In 1940 a group of towns people headed off into the country, most never to return. Sixty years later a novelist takes a team off in search of the answers to an unsolved mystery, what lies that the end of the Yellowbrickroad.
Don’t you just hate it when you look forward to seeing a movie so much, that the result when you finally get to watch it is utterly disappointing? I’d been trying to see Yellowbrickroad since a long time, so when I finally got the opportunity to see it I had high expectations.
In 1940 a small township took to the hills following a path that defied all logic, only one of those people returned, the rest either froze to death or went mad. Enter Teddy Barnes (Michael Laurino) who for some reason becomes obsessed with the story, he creates a team of people including his wife and best friend to head off up the same path to create a book from their findings.
Yellowbrickroad goes wrong pretty quickly, no sooner do they get onto the tracks of the old failed expedition, than they start hearing music playing from the hills, the music never gets louder and as they continue on their quest for several days, neither do they get nearer the source. Instead they all start to go a bit barmy, one of them Daryl (Clark Freeman) is the first to snap, and after an argument over his hat, he chases one of the female team, pulls half her face of, and her leg with his own bare hands; think about that for an achievement.
As the movie proceeds things go from bad to worse, both for the explorers and for the viewer. Berry poisoning, pointless squabbles, a sweet thief and her rather bizarre death, fail to lighten the project.
The aforementioned music is understandably annoying for the viewer too, it’s never really quite audible, you can’t quite hear what’s being sung about, which really wound me up, if you have to listen to monotonous noise, it would be great to hear what it is.
While the movie has no real stars, it does have a familiar selection of faces, all of whom seem to have been to a bad acting workshop, combine the poor acting, with poor special effects and I do appreciate that this is a low budget movie; but your really on a road to nowhere, rather like the characters I the movie.
What is more annoying is that the movie starts so well, the opening scenes really lure you into something that you feel will be truly amazing, but the reality is that its just all round poor. I wanted so much to love the movie, but as each character died I simply did not care, and the intended shocks and pulls on heartstrings failed to become a reality, sadly unlike the movie.