NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

daggersineyes I didn't realise it was directed by the guy who directed Sigaw until after I'd seen it. (Sigaw is one of my faves). This director doesn't rely on cliché techniques such as jump scares, fake-outs, shadows jumping across doorways and all that other stuff we're so used to. He simply puts together a carefully crafted story and tells it beautifully with interesting twists and an obvious love for his craft. This is not a movie for the slash & giggle crowd or the jump-addicts. It's a psychological suspense drama that will - if you let it - draw you in and play with your emotions (and this coming from a chick who avoids dramas like the plague!!) while surrounding you with creepy suspense. It's actually a very sad tale for all concerned and isn't the kind of horror movie you can just watch for the "fun of it" and dismiss afterwards as just another horror flick. It's a tragic tale of dysfunction with a lot of ghosts and ghoulish moments.Some of the acting may have been a bit dodgy (particularly from some of the youngsters in the first act & one of the 'grieving' mothers unfortunately was laughably bad), but other more experienced actors were extremely good. All of the main characters in the third "act" were outstanding & I was deeply effected by their performances. The camera work was often brilliant and the director uses a range of techniques, lighting, camera shots, emphasis, background objects, etc to create the right mood or effect. For example, in one early scene he jumps between ordinary cameras and a shaky handy-cam throughout a particularly harrowing sequence. For a minute there I was afraid he was going to turn the whole movie into one of those unbearable "trendy" flicks where it's all shaky hand-held camera work and half the time the actors are barely on screen and you end up feeling violently ill from motion-sickness. My had was actually reaching for the eject button! But mercifully he didn't succumb to that. Just like he didn't give in to conventions anywhere in the movie. He was just using that convention for that particular scene to enhance the conveyance of terror felt by the characters. This is how that camera technique should ALWAYS be used (if at all!!). The movie's score was perfect and the settings used were excellent and put to good effect. One or two head-scratching plot holes perhaps - or it could be a cultural gap issue. I'm not sure. In any case, it doesn't detract from my overall view that this is a movie well worth seeing.I am not a fan of slow, overly clever, "arty" movies (eg The Devil's Backbone left me completely unimpressed - I rate this flick as better) and this movie, although it's not a fast past action-oriented one by any means, was well paced and grounded. It never stepped over the line into pretentious like TDB and similar movies.Watch this if you like mystery, suspense, thrillers and don't need to have a scream a minute thrill-ride every time you watch a movie. Don't watch it if you can only enjoy a horror flick if it's a screaming pointless gore-fest with no real story to it (or if you can't stand subtitles!! LOL).

ryandannar I wish "The Road" was a better movie. It's based on a neat idea, and has the bones of what could make for a terrifying and fairly epic horror story. Unfortunately, the film is undone by dumb dialog, clunky editing, an underdeveloped script, laughably thin characters, and bad acting.The neat idea? A haunting in present-day, which claims the lives of three teens in the film's first section, is revealed to be caused by events which occurred a decade previous in the film's second section. But those events which caused the haunting weren't without their own causes. We see a young man kidnap and murder two girls, but it's obvious there's something more at play; he seems to respond to a presence the girls don't see. And so, in the film's final third, we jump back in time yet another decade, and discover how the young man of part 2 was driven to violent madness by an abusive mother and an ineffectual father.The recursive nature of this tale provokes some thought. It depicts a cycle of violence which spans generations, and leaves a dark spiritual footprint on a place. There's a poetic quality in that. It leads one to wonder, how far back does the violence actually go? Could we jump back yet another generation, and discover the horrifying circumstances that made the abusive mother into the monster she's shown to be? And from there, beyond? One imagines a chain of evil, begat at the dawn of time, handed down through generations, each generation damaging the next and thus forging the next dark link in the chain. There is no beginning; there is no end.Or something like that. These were the thoughts this film inspired in me. It's unfortunate, then, that it's not a better movie. The cinematography is competent and creepy, the lighting is never bad, and the sound effects were passable. Fortunately, those things count for a lot, and they made the movie watchable.Where the film falls down the most is in the script. These characters just aren't fleshed-out at all. There's a cop in the present-day section who is trying to piece-together the mystery, and his character is so thinly-defined as "Hero Cop" that I imagine that's what his name was in the script. It becomes unintentionally funny.There's also, I think, a big problem with the young man who was cast to play the killer in the film's second section. I understand what the filmmakers were going for -- I believe they wanted a timid sort of guy who is driven to murder girls because of his mother's tormenting voice in his head. Sort of a Norman Bates persona. Unfortunately, the guy cast in this role is just an average-looking, clean-cut, blank-faced boy of about 17. He doesn't have a threatening frame; he's not "big" enough to be imposing; it's not believable that this guy could knock a girl out in one sideways punch, as he's shown to do. His shirt and jeans look too laundered; the grease and blood that accumulate on him over the course of the film look like makeup; he never actually looks dirty or disturbed or mad. He looks like a guy who would be much rather be playing XBox in his bedroom then murdering girls. I just didn't buy his performance at all, not for a second. I hesitate to even call it a performance. I don't think the actor understood how to play this role. He's utterly unbelievable.Anyway, those are the film's strengths and its biggest weaknesses. It's not a total waste of time. It's just a shame it isn't better.

Igor Shvetsov 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.

Alexander Lockwood A flat-out bore with very little redeeming qualities. I expect most horror films to be, at the very least, entertaining on some level. Even if the performances are underwhelming and the story thin. But The Road has no intention of entertaining. I was constantly wondering about casting choices, editing decisions, and pacing issues which pulled me out of my suspension- of-disbelief. I really wanted to feel the tension Yam Laranas was going for. So bad, in fact, I considered leaving the theater just to feel the edge of my seat. Let this film serve as a perfect example as to how decent cinematography and set dressing (those redeeming qualities I mentioned) will in no way save a film from ALL of its other failures.