YellowBrickRoad (2010) Directed by: Jesse Holland, Andy Mitton. Starring: Cassidy Freeman, Anessa Ramsey and Tara Giordano. Verdict: SUCKS.
When this small budget horror film came out a couple years ago it got a lot of buzz among genre nerds. Some thought it was a brilliant, original film that surpassed all the same old trash out there. Others thought it was a stupid, silly film that deserved none of that praise. I’m firmly in the second camp and spent the 98 minute running time just wishing it could be over already.
The biggest fault of this film in my opinion is how it squanders its intriguing set up. A team seeks to uncover the truth about a government cover up in a small New England town in the 40’s. For seemingly no reason all of the towns inhabitants up and left their homes to walk up a nearby trail, only their dead bodies to be seen again without an explanation of what brought on this exodus. In present day, the team is convinced that if they walk the same trail they might figure out the why’s and how’s of this mystery. Decent concept, right? The movie starts off with a bit of archival footage and documents to set up this tale and I have to admit, I definitely wanted to know the answer to the mystery too. Unfortunate thing is, I never would know any answers—just sad confusion and bitter aggravation.
The teams gets together to go on this trail and when they go to the supposed coordinates it is actually a movie theater so they’re a bit confused. Luckily some random girl who works at the theater says she knows where the actual trail starts and joins their party. What does this movie theater have to do with anything? I really couldn’t tell you, not because of spoilers but because by the time they address it, it really doesn’t make any sense or fit in with the rest of the movie at all. Anyways, they start along their journey up North into the woods and all of a sudden it’s like a megaphone is projecting loud ass 1940’s instrumental music. Not that this really seems to phase this group all that much, they just go along with it. That is until the music (I guess it’s the music?) starts to drive them a bit mad. The film then becomes a sequence of people murdering other people or committing suicide.
Now there’s 8 people on this trip but somehow it starts to feel like there’s 15 of these nutjobs running around the woods, making human scarecrows and getting high on berries randomly (yeah, it’s a real goof). Of course, they all end up splitting into smaller groups or running off on their own and you sort of realize how basic it all is. The unique premise is actually just a way to get people into the woods to be killed off in sometimes interesting ways. Sure I can dig a movie like The Collector which is pretty much an excuse for unique kills, but you’ve got to give me at least one character worth caring about, even a little bit. And the kills really weren’t all that fun to watch anyway. It’s hard when there’s an annoying racket and crazy people screaming and crying the whole time.
The worst parts of this movie for me come down to two bigger aspects than annoying characters and subpar horror though. The first is that you never really find out the answers to all the questions that this movie is supposedly set to discover. The premise is basically abandoned once they go into the woods and they sort of tack on some philosophical explanation that still does not make sense. Second, the entire “high concept” of the movie theater (feel free to peruse the IMDb board to spoil that nonsense) was a weak attempt to be cerebral but it really wasn’t effective and just served as the final annoying factor to making this movie suck.
Have you seen YellowBrickRoad? Agree that it sucks or think I’m completely wrong? Did I miss the huge philosophical meaning behind it and now you want to enlighten me? Let me know!