A quick explanation as to why there are 2 posts today: because the previous post for A Serbian Film comes with a well deserved disclaimer not to read it, I felt that it would be dumb to post it and leave people with good sense (since so many people read this site...NOT) nothing to really read but a bunch of disclaimers. So here's a safe movie so you have some reason to be here.
Skip to the review!
The film begins with an ominous recap of the event leading up to the film:
One morning in 1940, the entire populate of Friar, NH, walked north up an unmarked trail into the wilderness.
Some were later found frozen to death. Others were mysteriously slaughtered. Most, however, were never found.
Among the classified records is this audio recording of a lone survivor, conducted at the outset of the investiagtion.That's some spooky shit, isn't it. The audio recording of the lone survivor gives little hint as to what happened, other than he walked from town down a trail on which he left all the others. At the conclusion of the interview, the survivor covers his ears with his hands and asks the others in the room if they hear the sound. Then the movie begins in earnest.
Teddy Barnes has a perhaps unhealthy interest in the events in Friar, and seeks out the classified records of what happened. Expecting the runaround, he is instead given all the classified documents, along with an apology from a mysterious clerk. Having finally retrieved the documents he so wanted, he returns home. During a mini celebration with his wife Melissa and close friend Walter regarding teaching assignments, Teddy reveals that he has the materials he needs to embark on a journey into the woods north of Friar to discover what happened to all those townfolk nearly 70 years prior and write a book detailing what they find.
Teddy's crew gathers at a diner to get acquainted and set out on their journey. Teddy and his wife explain their book plans. Walter, a psychology teacher, intends to monitor the crew members for any changes. Erin and Daryl (who are actually brother and sister in real life) play a brother and sister team of cartographers interested in mapping the parts north of Friar that have been, up to this point, uncharted. Jill, Teddy's intern, is along with a GPS and as extra storage space. Cy is a forest ranger who's been assigned to Teddy's crew to make sure they stay safe in the woods. Oh, and a nice ass canopied ARGO 4 wheeler. Once everybody's introduced themselves, it's time to set off.
The initial coordinates of the trailhead (where the trail starts for those not familiar with the term and unable to discern meaning by dissecting a word into its component parts) are The Rialto, a movie theater in Friar, leading everyone to question the functionality of Jill's GPS unit. Inside, the crew finds just an ordinary cinema with a dick ticket booth guy and a mysterious looking concession clerk. While everyone leaves in frustration, Teddy follows the concession clerk into the empty theater. Here the clerk, named Liv, tells Teddy that not only does she want to get out of her humdrum life at the theater, but she knows where the real trailhead is and wants to join the crew on their trek down the 'Road.
As the set out on their trip, we're given glimpses into how Walter plans to track the mental state of the crew. Each morning they're asked simple questions from their name to their current location, along with other strange requests: speaking gibberish, making a gesture, reciting the alphabet backwards, and doing random multiplication. On their first night, Daryl returns from taking a leak and, after attempting to scare the hell out of the rest of the group, shows off a fedora-looking hat he found in the woods. There seems to be no way to verify that it belong to one of the original 'Road victims, and the hat doesn't look worn enough to have been out in open weather for 70 years. They decide to keep the hat, and Daryl decides the best way to keep it safe is to wear it.
As they're travelling Liv reveals some of the information passed on to her by her grandfather, who was around at the time of the initial trip, but wasn't in town when it occurred. One of the things she notes is that lots of things were left behind, but strangely the occupants took all kinds of formal wear when they left. Walter is skeptical given the discovery of the hat the night before and the sudden convenience of Liv's revelation. When they break for lunch and to give Erin and Daryl a chance to plot some reference points, Jill informs Ted that the GPS is malfunctioning, showing their current location as Guam.
Their journey continues. According to the GPS, they're now 40 miles north of Florence, Italy. The 2nd night, Erin tries to steal the fedora from Daryl after he refuses to take it off the first day. The next day finds them, according to the GPS, just outside of Melbourne, Australia. On this third day of travelling, they finally begin to hear a sound that resolves itself into music from the 40's. They spend that night speculating as to the source of the music. Is it some kind of funneling affect? Some sort of group hallucination? Is it a message from God? Travelling on, they spend the next day and night dealing with the music, amusing themselves to try and distract from its non-stop playing.
On the fifth day, the psych interview with Teddy breaks down as he expresses frustration with the trip. An attempt to do some mapping causes confusion between Erin and Daryl, and another request to take the hat off. Later, Daryl is picking through some berries he's found, when Cy points out that they are the deadly poison nightshade. That night, after a bit of celebrating and too much drinking, Liv awakens Melissa and Teddy to tell them that she lied, that her grandfather never came to Friar, and she is, in fact, from Rhode Island. She just wanted to get out of the rut she was in working at the movie theater.
With the non-stop music beginning to take its toll, the crew moves forward. At the next stop for mapping coordinates, Erin and Daryl head off on the ATV to find a good spot. Tensions between the two of them grow, and after Erin drops the sextant they're using, they reach a breaking point. Erin again demands Daryl take of the hat, and after repeatedly asking, she grabs the hat and dashes off, Daryl right behind her. As they dart off, Walter takes notice, getting up from his resting spot to keep an eye on them. Daryl knocks Erin down and attempts to punch her, but she kicks free and continues running. As Walter watches through binoculars, Daryl again catches up to Erin, knocks her down, and proceeds to rip a chunk of her cheek off. He then takes a large rock and smashes it into Erin's hip repeatedly. As Walter collapses, horrified by what he's seeing, Melissa takes the binoculars and watches Daryl rip Erin's leg from its socket, then clutch it tightly against his chest. Erin dies from her injuries, Daryl darts off into the woods, and Teddy and Cy chase him down. When they finally catch up to him, he's hurt. He gives himself up and is tied up.
That night, while Teddy is watching Daryl, he finds that the notes Daryl's been keeping have gone from coordinates to gibberish. Daryl explains that the coordinates and miles traveled were correct until they started trying to reference points behind them. Whatever was going on, they could keep going forward, but they couldn't go back. Daryl then tells Teddy that the last page of Daryl's notes contains the coordinates necessary to reach the end of the 'Road. After Teddy tears out the coordinates page, the music cuts out, then cuts back in, then cuts out again, progressively getting louder. Ultimately, it grows so loud that the crew is driven to the ground in pain. After frantic searching, they eventually come across a pack of cotton balls that they use to block their ears. As they travel on, being rocked by the deafening noise of the music, they come to a blockage in the 'Road. Approaching the blockage, they find Erin's corpse dressed as a scarecrow, posed in the same position Dorothy encounters the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz film. Teddy climbs to the top of the blockage and sees the continuation of the 'Road with an end in sight. While he's atop the pile of sticks, Daryl manages to escape his bonds and drive off on the ATV. Finally reaching the end of their ropes, they decide to head back, but there's no consensus as to which way to go. Teddy wants to continue on; Melissa, Walter and Jill want to head south; Cy and Liv want to head west. After splitting out the gear, Cy and Liv head off, and the rest of the crew settles in for the night. Teddy, resolved to see the 'Road to its end, leaves in the middle of the night. At dawn, finding Teddy gone, the other three begin heading south.
Cy and Liv travel on for a bit, and eventually, Liv comes across a bunch of nightshade berries. Cy tells Liv how he tried them once before, and while it takes a lot to kill you, taking a small amount will get you high. So they both eat some of the berries and start trippin' balls. As they're both coming down, Liv has an epiphany about the true meaning of life and the 'Road. She explains that the 'Road is a last resort of escape for the people in the small town; the 'Road will understand one's desire to escape routine life. And that's what scares her.
Spoiler point, I think [click here to skip] (see, I'm not sure where would actually start spoiling the end of the movie, but since this where the ending gets going, we'll just call this the spoiler point. Though there really isn't much to spoil.):
Walter, Melissa, and Jill have camped for the night. At their wits end, Melissa busts out a bag of candy for each to partake a few pieces. Once everyone falls asleep, Jill gives in and devours the entire bag of candy. The next day she gets the silent treatment from Melissa and Walter, regardless of how much she apologizes. Finally realizing the futility of continuing on, Jill turns and nonchalantly walks off a nearby cliff.
Teddy continues towards the end of the 'Road, his compass spinning out of control.
At Cy and Liv's camp, Cy confesses that he's been contemplating killing Liv. He convinces her to tie him up and kill him by breaking his neck. Liv protests, but Cy tells her to go off and find whatever strength she needs to do the job. When Liv returns, she breaks Cy's neck, killing him.
Melissa awakens to find Walter gone. She goes off to find him and discovers him on a hillside with his wrists slit and a note for her to watch the tape he made. The tape shows Walter killing himself, and him expressing his happiness that Melissa, by watching the tape, will be with him as he dies. She finishes watching the tape. Via walkie-talkie, she sends one last message out to Teddy, wherever he is. Teddy is still pushing himself along to the end of the 'Road. After Melissa's message, she hears Daryl in the cave behind her. Daryl chases her down and slits her throat with a machete. Liv, stumbling through the woods, comes across the ATV and a patch of blood. It seems Daryl may have been thrown from the ATV. Liv tracks down Daryl, and kills him with the knife she took from Cy. Then she wanders off with a handful of nightshade berries to poison herself. While this is going on, Teddy is broadcasting a final message to his wife, saying his goodbyes, wishing her well as he nears the end of the 'Road. Meanwhile, a white gloved hand drags Melissa's dead body away. Taking one last look at the coordinates page, Teddy let's it go and stumbles forward through the brush.
At last he comes upon a building that turns out to be The Rialto, but this time it's the building as it was in the 1940's. Inside he finds a lone usher. Teddy begs the usher to help him and his friends. The usher replies that his friends have been taken care of and arrived at the end of the 'Road, including Melissa. But, as the usher points out, there are so many ends. He encourages Teddy to "enjoy [his] picture show." Teddy settles into a seat in the theatre at the command of the usher looking bewildered and terrified. The film counts down to start, and the theatre is filled with a loud noise. For a brief instant, Teddy is surrounded by the dead from Friar. The film starts with a voice over by Melissa explaining a dream she had earlier in the film. She explains to Teddy that in this dream, even if they made it off the trail, their home would be forever changed. They'd be home, but home is all black grass, a smoke filled sky, and everyone having disappeared. The screen shows what looks like a tree with Melissa's face surrounded by a post-apocalyptic looking wasteland. Teddy screams and the film ends with Melissa stating "This is our home."
Spoiler ended: So really, these movies with decent plots and terrible endings is getting really fuckin' old. I'm not sure who's in charge of this sort of thing, but there probably needs to be a new movie rating classification. Or maybe when the list out the reasons for a rating, they can include "shitty ending." I think it would be kind of refreshing to see a trailer with a rating box that was like "R - graphic violence, language, sexual themes, shitty ending." At least going into it knowing the ending was going to suck, there wouldn't be quite so much let down.
Don't get me wrong, outside of the end, this movie was definitely very good for the budget. You really can't tell that it was only made for $500K. The acting was solid, the movie was quite suspenseful, and everything (except for the ending) was well done. There are a bunch of little nods not only to Wizard of Oz, but older horror movies, little one liners that you have to be paying attention to to pick up. The movie does a great job of drawing you into the mystery. You want to know why this whole town up and wandered off into the woods. You want to know where the music is coming from. You want to know what is so special about the Yellow Brick Road. What you don't want is a swift kick in the balls. But that's what you get anyway.
Here's my guess about the ending of the movie and what it is supposed to symbolize (so skip the rest of this paragraph if you want to watch the ending/didn't read the spoiler above). What it seems to me the idea of the end was is that the Yellow Brick Road became some kind of allegory for life. There's the start, the end that we all arrive at (though via different means), and the journey in between. The Rialto's usher seemed to be some kind of Grim Reaper/Devil character who ushers those who've died to their final resting place. So regardless of how they got there, these travelers are all dead. But then the question becomes did they die on the trail by some other means? Or did they die as they died and the 'Road had nothing to do with their ending? As far as the music goes, my only guess there is the Rialto usher had a thing for 40's music, or because the characters were so focused on an event that occurred during that time, their paths were being overshadowed by music of the day. These are some of the annoying questions that the ending left hanging. What was the real point of the music? Why did the whole town take the walk? What was the fuckin' point? Did this movie really need to be so long? What are you kids doing on my lawn?
So if you've got a boner for unresolved cliffhangers, or you enjoy a good handjob that ends abruptly about 3 minutes before you're ready to blow, give this movie a shot. As with TiMER, this movie gets a composite score. 2.5 Perlys for the first part of the movie, -1 Perly for the goddamned ending.
Goddamn shitty endings!
| From My Playlist |
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Artist: | Muse |
| Song: | Knights of Cydonia | |
| Album: | Black Holes and Revelations | |
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