The elevator pitch for this Australian monster picture is Werewolf vs the Zombie Apocalypse, though it’s slightly more subtle than that. After a pandemic has ended civilisation, ripped biochemist Carter (Joel Jackson), who hulkwolfs out when injected with orange serum, is surviving on a diet of foraged booze and taking advantage of the fact that in his big wolf critter form he’s immune to the bite of the stumbling white-eyed zombies. He’s one of those embittered, grieving loner heroes who is just waiting to open up and care again. As Uncle Tony (Temuera Morrison) is being killed by zombies, he entrusts his niece Megan (Téa Heathcote-Marks) and nephew Billy (Riley Stiles) to Carter and they embark on a quest to find a perhaps-illusory sanctuary (by now, post-apocalypse characters should know not to trust come-and-be-saved radio messages).
It’s an episodic road movie, with monster peril action and some rather sweet bonding stuff as Carter teaches the kids zombie-killing skills (knife to the head) while they bring out his human side. The fact that he’s a werewolf – Billy remarks that if Carter were infected he’d be a ‘wombie’ – is no big deal, but after the end of the world that’s probably fair enough. Ryan Kwanten cameos as a nasty survivalist and Laura Maitland is good as a friend made and lost along the way.
Zombies have always been favoured by low-budget filmmakers because the make-up jobs are relatively simple and you only need staggering extras, but werewolves are a trickier prospect – as the title suggests, the beast here is highly reminisicant of the muscular giants of some of the Howling sequels … it’s refreshing seeing a non-CG werewolf again, though the film somewhat skimps on the expected werewolf-on-zombie action scenes. Written by James Pickering and director John V. Soto.