Movie Review: The Road

 Last week I visited my friend in Baliuag, Bulacan to catch up on what's going on with our lives. He has a small restaurant that serves sizzling dishes. After serving the last customer that afternoon we decided to go to the nearest cinema and watch a movie.

We decided to watch The Road by Yam Laranas. Let me show you the trailer for the movie that I found inm youtube



The story tackles about the killings that was happening around a certain area in the Philippines spread over the last 20 years. It is more of a psycho movie than a ghost horror story which was what the trailer was implying.

I have to commend the movie's cinematography, specially on how the colors were "post processed" it gave the viewers a good sense of time on where in the time line is the scene happening as the story spans the years 1988, 1998 and 2008.


Though the movie really is great with the cinematorgraphy (though I have some reservations on some shots in some scenes) me and my friend had some questions with hanging in our minds after the movie.

1. Why did they marketed the movie more of a ghost movie and not a trace of a psycho thriller in it? We think that it could have really helped a lot in having movie goers understand the movie more. Both of us feel that we were short changed when we got out of the movie house as we were expecting that we would get scared yet all we got were a bunch of question. Don't get me wrong, because if I went inside the cinema for a psycho movie and is puzzled after watching it, I would be saying wow that was awesome..... they did a good job I was mystified.

2. Loop holes. these are the questions that really mattered to us by the end of the movie.
     a. When the two teens died how come they didn't haunt just like the other ghosts.
     b. Who killed the teen guy? the last scene that where he was seen is when the ghost on the road was chasing him.
     c.What does the meaning of the the butterflies, there's just too many of them there must be a meaning to that right?
    d. Were they trying to imply that there was a possession or transfer of spirit among the victims? Lets track what happened, on 1988 Carmina died and was fed with by Marvin with soil, on 1998 Rhian's sister died but it was her ghost that vomited soil implying that she was somewhat experiencing what was done on Carmina's body. But on 2008 only Barbie forteza survived but she got possessed by the spirit of Rhian Ramos actually I'm not sure if she just got posses of was there a total transfer of spirit. It seemed like it was a totally different person and not the original partner that she was playing.

Well in general the movie is okay. But me and my friend was actually saddened because we think that the movie could have been better if the story was well stitched together without the loopholes. For me if I see a good movie all questions in my head should have been answered well unless there is a part two. But even if there would be a part two I would still prefer that the story be told on a much clearer way. Clearer you might ask? yes Clearer not simpler because I actually love the way how the timeline got messed up to tell the story, though each scene could have been established much better.

My rating for this movie is about 2 out of 5. Its cinematography is commendable and I like the Idea of the writer and director on how to tell the story but the output is not that good when it comes to execution of the story.

1 comment:

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