locked U.S. release from XYZ Films does offer an audio commentary and making-of featurette. The single-disc release arrives in an oversized clear keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring two bad-add illustrations, with the reverse option, a Apocalypse Now influenced artwork, not having the ratings logo on the front cover.
