STACK #179 Sept 2019

FILM FEATURE

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The Wyrmwood brothers, Kiah andTristan Roache-Turner, are back, conjuring evil from the internet in the insane sci-fi/horror flick Nekrotronic . Words Scott Hocking DOWNLOADING DEMONS

W hen STACK spoke with producer and co-writer Tristan Roache-Turner some four years ago about the brothers’ debut feature Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead , he told us that their next film would be a scary and demented version of Ghostbusters . Fast-forward to 2019 and we’re now talking about that very movie. Nekrotronic is an insane plunge into a world of demon hunters, ghosts and evil smartphone apps, and every bit as energetic and inventive as the Roache- Turners’ first feature. Only this time, the journey to the screen involved considerably less DIY. “ Wyrmwood we put on credit card and essentially got free work from friends and family – we pretty much got that made on the smell of an oily rag,” says Tristan. “We had a much more substantial budget [for Nekrotronic ], which was one of the great things about teaming up with Hopscotch Films.” After shooting in backyards and building sets the size of the average lounge room, walking onto the Nekrotronic set at Sydney’s

Fox Studios was definitely a surreal experience says director and co-writer Kiah. “I turned to my production designer and said, ‘are you sure this isn’t a Ridley Scott set?’ And he was like, ‘no dude, this is your set.’ It was so much bigger than I thought it would be and that was kind of the mantra of the

We like to make films where audiences scream and jump up and down

says Kiah. “We started using characters and structural elements, because that film is very much a hero’s journey, very mythological. Looking at The Matrix , you start to think about computers and the internet and we thought, ‘Well let’s just weave the internet and ghosts together and see what happens with the plot. “During the time of the rewrite, the Pokémon Go craze was happening, so I think it was Tristan who had the idea of doing a

film. Everything was bigger, the props, the sets, the cameras… My ego was bigger,” he laughs. “It was fantastic.” If Wyrmwood is zombies meet Mad Max, then Nekrotronic is Ghostbusters and Evil Dead II in the world of The Matrix . “We looked at The Matrix a bunch of times and thought, ‘What do we like about that?’”

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SEPTEMBER 2019

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