The Road

An off-beat and gripping Filipino ghost tale.

It is essentially a sort of Pinoy Norman Bates story told in retrospective spanning two decades, with heavy amount of supernatural and sufficiently creepy elements thrown in for a good reason.

The yarn is simply structured and easy to follow. The chain of events revolving around the stark consequences of abused childhood experience is pretty dark and disturbing. Overall, in my opinion, the film has balanced mix of mystery, horror, drama ... and comedy.

Comedy? Well, I must be kidding, but I count one particular instance, which may be regarded, to certain extent, as a kind of comic relief in the midst of mostly depressive storyline: a redundant exposure of excessive puke masses ejected on the floor wasn't a fun part unless accompanied by the mother's self-mocking chant. Yum!

The direction perhaps is too heavy-handed at times with superfluous horrific clichés methodically stuck on one another, and the conclusion is somewhat rushed and improbable. But hey, the horror genre is rarely and less than anything else associated with scientifically correct, 100% logical, polished, visually stunning and accomplished piece of art.

Not bad at all.

"The Road" is an odd mix of crime, horror and drama, with an end result that is actually worth watching. However, it is not one of the best movies I have seen, nor is it one of the worst. The movie is fairly average, but it does have some pretty interesting moments here and there.

What I enjoyed about the movie was that the movie backtracked, taking us backward in time to the things leading up to the things that happened in the beginning of the movie. That was a pretty good move on director Yam Laranas behalf - sort of like the way the Korean movie "Peppermint Candy" was built up, and it worked out quite nicely for the overall flow of the movie.

As for being a Tagalog (Philippine) horror movie, well then I must say that I didn't find the movie overly scary, but then again I am not really familiar with Tagalog movies, so I don't really have anything to compare this with. However, compared to the many Korean and Japanese horror movies, this was like a picnic in the park.

"The Road" does have some interesting moments, as I mentioned above. Aside from not being scary, the movie does a great job at building up some suspense and an even better job at taking us back in time and showing us the things that lead up to the events in the start of the movie. There is so really interesting character's and portrayal of these characters. Personally, I enjoyed the 1988 segment the most, because it was the most interesting of all the segments, and it was the one that really had the best of acting performances as well. Plus it was initially the foundation of the previous segments of the movie.

For a Westerner, then this movie didn't really offer much in the scare department, but the movie is worth watching because of the interesting story and the approach that the director had taken with it. And on the plus side, it was nice to have an Asian horror movie that didn't focus on a ghostly woman in a white dress with long, black hair covering her face.

"The Road" tells about a mysterious series of grisly murders that occurred on a lonely stretch of road. The story was told in three parts, spanning three decades. It starts in 2008 when three youngsters were terrorized by a driver-less red car one night when they happened to pick this particular road on which to practice driving. The story shifts to 1998, when two sisters (one of them Rhian Ramos) whose red car overheated on that same road, only to fall victims to a quiet but mentally-disturbed teenage boy (Alden Richards) who had unspeakable violent tendencies. Finally, the story shifts further back to 1988, when a child was being mentally and physically tormented by his virago of a mother (Carmina Villaroel). In the end, the story returns to 2008, when everything was tied up together.

I must say that the opening credits alone was very effective to establish the creepy atmosphere of the whole film. The music (by Swedish composer Johan Soderqvist) was so chilling as the camera follows the spooky shadows that line the titular road. The three parts all had a different kind of horror to show. In the first one, the horror is supernatural. I found the first one the best as we can really feel how helpless the three youngsters were against the vengeful ghost. The second part was scary in a more physical manner, since we can see that the antagonist was an actual psychotic killer. While the third part is more of psychological horror as we see how a little boy's delicate psyche was slowly being corrupted by his parents.

As with most horror flicks, there will be plot holes, some big ones, in fact. But I say, do not think too much, let the eerie atmosphere envelop you as director Yam Laranas tells you his stories with his well-placed camera angles and effects, as well at the amazing lighting of scenes. While the more senior actors like Carmina Villaroel, Marvin Agustin, TJ Trinidad and Rhian Ramos expectedly did well in their respective roles, I was most impressed with the talent of Renz Valerio, the child actor who played the boy in the third part. He was able to convey his gradual descent into madness so well, keeping that last chapter interesting. It is very good to learn that Yam Laranas has once again succeeded to gain the attention of the international market with this release, following his "Sigaw" (2004) which was given the Hollywood treatment as "The Echo" in 2008. "The Road" is a definite must-watch for horror movie fans!

"The Road" starts off very strong. The first segment scared the hell out of me, something that almost rarely happens to me. Sure, the film doesn't have a high budget, and it probably would have benefited if they could manage to pull off the effects they were trying to achieve, but the small budget is sufficient enough. However, after the first segment, the film gets noticeably less exciting as we're given more backstory and information to solve the whole mystery surrounding the story. It would have helped if they tighten up the pace a bit, keep things going rather than slow everything down. Still, there is a satisfying payoff by the end as everything falls into place as well as unexpected emotional pathos rarely seen in horror films. Overall, the film reminds me of a Tarantino horror film. It's ambitious and may be a bit too convoluted for its own good, but it's above-average horror.

A Filipino horror crime thriller that blurs the boundary between slasher killer and the supernatural subgenres. Directed and co-written by Yam Laranas. The two lead stars were Carmina Villarreal and Marvin Agustin.

The movie unfolds in three parts going backwards in time.

It opens in 2008, with the promotion of a cop, who is besieged by a woman to help find her two young daughters, who vanished 10 years earlier, along with a boy. The cop's commander urges him to solve the case.

The story flashes back to 1998, and then 1988, as it unravels who is doing what to whom - and why.

In Part I, three adolescents get lost on a deserted country road and encounter a driverless car and apparitions including that of a bloodied woman with a plastic bag tied around her head, a motif that Is repeated throughout.

In Part II, the two lost girls we are told about in Part I, break down on the same road, and are lured into sequestration by a passing country boy. The boy locks them up in separate rooms in a dilapidated house, chaining one of them up, and mercilessly beating up the second.

Part III explores the boy's childhood, as he is brought up in isolation by a disturbed mother who psychologically and physically abuses him, and a suicidal religious father unable to protect his son.

At the very end of the movie, the link between the cop and the boy, is revealed.

My major issue with the movie is Part I, where after the cop promotion ceremony, the screen is plunged into around 25 minutes of gloomy foggy darkness of an unlit country road, with apparitions of bloodied girls and driverless cars popping up here and there. I struggled to make sense of who is whom, and what is truly happening and why, as the scenes abruptly shift from long shots to close-ups, from scene to scene, from angle to angle. Moreover, the darkness made it difficult to easily pinpoint the film's subgenre; i.e. Killer slasher horror vs supernatural horror. Better editing could have helped. The moviegoer shouldn't be asked to struggle with determining a subgenre.

It is only when Part I comes to a close that the screen lightens up and the moviegoer can sit back and follow events with minimal confusion.