Yellow Brick Road (Bloody Disgusting Selects)

"Cap'n Bill and Trot decided to walk through the forest, to discover what was on the other side of it, but the Ork's feet were still so sore and "lumpy" from walking on the rocks that the creature said he preferred to fly over the tree-tops and meet them on the other side."—from The Scarecrow of Oz, the ninth of L Fran Baum's Oz books.okay. I have tried several times to do this *fantastic* movie justice in a review and I have failed each time. But like an intrepid band of modern-day explorers wandering northward into uncharted wilderness in search of an urban legend, I will keep on ploughing through the thorny underbrush until I get this right.This is a wonderful puzzle box of a horror movie. It is an art movie that confuses people because everything about it is so brilliantly un-pretentious.As a young man, fervent about writing great novels one day, I read many a text on how to write well, how to be a better writer, how to write. One book by an author, I think her name was Bly, concocted an unforgettable lesson by having her readers first visualize a sinister meeting of pirates on the high sea on a dark and stormy night. (A bit campy, yes? Fun, overblown, cliché, hackneyed, yes?) Now keep everything about the scene exactly the same, only change the weather to brilliant sunlight over a smooth turquoise sea, spread out and glistening in all directions. To me at least, the second scene is far more sinister.In a sense, this movie is a joke. I noticed that the first time I saw this movie. "Noticed" is an understatement. I was laughing my ass off the whole damn movie long, and when I looked afterward at the Amazon reviews, as is my won't, I was shocked, SHOCKED to see that, alongside the many reviews bemoaning that the movie was just too weird or too hard to understand (I expected those. Like I said, this is an art movie, which is kind of a euphemism for "not for everybody", which is kind of a euphemism for "if you don't worship this film for its unique and poignant brilliance, you will despise it as a pretentious piece of crap",) all the other reviews seemed to paint it as something very grim and unsettling.Well. As a gentleman critic beset with real life Aspergers, I am obliged in this sort of situation to yield to public consensus. I watched the movie again and again, each time with a set of fresh eyes, until I saw that yes, the actors play it so straight, and the stakes become so high, and the poetry, all the time evoking images from the Wizard of Oz in its Great Depression, of the allure and danger of escapism.And yet there is something darkly comic about how this truly twisted horror movie (and every time I watch the scarecrow images, SPOILER WARNING, I do think to myself "you insane Asperger person, how could you NOT have thought this is one of the darkest films ever) is set so brightly against such a bucolic, unthreatening background as the north woods of New Hampshire, all rolling and gentle, never requiring our characters to climb or strain uphill much. And, as our heroes, a munchkin-like lollipop guild (and lollipops are a symbol in this movie, SPOILER WARNING as witness the sad sad suicide of Jill the Intern) of an intern, a ranger, a local informant, two siblings who are together ace at making maps, and three scholars who perhaps are meant to represent one a lion with no courage (the nebbish-y behavioral psychologist Walter Myrick, who dare not mention where his true affections lie) a scarecrow with no brain (for Melissa Barnes, though clearly a brilliant scholar and strong willed fighter, is determined to follow her husband on whatever mad path he dares follow) and a tin woodsman with no heart, no compassion for those who have followed into this fatal wilderness, this dark, thorny poem of demon metaphors which systematically drive all his companions down into an individual hell, and oblivious to the horrors, Teddy Barnes plods forward.And Dorothy? Maybe hard-bitten Liv McCann. But focus to much on the admittedly brilliant way that this movie turns the world on its head by making a horror movie out of Wizard of Oz, making the charming, carefree ditties of the American 1930s into a haunting and menacing banshee moan—reflect too much on all that highfalutin stuff, wonderful as it is, and you miss some of the simple pleasures of this movie. Namely, the fact that this seems to have been one of those rare and wonderful productions where the director was able to say to the actors, "Why don't your forget about acting and just have a good time." The camping scenes are so full of tiny little wonderful bits of observational humor about the silly fun that making camping trips worth going on, from having impromptu campfire-building contests, sharing a bag of candy, and joking around at an apparently broken GPS that one minute tells our intrepid campers that they are wandering somewhere in Guam, the next minute that they are outside Florence and next well on their way to Melbourne. Each time poor Jill the Intern is called on to read off the latest ridiculous location, all the rest of the campers cheer like "Hooray! Florence! Oy! Melbourne! Throw a shrimp on the barbie, mates!" It's a joy and if you miss that joy you are missing the point of this movie.But if you let yourself get lulled too deeply into the joy, you'll miss the truth of the metaphor: they HAVE wandered off the map, our intrepid explorers, wandered into a place which is nowhere and everywhere, simultaneously Guam, Melbourne, Florence, the woods north of Friar, NH and the wilderness of the land of Oz itself whose dreamlike brutality (apple trees flinging apples with murderous disregard for suffering, monkey demons with bat wings charging down from the sky, and the unforgettable sight of a green-skinned demon witch bemoaning her fate as she literally melts into oblivion) is indicated by those mighty emerald walls so few are ever allowed to cross.This is one of those smart movies, the kind that lead me yet again to recall and paraphrase that favorite Zen rubric, "This film is a mirror. If a monkey looks in, no visionary will look out." Dismiss this movie as merely "weird" "boring" or "meaningless" at your own peril. It is, at turns, all of those things. But so is life, and life is worth dying for.

In this movie, a group of people go into the wilderness in search of answers concerning the 257 town's people from Friar, New Hampshire, who in 1940 abruptly left their homes and wandered into the woods, with only 1 mad survivor ever found. They want to write a book, and they are well prepared. A professor of psychology, an intern, cartographers, writer and photographer, forestry guide, even a citizen of the town with family knowledge of the even, who is also the only one willing to talk to them. She shows them where it starts. They call it "the Yellow Brick Road." People really like movies in this town. They have the gear, and an atv, so Blair Witch bunch they ain't (and it's not found footage, either, in case you were wondering). Because of all this, I was expecting more from this film. They start hearing music from the 40s, and they're compasses and gps aren't working. Their behavior starts to degrade until madness and murder, but by this time I started getting bored. Creepy music can only take you so far; there is just no suspense, nothing around that next corner. Still, I'm waiting for the payoff, thinking magnetic interference, infrasound sickness, aliens or a government experiment, portals, heck even a gateway to hell? Give me something, some payoff! Nope just more of the same, and an ending that falls flat, delivering nothing.

This movie is clearly a low-budget affair, but the camera work is decent enough that it doesn't get in the way. The idea of "hiker horror" is an old concept, but it's retreaded here to good effect. The audio is supposed to help you experience what the characters are experiencing, but it becomes a bit much because it never really lets up. I get the feelings of distress that's supposed to echo, but sometimes it's just annoying.As for the acting, it's refreshingly not that bad. The violence seems realistic and believable enough (except maybe the leg removal thing), and there's enough time between outbursts that it doesn't overwhelm everything – until the end, of course.I'm pretty critical of crappy horror movies, but this one kept me watching. The ending might've been more effective without invoking the supernatural (sometimes nothing more needs to be said than "the end"), but it at least tries to tie things together. Not bad, not remarkable. Certainly bearable.

This is a very creepy, unsettling film. There's no gore to speak of but there is plenty of violence. I know that one of the reviewers keeps saying that this is a "comedy", but I strongly disagree with that description. I could find nothing funny about this film at all. It is very dark and disturbing and leaves one with an unsettling and strange feeling, almost bordering on fear.The movie takes place in New Hampshire where in 1940, the people of the town took a walk on a trail and never made it back. There was only one survivor and he was too "unwound" to really tell others what had happened to all of the people. Dead bodies were later discovered on the trail. This is all learned within the first 10-15 minutes of the movie, so it's not going to spoil anything for anyone. Now, in the present, a writer finally gets a chance to tell the story of what exactly happened when he decides to walk the trail, himself, with some other people (about 25) from the town.The following story is what makes up the film and it raises more questions than answers, in my opinion. The story gets more disturbing as it goes on and I don't want to give anything away, but if you enjoy very creepy, disturbing psychological drama/thrillers, then I think you will enjoy this film. If you just want a good horror movie with lots of gore, this is NOT for you, in any way.

Although after a few minutes it was clear this was a low budget production mainly because of the quality of the lighting etc and the fairly predictable introductory 2 Dimensional scenes, I still held out some hope as the story progressed. After following an old trail that locals only know about that was the scene of unexplained grisly murders back in the 1930's/1940's a writer and his group of helpers head out with a local girl to follow the trail and get material for his new book on the events. They quickly stumble upon a strange music that won't stop along with their GPS instruments going haywire telling them false locations as to their whereabouts. Very randomly what ensues is rather a ridiculous descension into madness and death which seems too rapid and sudden to allow the audience to become scared or horrified. I think there was potential here for quite a good horror film, a good concept, not bad acting on the whole but unfortunatley there was not enough tension built for the creepiness or horror of what is happening to really have any impact on the audience. If you are thinking of making a low budget horror yourself then probably a good film to watch to avoid falling short of a what should have been a genuinely spooky production.

I'm not a movie reviewer so nobody cares what I think but I did love this movie and found it disturbing until the ending!The DVD itself was good quality with good picture and sound. There were no internal booklets or variant covers which was to be expected in this edition. All in all I'm happy with my purchase at the price I paid.

Sorry but this film I did not understand at allwas going to turn it off but was hoping it would getbetter how wrong was I.The story line was rubbish and so was the actingit say on the dvd case creepy and unsettling don't know how they reckon thatnot even scary.buy at your own will waste of anyone money.

This film was not at all what i expected & didnt captivate me as much as the trailer did? So rather disappointed with it & only gets a 3 star rating from me & i think that`s generous enough

I stuck it out to the end utter rubbish not worth 50p