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yuuagoLast Friday, I watched Yellowbrickroad with the usual suspects. This was one of those films that starts off with a great idea, but doesn't manage to pull it off. Sometimes, films like that almost succeed - they aren't as good as they could be, but they still manage to put together a coherent story. This wasn't one of those.
The general premise is great! The background story is this: In 1940, the entire population of a small town in New Hampshire suddenly stood up and walked away into the wilderness. Some of them were later found dead; others were unaccounted for. No explanation could be found for why they did this. The incident was quietly covered up and became known as little more than an urban legend, and the "road" they took through the forest was made off limits. Later, in 2008, the documents related to the incident became declassified, and a writer decided to put together a team to walk the trail the townspeople took in order to try to discover what they were walking toward.
For me, this is a pretty good setup for a horror film. It reminds me of various "mysterious and unexplained" incidents that I have read about off and on over the years, stories about people disappearing or doing fatal things without any logical explanation, such as the Dyatlov Pass incident. Because of that, it provides a setup that is strange enough to be creepy, but more or less realistic enough, until the supernatural factor is revealed, to be something that could possibly have happened. I feel that gives it a really solid story base to work with.
The opening of the film is pretty strong - it provides the background through clips of video and recordings about the incident, including a witness account from the only person living in the town who managed to return alive. It establishes the lore of the area quickly but firmly. Then forward to modern day: the author picking up the documents, which have finally been released.
Overall, the effect is a relatively solid beginning, and as the film progresses from the formation of the team to the start of the expedition along the Yellow Brick Road, it's still pretty firm. But about halfway through the film, things start to fall apart. It isn't just because the story gets weird - though that does happen, as is to be expected in this kind of horror film. It's because the film doesn't seem to be able to decide what it wants to be.
There is no explanation given for why the force compels the team to go on, and no hint as to where it's coming from or what is causing it. Sometimes, this can be effective. Sometimes, the lack of motive for the actions of the supernatural force can increase the level of horror. Or, the unanswered questions are raised in a way that is coherent and compelling. But in Yellowbrickroad, it doesn't quite work.
Still on the subject of "the movie can't decide what it wants to be", a large part of the problem for me is that the end of the film contains what seems to be a shift in both subgenre and aesthetic. At the end, the writer succeeds in reaching the end of the Yellow Brick Road. This, in itself, is not a problem, and could have been done in many satisfying ways. But the return is to some sort of dream version of the original town, to the cinema that the team encountered at the beginning of their journey, polished up like new. The writer is then forced to watch a film, which is actually a view to another world - some strange world of the dead, where the tortured souls of his deceased team communicate their sorrows to him through the cinema screen.
Up to the end of the film, there was no indication that alternate worlds or anything like that were part of the world of the film. The supernatural aspects of the story seemed to be rooted in the real world: they were supernatural, but there was little to indicate that the music the team heard on the path, and the states of paranoia/psychological horror that they experienced, were not caused by supernatural forces in the real world. That is to say: it seemed to be similar to a film like The Blair Witch Project, in which the characters get lost, and horrible things happen to them, but everything takes place in an ordinary forest and there is no extra-dimensional travel or anything like that. So, the shift in style of film isn't expected.
It could have been done in an effective way; other films have managed tonal shifts just fine. But the shift in Yellowbrickroad is very abrupt, and directly at the end. It feels very tacked on, as if there was no real plan as to how it should end, and when they were nearly done making it there was a moment of "Well, damn, how do we finish this film?" and they threw ideas at a wall and went with the first one that stuck.
A bit about the visuals: Compared to the overall shift, the aesthetics of the ending are a minor thing. But the comparatively bright crispness of the supernatural cinema doesn't fit visually with the rest of the film, and it provides an odd disconnect. It's probably intentional, as a way of emphasizing the otherworldly nature of it, but that doesn't mean it works in a way that I find satisfying. Additionally, as a bit of an aside, the style in these scenes reminded me of some of the visual styles of the '90s television series Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which was a little distracting. There was something about that too-bright, too-crisp look, a little bit cheesy looking, that brought that series to mind - especially when combined with the "suddenly, this nonsensical thing happened" nature of the scene itself.
In short: The ending doesn't make sense with the rest of the film. It doesn't match up visually, it isn't consistent with the worldbuilding of the rest of the film, and it doesn't fit well with the narrative. Speaking generally, I didn't find it at all satisfying. There are a few directions that I think the film could have taken that might have been better. For instance, having the trail end in the town - in the real town where the story began, not the extra-dimensional town. Alternately, the Writer could have died without ever reaching the end of the trail. Or any number of other possibilities - there are a lot that would make more sense than what we were given.
In addition to the ending, there were a lot of other places in the film that could have been interesting, but really fell short. For a movie titled Yellowbrickroad, there were unfortunately very few Wizard of Oz references. An emphasis on this connection could in fact have made the ending make more sense; Oz is built on the frame narrative of going from one world to another and trying to return home, and Yellowbrickroad, if one accepts the ending, is also about going from one world to another - and trying but failing to return home. If there were focus on this connection, then the possibility of the multi-world weirdness could have been introduced into the worldbuilding, rather than feeling tacked on. There are a few Oz references, but only a few - the name of the Road itself, and the fact that the cinema (in the real world, not the after-world) had been playing The Wizard of Oz when the people of the town disappeared. There might be others, but I can't remember them. It isn't really enough to establish the connection firmly.
There are some concepts that the film introduces, touches on, and then drops, without explaining them adequately. The central question of the story is "Why did the people of Friar walk?" While its entire population disappeared in 1940, the town was repopulated after that. Liv, one of the travelers in the group, was brought up in the town, and she claims to know the answer: "If you live in the town long enough, you know why they walked. You always know the trail is there. You feel like the trail will understand. Now, I think that’s the worst part. That it does."
I find this statement fascinating, but it raises more questions than it answers, and the film doesn't provide much information in a satisfying way. Liv's confession comes in the second half of the film - I unfortunately can't put a timestamp on it, but I felt it was perhaps 75% of the way into the film. After the issue is raised, it is essentially - dropped. We don't hear Liv elaborate on what she means after that, and an explanation of it doesn't come from other sources. Ideally, the ending would reveal just what is meant by it; at the very least, what is meant by the idea that "the trail understands". But the Writer's experience in the cinema at the end of the film doesn't do anything to clarify what Liv says, and it doesn't explain why the people of Friar walked the trail either.
Another strange thing that the film does, which once again raises too many questions and doesn't feel to be in keeping with the overall tone of the movie, is bring the beginning right back around to the end. When the Writer picks up the declassfied documents at the beginning of the film, the clerk who hands them to him is the exact same person as the usher who greets him in the cinema at the end of the film. The beginning of the cinema scene is pretty fascinating, because it opens in the same way that the beginning of the film opens - the focus on the door, the writer stepping in, filmed in such a way to call back to mind the opening scene.
This is yet another idea that isn't explained or explored; the connection between the clerk and the declassified documents, and the presence of the same man dressed as an usher in the cinema, is not explored adequately. There is no hint of an explanation as to the reason why the clerk gave the writer the documents. The implication is, I think, that the documents were not actually declassified; that it was the work of the Road's supernatural force, manifesting in the form of the clerk, which responded to the writer's inquiries and made sure that he received the information that would lead him to the Yellow Brick Road. But why? There is no information as to why the Road wanted someone to walk it again, or why it needed an outside person rather than someone from the town. One would think that if it wanted people to walk along it, then it could get what it needed from the town. It could call the people of Friar up again, like it did in 1940. Or, it could influence someone from the town - Liv, perhaps - to form a team and see what the road led to, because the people of the town already know where the trail is.\
I wrote an awful lot of words here, considering I was unsatisfied with the film. But the reason for that is that I was disappointed. The setup and backstory were so interesting to me, and I feel that it could have been a film that I loved. But for me, the film left too many questions unanswered, and the questions that it did answer were not answered in a satisfying way. I feel like it could have been done differently - perhaps better. One thing that I do like, though, is the visual format of the film. Excluding the film-with-a-film at the very end, it would have been very easy to produce this film as a found footage story. The "caused to be lost in the woods due to a supernatural force" concept lends itself well to that. But while it might have been interesting - especially if the ending were at least partly different - I think it would not have been as effective, because it would have limited the viewpoint to being from only one member of the group, and also suffered from the usual found-footage problem of needing to come up with a reason for the characters to not turn off the camera.
Overall, I must say - Yellowbrickroad has an awesome concept, but it gets kind of lost along the way, and the ending is very unsatisfying. But, not everyone feels the same way. Some people loved it. I found this review very interesting, even if I just can't agree with everything they're saying. And it isn't the only positive review I've seen, either. So, when it gets right down to it, I would say: if the concept sounds interesting, watch it, and see for yourself how you feel about it. You might love it, you might hate it, or - like myself, you might want to love it, and end up disappointed with the execution.
The general premise is great! The background story is this: In 1940, the entire population of a small town in New Hampshire suddenly stood up and walked away into the wilderness. Some of them were later found dead; others were unaccounted for. No explanation could be found for why they did this. The incident was quietly covered up and became known as little more than an urban legend, and the "road" they took through the forest was made off limits. Later, in 2008, the documents related to the incident became declassified, and a writer decided to put together a team to walk the trail the townspeople took in order to try to discover what they were walking toward.
For me, this is a pretty good setup for a horror film. It reminds me of various "mysterious and unexplained" incidents that I have read about off and on over the years, stories about people disappearing or doing fatal things without any logical explanation, such as the Dyatlov Pass incident. Because of that, it provides a setup that is strange enough to be creepy, but more or less realistic enough, until the supernatural factor is revealed, to be something that could possibly have happened. I feel that gives it a really solid story base to work with.
The opening of the film is pretty strong - it provides the background through clips of video and recordings about the incident, including a witness account from the only person living in the town who managed to return alive. It establishes the lore of the area quickly but firmly. Then forward to modern day: the author picking up the documents, which have finally been released.
Overall, the effect is a relatively solid beginning, and as the film progresses from the formation of the team to the start of the expedition along the Yellow Brick Road, it's still pretty firm. But about halfway through the film, things start to fall apart. It isn't just because the story gets weird - though that does happen, as is to be expected in this kind of horror film. It's because the film doesn't seem to be able to decide what it wants to be.
There is no explanation given for why the force compels the team to go on, and no hint as to where it's coming from or what is causing it. Sometimes, this can be effective. Sometimes, the lack of motive for the actions of the supernatural force can increase the level of horror. Or, the unanswered questions are raised in a way that is coherent and compelling. But in Yellowbrickroad, it doesn't quite work.
Still on the subject of "the movie can't decide what it wants to be", a large part of the problem for me is that the end of the film contains what seems to be a shift in both subgenre and aesthetic. At the end, the writer succeeds in reaching the end of the Yellow Brick Road. This, in itself, is not a problem, and could have been done in many satisfying ways. But the return is to some sort of dream version of the original town, to the cinema that the team encountered at the beginning of their journey, polished up like new. The writer is then forced to watch a film, which is actually a view to another world - some strange world of the dead, where the tortured souls of his deceased team communicate their sorrows to him through the cinema screen.
Up to the end of the film, there was no indication that alternate worlds or anything like that were part of the world of the film. The supernatural aspects of the story seemed to be rooted in the real world: they were supernatural, but there was little to indicate that the music the team heard on the path, and the states of paranoia/psychological horror that they experienced, were not caused by supernatural forces in the real world. That is to say: it seemed to be similar to a film like The Blair Witch Project, in which the characters get lost, and horrible things happen to them, but everything takes place in an ordinary forest and there is no extra-dimensional travel or anything like that. So, the shift in style of film isn't expected.
It could have been done in an effective way; other films have managed tonal shifts just fine. But the shift in Yellowbrickroad is very abrupt, and directly at the end. It feels very tacked on, as if there was no real plan as to how it should end, and when they were nearly done making it there was a moment of "Well, damn, how do we finish this film?" and they threw ideas at a wall and went with the first one that stuck.
A bit about the visuals: Compared to the overall shift, the aesthetics of the ending are a minor thing. But the comparatively bright crispness of the supernatural cinema doesn't fit visually with the rest of the film, and it provides an odd disconnect. It's probably intentional, as a way of emphasizing the otherworldly nature of it, but that doesn't mean it works in a way that I find satisfying. Additionally, as a bit of an aside, the style in these scenes reminded me of some of the visual styles of the '90s television series Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which was a little distracting. There was something about that too-bright, too-crisp look, a little bit cheesy looking, that brought that series to mind - especially when combined with the "suddenly, this nonsensical thing happened" nature of the scene itself.
In short: The ending doesn't make sense with the rest of the film. It doesn't match up visually, it isn't consistent with the worldbuilding of the rest of the film, and it doesn't fit well with the narrative. Speaking generally, I didn't find it at all satisfying. There are a few directions that I think the film could have taken that might have been better. For instance, having the trail end in the town - in the real town where the story began, not the extra-dimensional town. Alternately, the Writer could have died without ever reaching the end of the trail. Or any number of other possibilities - there are a lot that would make more sense than what we were given.
In addition to the ending, there were a lot of other places in the film that could have been interesting, but really fell short. For a movie titled Yellowbrickroad, there were unfortunately very few Wizard of Oz references. An emphasis on this connection could in fact have made the ending make more sense; Oz is built on the frame narrative of going from one world to another and trying to return home, and Yellowbrickroad, if one accepts the ending, is also about going from one world to another - and trying but failing to return home. If there were focus on this connection, then the possibility of the multi-world weirdness could have been introduced into the worldbuilding, rather than feeling tacked on. There are a few Oz references, but only a few - the name of the Road itself, and the fact that the cinema (in the real world, not the after-world) had been playing The Wizard of Oz when the people of the town disappeared. There might be others, but I can't remember them. It isn't really enough to establish the connection firmly.
There are some concepts that the film introduces, touches on, and then drops, without explaining them adequately. The central question of the story is "Why did the people of Friar walk?" While its entire population disappeared in 1940, the town was repopulated after that. Liv, one of the travelers in the group, was brought up in the town, and she claims to know the answer: "If you live in the town long enough, you know why they walked. You always know the trail is there. You feel like the trail will understand. Now, I think that’s the worst part. That it does."
I find this statement fascinating, but it raises more questions than it answers, and the film doesn't provide much information in a satisfying way. Liv's confession comes in the second half of the film - I unfortunately can't put a timestamp on it, but I felt it was perhaps 75% of the way into the film. After the issue is raised, it is essentially - dropped. We don't hear Liv elaborate on what she means after that, and an explanation of it doesn't come from other sources. Ideally, the ending would reveal just what is meant by it; at the very least, what is meant by the idea that "the trail understands". But the Writer's experience in the cinema at the end of the film doesn't do anything to clarify what Liv says, and it doesn't explain why the people of Friar walked the trail either.
Another strange thing that the film does, which once again raises too many questions and doesn't feel to be in keeping with the overall tone of the movie, is bring the beginning right back around to the end. When the Writer picks up the declassfied documents at the beginning of the film, the clerk who hands them to him is the exact same person as the usher who greets him in the cinema at the end of the film. The beginning of the cinema scene is pretty fascinating, because it opens in the same way that the beginning of the film opens - the focus on the door, the writer stepping in, filmed in such a way to call back to mind the opening scene.
This is yet another idea that isn't explained or explored; the connection between the clerk and the declassified documents, and the presence of the same man dressed as an usher in the cinema, is not explored adequately. There is no hint of an explanation as to the reason why the clerk gave the writer the documents. The implication is, I think, that the documents were not actually declassified; that it was the work of the Road's supernatural force, manifesting in the form of the clerk, which responded to the writer's inquiries and made sure that he received the information that would lead him to the Yellow Brick Road. But why? There is no information as to why the Road wanted someone to walk it again, or why it needed an outside person rather than someone from the town. One would think that if it wanted people to walk along it, then it could get what it needed from the town. It could call the people of Friar up again, like it did in 1940. Or, it could influence someone from the town - Liv, perhaps - to form a team and see what the road led to, because the people of the town already know where the trail is.\
I wrote an awful lot of words here, considering I was unsatisfied with the film. But the reason for that is that I was disappointed. The setup and backstory were so interesting to me, and I feel that it could have been a film that I loved. But for me, the film left too many questions unanswered, and the questions that it did answer were not answered in a satisfying way. I feel like it could have been done differently - perhaps better. One thing that I do like, though, is the visual format of the film. Excluding the film-with-a-film at the very end, it would have been very easy to produce this film as a found footage story. The "caused to be lost in the woods due to a supernatural force" concept lends itself well to that. But while it might have been interesting - especially if the ending were at least partly different - I think it would not have been as effective, because it would have limited the viewpoint to being from only one member of the group, and also suffered from the usual found-footage problem of needing to come up with a reason for the characters to not turn off the camera.
Overall, I must say - Yellowbrickroad has an awesome concept, but it gets kind of lost along the way, and the ending is very unsatisfying. But, not everyone feels the same way. Some people loved it. I found this review very interesting, even if I just can't agree with everything they're saying. And it isn't the only positive review I've seen, either. So, when it gets right down to it, I would say: if the concept sounds interesting, watch it, and see for yourself how you feel about it. You might love it, you might hate it, or - like myself, you might want to love it, and end up disappointed with the execution.
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-08 11:39 pm (UTC)That is chilling.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-09 01:11 am (UTC)Normally I don't get so worked up about bad horror movies but this one did so many things right! It just needed to do some things more right!
[/giant frowny face]
no subject
Date: 2015-05-19 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-19 09:12 pm (UTC)