Wyrmwood

Sometimes when you go see a low-budget film premiere, everyone that made it is there. Last night we went to see Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead  premiere at Moonlight Cinema in Centennial Park. We didn't realize this was the premiere, we just thought it was opening night. It turns out the cast and director were there, and for fun they also had the decked out truck from the movie.

When I had seen the trailer, I didn't realize exactly how low-budget the movie was, since you can't tell from the production value. Apparently they just shot it over a period of four years on weekends outside of Sydney. There are very few sets in the movie, so they just literally drove out to the bush to film. There is one familiar scenic shot of the blue mountains that I was happy to see in one of the scenes.

I got to briefly talk to a few of the actors and I got a signed movie poster. I'm sure the last movie poster I acquired was 10 years ago when I still worked at a video store, but I figured, "why not" since I could get it signed. Beforehand, the director and producer gave short speeches, and the producer "skulled" a beer in front of the audience (what a bro). 

It's weird watching a movie knowing that the people starring in it are listening to the audience's reaction. It made me want to laugh more and cheer louder, like I would if my friend was giving a class presentation. 

My biggest issue with the film was that the timeline was absurd, but perhaps that was meant to be a joke in itself. Although the movie is obviously implausible, it would be slightly less implausible if they just had it span a time period of several weeks or more, instead of a few days. [Minor spoiler alert] The zombie apocalypse just began one day ago and there's already an evil scientist in the middle of doing experiments complete with protocols, and he has cronies to help him carry them out? How did he become so evil so quickly and already have a plan and systems in place?! As long as you suspend disbelief about that, it's still entertaining (in a disturbing way).

One thing I have to applaud the film for is having a modern Aboriginal main character that, as far as I know, was depicted accurately (as much as one could be in a comedic apocalyptic setting). As far as I'm concerned, Leon Burchill stole the show. 

It was another good picnic (I'm starting to become an expert at preparing them) and a fun kickoff to the weekend.