Upon its release in 2014, the explosive horror-comedy zombie film Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead was hailed as "Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead." Written by Tristan Roache-Turner and the film's director, Kiah Roache-Turner, the low-budget movie was innovative in its use of FX, props, the backroads setting, and, of course, zombies. Now, the Australian sibling filmmaking duo is taking us back to the Wyrmwood universe with Wyrmwood: Apocalypse.

Rhys lives in the zombie-infested wasteland. His job is to capture civilians and deliver them to what's left of the military. When Rhys captures a half-zombie-half-human named Grace, he comes to believe she is the key to ending the apocalypse.

Wyrmwood: Apocalypse brings back some familiar faces with Road of the Dead leads Jay Gallagher as Barry, Luke McKenzie as Rhys, and Bianca Bradey as Brooke. Some of the new cast joining them include Shantae Barnes-Cowan (Total Control) as Maxi, Tasia Zalar (Mystery Road) as Grace, Nicholas Boshier (Soul Mates) as The Surgeon, and Jake Ryan as The Colonel. Blake Northfield (Streamline) produced alongside Tristan Roache-Turner and Todd Brown, and Maxime Cottray executive produced for XYZ Films.

As Wyrmwood: Apocalypse gets its release on April 14, 2022, via XYZ Films, we talked with the director and co-writer Kiah Roache-Turner about the past, present, and future of the franchise. He even gives us a taste of what may be next outside of the Wyrmwood series. A project the filmmaker describes as "the scariest thing I’ve ever been a part of."

"Mad Max Meets Dawn of the Dead"

MovieWeb: Hi, Kiah. I’m so happy to talk with you!

Kiah Roache-Turner: Hey Melissa, how are you doing? Any day I get to talk about my own films is a good day, yeah? The director's ego always feels good when they get to talk about their own stuff.

MovieWeb: I’ll bet. I’ve been a fan since I saw the first Wyrmwood right after it was released. I raved about it to everyone at the time. It’s great to see the series continuing.

Kiah Roache-Turner: Thank you so much! It still blows my mind that something that was half-shot in our mom's backyard on a shoestring budget… like man, we made the guns out of wood and painted them black. I’m still just like, I can't believe people actually feel like it's a real film.

MovieWeb: The great thing about the horror genre is that you can make a film on a shoestring budget and put something out there that fans love. You were really innovative with what you used and how you used it. To the point where people called it “Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead.” So, it was a surprise that it hit on that level?

Kiah Roache-Turner: It's okay because Mad Max was made in the ‘70s, and Dawn of the Dead. That was what we were going for. We were like, it's 2014, we must be able to, at least, reach that height, and that was all I was going for. I just wanted to make a film that looked even half as good as The Evil Dead or the 1970s Mad Max. I think we achieved it.

If we'd been trying to make a film that's as good as Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead reboot, I mean, forget that. It’s a $60 million film, but we could certainly do something that was in the ‘70s and ‘80s. This film really was a bit of a throwback because I hadn't seen a film like that made for a while. Yeah, that's kind of what we wanted to do, to make a real sort of ‘70s/’80s horror semi-comedy but also semi-serious sort of throwback comic book movie.

MovieWeb: The first Wyrmwood definitely has that humor in it, especially from Benny (Leon Burchill). At the same time, you still had a serious tone because of Barry’s (Jay Gallagher) story with his family. Did you find it a challenge to blend all of these emotions?

Kiah Roache-Turner: I love that combination. I love when you get high drama and high comedy and horror, and you mix it all up in a bag with adventure. To me, I just love that it's a hard tone to find because if you go from high drama to high comedy and don't get it right, it can just feel totally off. But if you do get it right, then you get something like Evil Dead II or even Mad Max.

[Wyrmwood] One had that kind of approach, and one of the things I loved about the original Dawn of the Dead was it's so fun, it's horrible, and its head's exploding. Within the first 10 minutes, there's a few jump scares that are just like bite-your-tongue-off scary. But then it becomes this fun theme park ride when they go to the mall, and you realize the zombies are kind of slow, and it's like, well, the stakes aren't that high. This actually looks pretty fun -- I would like to do this, I could do this. But then, of course, the guy gets bitten, and it becomes really dramatic where he has to sit in this room, and you're watching him slowly die. It suddenly turns dark, and I love that kind of up and down heartbeat effect. It's something that Tarantino does beautifully. I mean, it helps that he's just like a genius, but he jumps between almost comic book absurdity, and then you've got these wonderfully deep, dramatic characters.

It's just a really fun tone that most studio films don't do because they're scared of it. A studio wants to know what the tone is from start to finish. What is the genre? Who do we sell it to? If you go, well, it's three different genres, they're like, okay, I’m not going to give you my $20 million. You don't know what you're doing. But we might give you $800,000. So, yeah, it's usually only indie films that have that kind of bizarre jump-around tone, and that's why they're so fun.

From the Big Screen to the Small Screen and Back Again

MovieWeb: Absolutely. I appreciate both films because the cast looks like they are having so much fun, making it fun for the viewer. So, it has been seven or eight years since the first one came out…

Kiah Roache-Turner: I think eight now, yeah. Seven while we're shooting Wyrmwood: Apocalypse. It's like, oh my god, time goes so quickly.

MovieWeb: It does! Fans have been looking forward to the sequel over the years, so what made you decide to do it now?

Kiah Roache-Turner: Well, we finished the first one, and I had filmed zombies for three and a half years of my life, so I was kind of a bit sick of it. We went into the Nekrotronic world, and we developed that for four years. It started off as one thing, then it turned into something completely different. That was sort of our studio film experience. After that, we were keen to go back to Wyrmwood, and we wasted a lot of time trying to get the TV series up.

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What I learned about TV is it's harder than it looks. I mean, you're effectively trying to convince somebody to let you make ten films and, you know, it sounds like a lot of money, but it's not. You need about a million dollars per show to make it good. You can make a really cheap, crappy version for maybe half that, but you still have to convince somebody to give you between four and five million dollars, which is quite a lot for a low-budget franchise. Not to mention the fact that The Walking Dead, while we were trying to make it, was just taking up all the financial space. So, every production company that we went to said the same thing -- wait till The Walking Dead finishes and come see us then. Eventually, we just went, let's just make a film.

So, we took our pilot that we had written for the TV series and took a lot of the basic elements and characters from the first arc of the first series and just crunched that into a 96-minute screenplay and called it Wyrmwood: Apocalypse. That's kind of the story of how Wyrmwood: Apocalypse happened. If we make Wyrmwood 3, that'd be the second half of the first series come to play. A lot of the ideas that we came up with for the series would be put into Wyrmwood 3.

MovieWeb: With two films under your belt and The Walking Dead… well, with spin-offs and movies, that will probably never end. (laughs) But with the Day of the Dead TV series and the Chucky series, we see horror on the small screen again. Is that something you'd still consider for Wyrmwood?

Kiah Roache-Turner: Oh, man. This world… I could write three TV series tomorrow. It's endlessly riffable. Just the concept itself where you're taking the idea of the Mad Max world and the idea of the Romero world that was set up with Dawn of the Dead and mixing those together. There's just something about that, along with the fact we've got enough cool stuff to make it on our own.

With the idea of methane, the zombies are effectively like an eco-friendly power source. It's such a bizarre idea that you can use zombies to power your vehicles and the idea that the scientists are running around injecting people and making these bizarre half-human, half-hybrid zombies that eventually develop the ability to puppet zombies like a video game. Just that sentence alone is like, okay, that's three TV series I could endlessly write.

I do what's in front of me at the end of the day, Melissa. If I can get a TV show up, I’ll do that. If we can do Wyrmwood 3 as a movie, I’ll do that. There's other stuff I’m developing. I’m happy to just do whatever's in front of me, really.

A Seamless Transition From Road of the Dead To Apocalypse

MovieWeb: That’s great to hear; I could see this adapted for TV. So, as we discussed, there was a big gap between the first and second movies. But going into Apocalypse, I was surprised at how cohesive the films are in style and FX. How did your team accomplish that?

Kiah Roache-Turner: Thank you for saying that. I’m really glad that's how you felt. The makeup artist, Mariel McClorey, was a makeup artist on the first one, and then we've worked with her on everything we've done since. She's become head of makeup now, so the zombies look exactly the same as they do in the first one for a reason because she's still making Wyrmwood zombies. She can make a Wyrmwood zombie on her head. She's been doing it for like a decade. Just the look of it is a very specific look.

Me and my brother did the production design on the first one, and we were lucky enough to be working with these amazing professionals on the costume and production design -- Tracey Rose Sparke on costume and Esther Rosenberg on production design. They brought their own brilliant genius to it but also had the respect of going back and making it all look enough like the first one to have visual consistency. I’m pretty happy with the look of it. We were very lucky, given how small the budget was, that it looks as good as it does.

MovieWeb: The FX is as fantastic as the first film. However, I made the mistake of eating eggplant Parmesan while I watched. I realized I had made the wrong decision within the film's first three minutes.

Kiah Roache-Turner: Oh, big mistake. (laughs) That’s classic.

MovieWeb: Yes, viewers, beware. In Apocalypse, there are newcomers in addition to some of the original cast. Can you tell us a bit about the new faces?

Kiah Roache-Turner: Well, the characters that are kind of weirdly sliding into the arcs of Brooke (Bianca Bradey) and Barry are Grace and Maxi, two sisters played by Tasia Zalar and Shantae Barnes-Cowan. Shantae is quite new to acting; she's never had any official training. She's done one TV series, and this was her first semi-leading role. She just has natural star charisma. She’s one of those people who just you can't stop looking at her when she's on-screen. She was just so fun; she would come to set every time, and immediately, between action and cut, she'd just go to 11. I'd just sit back and watch the sparks fly. She's great to work with.

Jake Ryan, who plays The Colonel, is, I think, one of the most talented actors in this country. He can do everything. He's just a force of nature. His beautiful, deep voice, big 6’5” dude. He's a kickboxing champion, so he does all his own stunts and is just a truly gifted performer.

Nick Boshier, who plays The Surgeon, I’ve wanted to work with him for about ten years. He's part of a comedy duo in Australia called the Bondi Hipsters, and they're very famous over here. They're the funniest people in Australia… I think it would be okay for me to say that. I’ve been watching him from afar, just loving everything he does. He's a gifted comedian, a very good writer, and a very smart guy. But also, that rare thing where you've got a comedian who can also act. He's really good at the character. He came in, and he just did it, and I was laughing because I’m like, oh, he's Heath Ledgering. He's giving us a Joker-like reptilian performance, and it was just wonderful to see him hit it out of the park. All of the newcomers did.

I love working with actors. It's one of my favorite things to do because it's so hard. Anybody who's tried any acting, you know it's harder than it looks. To watch these guys just kill it is one of my favorite things about getting to direct.

“A Really Scary Monster Film...”

MovieWeb: Before we wrap, are there any other projects on the horizon beyond Wyrmwood: Apocalypse?

Kiah Roache-Turner: There's a monster movie that I can't talk about yet. The concept is the scariest thing I’ve ever been a part of. Some of the scenes I’ve written, and we've been working on the script for years. I’m working on it with Jamie Hilton, who's a pretty big producer over here, and Chris Brown, who produced Daybreakers and The Company of Wolves, the classic Neil Jordan film. He's produced 36 films, and he’s a big genre producer. If we get this going, it will be like Alien, Jaws, The Thing… it's so scary.

I can't tell you the concept, but I want to tell you because as soon I do, you'd be like, oh my god… I don't even know if I can watch that. I’m just so excited because it hasn't been done before, and that's why I can't talk about it. I’ve always wanted to make a genuinely scary film, something that can sit alongside The Conjuring. I’ve been doing horror-comedy for ten years, but I just love to really scare the pants off people, and it’s a scary concept. It's like John Carpenter’s The Thing, as there's a couple of jokes in it, but that's a pretty serious concept with a very serious monster. I get to work with some of the best practical effects artists in the world on this, and it's a really scary monster film. So, I hope that goes well, but otherwise, I’ll just be busy here writing Wyrmwood 3.

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MovieWeb: I want to see both! I’m very excited about this mystery monster flick, and I’ll keep my ear to the ground.

Kiah Roache-Turner: It's a good one, Melissa. This is the one where I’m like, oh, this could be my Alien.

MovieWeb: Would it be an indie film or studio?

Kiah Roache-Turner: This is a proper studio one, so the whole premise was I wanted to write and make something that could sit up there with The Conjuring. It's a family in peril, a single location. It's a studio horror film because you can't make this without a budget, so I’m not going to go off and do one of my crazy atonal films. This is a proper horror film. That's how it's been designed from the ground up, so hopefully, this will be a fun one if we get to do it.

MovieWeb: Well, that’s definitely exciting!

Kiah Roache-Turner: This is the first time I’ve ever talked about it; actually, I’m excited to even just talk about it, yeah.

Wyrmwood: Apocalypse will be released on Digital via XYZ Films on April 14, 2022.