Isaacs Picture Conclusions

SHITFEST 2014: SUMMER ~ YELLOWBRICKROAD (2010)

SFSOFFICIAL

BY: FILMNERDBLOG

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Yellowbrickroad

I’m talking about Yellowbrickroad all-one-word. The turgid 2010 horror film, not the 2005 documentary Yellow Brick Road, about a group of disabled actors staging a performance of The Wizard of Oz, which actually sounds quite interesting.

Seeing as this is Shitfest, I’ve no need to worry that I’m giving anything away by saying right at the start that this is truly, unequivocally and without any remote, miniscule, wavering shadow of a doubt, one of the worst films I’ve ever had the misfortune to endure. It. Is. Pure. SHIT! I fucking hated every teeth-grinding second of it. Honestly, it probably isn’t the all time worst film I’ve ever seen (I watch an awful lot of shit), but it is certainly one of my least favourite films. Ever.

She didn't like it, either...

She didn’t like it, either…

It begins, Blair Witch style (those guys have got a lot to answer for), with a group of wide-eyed young researchers setting out to investigate a legend of some spooky goings on. These crazy bastards decide (no, I don’t know why) to try to get to the bottom of the mystery of Friar, New Hampshire. Apparently, in 1940, the 500 or so residents of this sleepy little town simply got up and marched off into the wilderness, with nothing more than the clothes they stood up in. They never returned. Nobody knows why they left. Some of the residents were found frozen to death. Some had been butchered. Some weren’t found at all. Oh, did I mention this is supposedly based on a true story? Remember that later, when it gets really nuts.

Clearly none of these people have ever seen a horror film. If they had, they sure as shit would’ve considered the possibility that by retracing the steps of a group of people who died horribly…they might…umm…die horribly.

But hark, ‘tis written: thy horror film victims will be extremely stupid, and will put themselves in unnecessary and mortal danger, and thou shalt be compelled to shout at the screen with incredulity. True, we need an element of that for these films to get off the ground, but still…

From here on in SPOILERS ABOUND!

So they head off on the trail of the Friar townsfolk, and sure as eggs is eggs weird shit starts to happen. There’s an unnerving, ominous noise that sounds how I imagine tinnitus might sound – an incessant, continuous and utterly maddening high-pitched buzzing. There’s also some inexplicable music playing in the distance.

But wait; things get seriously mental any minute now. Almost instantaneously they all begin to go insane. I mean, totally bat shit. There’s an argument over a hat which leads a guy to rip a girl’s leg off and beat her to death with it. Can we just let that one sink in for a moment…?

Up to this point, nothing much has happened except for a bit of back story, some walking and weird noises. Then, all of a sudden, the guy RIPS HER FUCKING LEG OFF with his BARE HANDS. He hardly even breaks a sweat even though he’s RIPPING A WOMAN’S LEG OFF and BEATING HER TO DEATH WITH IT.

Someone else walks off a cliff. A man convinces his wife to tie him up and break his neck because he wants to kill her. A woman commits suicide by eating poisonous berries.

Mmm, those poisonous berries look delicious!

Mmm, those poisonous berries look delicious!

By about the half way mark I was starting to think I was going mad too and the prospect of tearing my own leg off and beating myself to death with it, was actually quite appealing. The dialogue isn’t any better than the shitty plot, either. Oh no!

Melissa: Are you going to kill me now? Here?
Daryl: Yes.
Melissa: Does there have to be so much pain?
Daryl: Yes.
Ok, then.

And guess what happens at the end? A total FUCK YOU, that’s what! After 98 gruelling minutes all you get is an ambiguous, dream-sequence type deal that completely ignores the whole ‘based on a true story’ premise they tried to sell us at the beginning. Basically the lone survivor turns up at the cinema in Friar and there’s some weird footage of his chums on the screen, and the other people who went missing are there and is he really a survivor at all or is he dead too, and in some kind of purgatory/hell sort of place? At this point I honestly didn’t give a fuck; I was just relieved whole dreadful experience was over.

Score: 0/10 because, did I mention, I HATED THIS FILM?

72 comments

  3. Wednesday's Child

    “But hark, ‘tis written: thy horror film victims will be extremely stupid, and will put themselves in unnecessary and mortal danger, and thou shalt be compelled to shout at the screen with incredulity.” LOL! The King James version of the horror movie rules.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  6. Parlor of Horror

    The shame is it actually had some potential with the back-story and the ending was unique, but it was just soooo boring! Dialogue was awful…and boring, and there was way too much of it. Glad you didn’t beat yourself to death with your own leg and survived to write this review, just to warn others to stay away!

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  8. 55theintimidator55

    Did it ever say what made them all go loony? Not going to lie, depending on how much had happened before it, I think I might have died laughing if a guy ripped a chick’s leg off and beat her to death with it. So ridiculous.

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    Reply
    • Laura O

      Nope. I thought it was probably the lack of a coherent story-line that might have done it. As for the leg incident, this was pretty much the first act of violence, which made it all the more bizarre – surely you need a bit of build up if you’re going to rip someone’s leg off and beat them to death with it…?!

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      • 55theintimidator55

        If you’re trying to make a good movie, yeah. If it was that spontaneous, I might have got a kick out of that part. Probably not the rest and that fact I might have got a kick out of that part does not excuse how stupid that is.

        Like

      • Laura O

        Urgh, Melissa, it’s soooooo bad! Like, sinfully bad. I hated every god awful second of it. It made me sad and angry to be alive.

        That said, I think there’s something even worse about a big budget, star-laden Hollywood movie that stinks, which is why Eric’s selection of American [shitty] Hustle is so spot on. I might have picked it myself if I hadn’t already written it up http://wp.me/p3sWVR-9l

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  14. caragale

    Oh God. This sounds…hellish. I think dialogue like that would make me want to beat myself with my own leg, too. Or rip the writer’s leg off and bludgeon him to death with it. I think I like the second idea best.

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    Reply
  15. Monkeyboy

    Why didn’t they put spaces between the words for the film’s title? Surely it’s not like that in the film as well. Just a design choice for the poster/DVD cover? This is bothering me more than some guy ripping a leg off with his bare hands.

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    Reply
    • Laura O

      Hmm… Well, it is listed on IMDB as all one word. Maybe because there was already a film called Yellow Brick Road? Whatever their reasoning, it was just a small annoyance compared to the awful pile of shit that is the actual film itself.

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