Writer and director of the newly released Australian horror movie Wyrmwood Apocalypse, Kiah Roache-Turner, will keep making movies set in the post-apocalyptic zombie-verse “as long as they let me”.

A follow-up to 2014 cult hit, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, the Sydney filmmaker knew he wanted to continue the story as soon as the original had the critical and commercial response to justify it.

“I think on the first one we just lucked into a great concept that nobody had tapped into yet – the idea of mixing the aesthetic of Mad Max with the general premise of Dawn of The Dead was something that genre fans immediately frothed on,” he said.

Roache-Turner and his brother, co-writer Tristian Roache-Turner, initially envisioned their follow-up as a 10-part TV series inspired by the likes of The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad.

They spent years developing the series; going as far as creating an extensive pitch bible, a fully written pilot, and a roadmap for the whole series, but couldn’t find support in LA: “We kept getting told The Walking Dead is already taking up that space”.

From there, Roache-Turner and his brother decided to make a film sequel “because we know how to make a low-budget film”.

“We took all of those big ideas for the Wyrmwood TV series, blended them up into a 96-minute context, and then just went out and cobbled together a budget, and here we are.”

After the experience of financing the original themselves and filming it in backyards across NSW over three-and-a-half years, filming the sequel in six weeks was at once “different, but the same”.

“The first time it was just a bunch of idiots making a film; I didn’t even know what those clapperboards were for,” Roache-Turner smiled. “We were just fools rushing around with cameras having fun.

“To come back to it and make it with all of that understanding of professionalism and industry knowledge, to bring all that to bear but still make it in that same, freewheeling creative way that we made the first time, was just an absolute gift.”

Wyrmwood Apocalypse takes the genre out of the city and into a zombie-infested Australian bush. The location a conscious decision by Roache-Turner that serves to place the story in a hauntingly beautiful setting while paying homage to our home-grown cinema.

“It’s so nice to take the genre and put it in the outback and add a flavour of Mad Max,” he said.

Roache-Turner was pleased the “beauty mixed with menace” of the bush found its way into his film.

“There’s something beautiful and primordial about the Australian landscape that lends itself to horror mythology,” he said.

Killing an Umbilical Brother

Making a ‘blink or you miss it’ cameo in Wyrmwood Apocalypse is beloved actor David Collins, whose Umbilical Brothers counterpart is Canberran Shane Dundas.

The chance to get Collins was a dream come true for Roache-Turner, who had wanted to get the Umbies into the Wyrmwood universe since making the first film back in 2013.

Getting in touch via cast member Nicholas Boshier, Collins agreed to appear for free on the proviso that his character had a cool on-screen death.

“He’s got this thing where he’s killed in every movie he’s in,” Roache-Turner said. “He’s got this amazing montage of him being killed in films.”

Collins was keen as mustard after hearing his zombie character’s head would get blown off by a machine gun.

“I think this is probably going to be one of the more spectacular deaths,” Roache-Turner smiled.

The day he was due on set, Collins was in Canberra performing as the Umbilical Brothers. To make it work, he had to get up at 4am after performing the night before to drive to Dural, North Sydney before sitting in a makeup chair for hours.

Despite enduring an arduous day, Roache-Turner said Collins was the consummate professional.

“He was the nicest guy, funny the entire time even though he must have been dead to the world,” he said.

“We blew his head off, we shook hands, he would have spent two hours in the makeup chair having everything removed, then he would have driven straight back to Canberra and performed again that night.”

Wyrmwood Apocalypse (MA15+) is in cinemas now; click here for more.

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