Tag Archives: Wyrmwood

In the Middle of the Timor Sea, Lurking EVIL’s Hungry for Raft Afloat WWII Survivors! “Beast of War” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Beast of War” on Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment!

Timor Sea, 1942 – A group of newly trained Australian soldiers are heading to fight in the second great war when a Japanese air raid torpedoes their ship, stranding seven soldiers on a floating shrapnel piece of the ship’s hull.  With little food, few defensive measures, and no water, rationing their supplies is key to survival as they float back in the direction they came.  When a hungry great white shark attacks their makeshift lifeboat, dying of thirst is no longer top concern.  Below the surface, the predator circles the prey, sniffing every droplet of blood from their wounds, and striking when the opportunity presents itself to drag one of them under the water.  As hidden danger lurks below, tensions rise above the surface between them and their warfare enemy isn’t quite done with the lot yet either.  Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, they must fight with everything at their disposal to survive.

Most U.S. military enthusiasts know of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser warship sunk by Japanese torpedoes after delivering the atomic bomb on a covert mission, killing over 1000 naval servicemen, and dumping the rest into shark-infested waters where more lives succumbed to mother nature’s deadliest aquatic predators, but I’m sure the sinking of the HMAS Armidale in the Timor Sea is lesser known but follows parallel catastrophes and survivals to the U.S.S. Indianapolis with Australian soldiers left stranded in the middle of a shark-infested Timor Sea of the Indiana Ocean after their ship was sunk by Japanese forces.  Writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner, the Australian filmmaker behind the zombie epic “Wyrmwood” films and “Sting,” gets his feet wet with blending historical war action with sharksploitation in his latest film “Beast of War,” produced by “Daybreakers’s” Chris Brown and Blake Northfield, who saw 2025 as the year of producing period shark horror along with “Fear Below” involving a bull shark and the retrieval of sunken car in the early 1900s.  “Beast of War” is a production of Bronte Pictures and “Pictures in Paradise.” 

“Beast of War” doesn’t begin with a ship full of soldiers you barely get to know before being blown out of the water and become chum for a chomp-happy great white shark.  This route would have undoubtingly provided less setup of character and situation.  Roache-Turner takes us back to bootcamp where the ragteam bunch of privates learn fighting tactics, survival tricks, and comradery.  That last one, comradery, is an important and, in fact, it is the theme of Roache-Turner’s story introduced early in bootcamp trials and present through to the end.  Leo knows all about a comradeship being an aboriginal, Australian natives with an ancestral culture rich with a sense of community.  Embracing his heritage in the character Leo, Mark Coles Smith (“We Bury the Dead”) instills everything morally just within the ranks of man and militarism, earning the respect of his outfit apart from fellow private Des Kelly.  Sam Delich (“Christmas Bloody Christmas”) acts as a simmering bigot against the aboriginal, and perhaps to all those who are not white based off the dialogue, and this places Kelly to be the very anthesis of Leo in how he represents self-serving qualities and an intolerance for other races.  Kelly goes through satisfactory arc when he finds his back against the wall and his acts cause consequences his soul can’t recover from whereas Leo’s confidence brings him selfless courage though his own tragic backstory, the loss of his younger brother to a man-eating shark, may cause him to be more reckless against his own stare into death’s black eyes.  Joel Nankervis steps into somewhat of that little brother role for Leo as Will, a more of a thinker than a physical specimen of a soldier taken under Leo’s wing as Des Kelly shuns the weakest during comradery trials.  The remaining cast fills in with shipwreck beaten meat for the posturing, ultra-aggressive shark as well as other bootcamp attendees in Maximillian Johnson, Lee Tiger Halley, Tristan McKinnon, Sam Parsonson, Lauren Grimson, Laura Brogan Browne, and Masa Yamaguchi.

World War II soldiers versus a ravenous great white shark.  While that scenario might induce post-traumatic stress on a veteran navy seaman who lived through the watery Hell, for this guy, the sharksploitation scenario is salivating entertainment.  Highly stylized through color gels, fog, and a practical shark that’s damn scary, “Beast of War” not only brings high tension swimming beneath the surface but also educates history with a great deal sensationalism, evoking varying levels of bravery, the change in human condition, and a calming sense of sacrifice for a brother in arms, even if the shark took their arm.  The shark itself is pure nightmare fuel and though for cinematic value, it’s also an unfortunate continuation of demonization of the majestic creatures, especially when this particular great white shark acts and looks off from the real deal.  The movie shark, appearing with scars and a giant gaping mouth full of rows of flesh-ripping sharp teeth, doesn’t don the black doll eyes once eloquently put by the salty fisherman Quint in “Jaws.” Instead, this shark’s eyes are cloudy white as if possessed to prey and create havoc amongst the HMAS Armidale survivors, a menacing attribute heightened by the swallowing of an ordinance damaged air raid siren lodged in the interior gill resulting in death wailing screams that indicate its closing presence.  The shark also perches just below the surface with its nose just barely touching the water line, like a puppy dog waiting for a treat, ready to strike when a hand, foot, or even a portion of a blanket that’s wrapped around the injured becomes too appetizing to pass up.  All this adds to the element of certain death if even a toe goes into the water, removing any kind of chance from the safety nets of our minds for anyone who accidently fall or must dive into the water.  Roache-Turner doesn’t burden the shark to be the sole antagonist that spurs problematic situations from a Japanese fighter pilot, to the Des Kelly’s bigotry and self-interests, and there’s even complications from the severely injured parties that threaten their lives.  “Beast of War” is multifaced warfare with jaws. 

If you’re looking for next big shark horror, “Beast of War” on Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment should be your next film! The AVC encoded, 1080p high-resolution, BD25, presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, doesn’t accommodate Mark Wareham’s visual color range, tinctured with gels and hazed with fog to create that soft glow with blues, reds, and greens, with limited compression that creates black crush around the darker aspects and banding around the outer edges of the coloring. The not-so-hued scenes do depict punctilious details around fatigue textures and the stubby and course skin. The monstrous great white shark in the water, which is a little reminiscent of “Jaws 3-D’s” infamous control room scene, holds more ambiguity than when it breaks the surface, mostly around the gill to the snout to denote the scars, white eyes, and rows of razor teeth. The set stage to mimic a shrapnel raft is greatly constructed with a production design of strewn ship parts, cargo, and deceased bodies floating buoyant about and in play for the protagonist and antagonist to interact against. Wareham and Roache-Turner’s camera movements deliver dynamic scenes between calm and chaos with only seconds apart as the shark can surface at any moment. The English DTS-HD 5.1 master audio offers a complete and complex audio design that very much integrates the background sounds into the problem-at-hand fold. Japanese fighter planes, machine gun fire, explosions, air raid sirens, the swish of a shark in the water, the echoing strains of stretching bulkheads and metal shrapnel, and the back-and-forth splashes of water that give “Beast of War” that extra element of realism and suspense, channeled through the back and side channels to immense audiences inside isolation. Dialogue’s crisp and colorful amongst biting bigotry and Australian military dialect of the era with no issues and obstacles opposing the conveying conversation. English and French subtitles are available. Aside from a string of pre-feature trailer previews for other Well Go USA releases, “Beast of War” is essentially feature-only. A glossy, cardboard slipcover with an embossed title adds a textural bonus overtop the accurate described picture of action. The Amaray inside has the same primary image with no other physical contents. The region A release has a runtime of 87 minutes and is rated R for bloody violent content, gore, and language.

Last Rites: There’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to land, and no one to come save those left behind for the hungry great white in “Beast of War’s” World War II sharksploitation.

“Beast of War” on Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment!

The End of Days Runs on EVIL Fuel! “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” reviewed! (101 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Wyrmwood:  Apocalypse” – Z-Nation on Steroids!  Available at Amazon.

In a zombie apocalypse wasteland, the gaseous belching undead are used as the primary energy source, but the sight for a cure is still the goal for survival.  At least that is for boots-on-the-ground foot solder Rhys who lives in an isolated camp surrounded by the dead and ventures out to retrieve uninfected humans to bring them to the bunker-dwelling Surgeon General in hopes in discovering a cure.  After snagging a hybrid female named Grace who can control her turning by drinking single vial of blood, Rhys quickly learns that the Surgeon General and his armed entourage are experimenting to death the people he’s delivering to the bunker for their own selfish objectives.  Teamed up with Grace’s people – Grace’s sister Maxi, Barry, and Barry’s sister Brooke who is also a hybrid – Rhys is determined to no longer retrieve people but rather retrieve his soul from a group of well-armed maniacs while trying to not get eaten by the zombie hordes.

For someone like me, a film reviewer, whose fairly anal about watching a series, franchises, sequels, etc., in sequential order, I am stepping outside my comfort zone and out of my own convictions and into unknown territory by watching “Wyrmwood:  Apocalypse,” the direct sequel to Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner’s 2014 Australian bloody zombie comedy-romp, “Wyrmwood” aka “Wyrmwood:  Road of the Dead”, before the first film.  While typically a no-no in my book, and very much likely in the rest of the filmic community, I like to live dangerously.  Any who, Kiah Roache-Turner sits once again in the director chair with the direct, follow-up sequel that picks up immediately where the other film left off or, I at least think so.  In reading the ending to the 2014 film, I see no mention of a couple of characters that are present at the beginning of “Apocalypse” and so I’ll be interested to watch “Road of the Dead” to see for myself how both films tie together.  The script is penned by Kiah and brother Tristan after fan support of the first film urged the filmmakers to do a sequel to their brainchild inspired by the blood-soaked and vaudeville slapstick horror of New Zealand and Australia – such as Peter Jackon’s “Dead Alive” aka “Braindead” and the Spierig brother’s “Undead.”   “Wyrmwood:  Apocalypse” is a Bronte Pictures production (“Out of the Shadows”) in association with Roache-Turner’s Guerilla Films and backed by the executive producer team of Todd Brown, Tim Nagle, Rhys William Nicolson, Sam Gain-Emery, Clement Dunn, and Maxime Cottray.

To make matters more confusing for someone like myself who hasn’t seen the first film, Tasia Zalar and Shantae Barnes-Cowan, nor their badass sisterhood characters Grace and Maxi, are listed in the cast of the first film nor are they in the short-lived teaser episodic series from 2017, causing a bit of disconnect for a nobody like myself who knows absolutely nothing of Wyrmwood universe when beginning the Roache-Turner series will the latest production. The “Uninhabited” Zalar and the “Frostbite” Barnes-Cowan quickly establish themselves as survivors devoted to each other by blood as their introduced rather quickly, harshly, and without background in the company of returning actors Jay Gallagher as Barry, described in the first film as a talented mechanic, and Bianca Bradley as the zombie hybrid Brooke who can control the regular horde of gas-chucking dead heads. Of course, being that a direct sequel, at least that’s how the Roache-Turner plays it, follows up 8-years later, some of the characters don’t quite look the same as when we first left them. For instance, Barry’s a little rounder and beefier and Brooke is, well, blonder. However, the bond between brother-sister is still strong and is even reinforced by Grace and Maxi’s relationship that blood trumps all. Another actor returns for the sequel but not toward the same character as Luke McKenzie adds to the theme of family by playing the avenge-longing brother of the first film’s antagonist known only as The Captain. Rhys (McKenzie) has more of a pure heart in contrast to his brother, or so we’re informed by returning characters, and becomes the unintended principal character amongst an ensemble cast by being the retriever, the deceived, and the reclaimer of his soul when he discovers the paramilitary survivors – The Doctor (Goran D. Kleut, “Alien: Convent”), The Colonel (Jake Ryan, “Out of the Shadows”), and the Surgeon General (Nicholas Boshier_) – are experimenting and killing captives for their own survival and grinding their corpses to make into anti-viral pills. There’s nothing bland about the Roache-Turner brothers’ character diversity and charisma as they each stick to a persona throughout the unfolding that quickly established who-is-who in the bad and good category.

“Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” is dieselpunk coated dead and delirium. With a definite George Miller approach and a zany-zombie gift of gore and gags, I can see where fans of the zombie genre can feel freer and more relaxed outside the confines of the somber-and-serious toned oeuvre of zombie films of the last two decades that has literally been beaten like a dead horse with a stick at every angle. The gonzo-gearhead carpet definitely matches the drapes in an outlandish universe where zombies are the Duracell and Diehard batteries of the future and while the story engrains a kindred theme and blood splatter fun, one element still guts me more than the multiple eviscerated entrails in the movie. Being a zombie movie of the flesh-eating kind, one would hope scenes of flesh-eating would be apparently present. Unfortunately, “Apocalypse” has zilch on zombie feasts. Though close in one scene where a big toe might be become an appetizer, in the end, there isn’t one bite of rotting teeth be pressed and puncturing flesh or viscera. What “Apocalypse” offers quite the opposite in where the dead are the exploited, utilized as a fuel source by feeding them beef and harnessing their oral gasses to drive vehicles and run high-powered miniguns or be under-the-influence of control by telepathic hybrids to do their bidding, aka suicide bombers or take the hits so the living can stroll in without garner so much as a scratch in a skirmish.

The final conclusion about “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” is this, watch “Road of the Dead” first. Then, enjoy the rip-roaring and violent horror-action zomedy now available on an UK Blu-ray from 101 Films. The hard region B locked, AVC encoded Blu-ray is presented in 1080p, high definition, with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. “Apocalypse” has the look of the early comic-book era style of pre-“300” Zack Snyder that hovers around the practical properties of “Tank Girl” in what’s fashioned together by the director of photography, and co-producer, Tim Nagle to appeal to a tactile of cold and grimy steel, sweet, and blood. The film uses very little visual effects which is mostly on the blood splatter, and you can tell the splatter is a bit off in having a waxy look to it. The decoding runs efficiently well to provide a clean picture through an edit heavy story. The English language audio mixes come in two options: a Dolby stereo PCM and a DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound. While there’s nothing wrong with the stereo PCM track that offers a clean and lossless recording, the 5.1 audio mix is a robust beast that channels every engine roar and isolates a zombie belch to be more inclusive for a viewer. If you’re in the mood for a longer sitting and bonus content, perhaps this 101 Films release is not for you as the runtime hits just above an hour at approx. 70 minutes long and just contains the feature and a scene selection. However, there is reversible front cover art. Easily, continuing the journey by working backwards in the Wyrmwood universe is worth the time as “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” catapults the zombie into a new and unexplored rancid category of reverse exploitation in parallel with carnage, mayhem, and all of the anarchical above.

“Wyrmwood:  Apocalypse” – Z-Nation on Steroids!  Available at Amazon.