The Road (2012)

Purely Joyful Movie!

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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.

"The Road" tells the story of violent occurrences on a stretch of an abandoned road over a timespan of 20 years. It is divided in 3 Chapters, each then years apart. The chapters are interconnected, the whole story unfolding with the third episode. The storyline moves back in time - it therefore starts with the most recent occurrence in 2008 and depicts then the incident of 1998. Finally it connects the lose strands left by the two previous episodes by showing us what happened in 1988.Good things first: the sonic ambiance, the score if you like, is great. It pushes expectations right from the start. Bad thing : it is utterly wasted on this film. I don't want to go deep into the tremendous holes in the storyline, illogical behavior all around and very cheap and sententious depiction of the development of a psychological illness. It's enough that you know that these are annoyingly obvious even for a genre that thrives on them. The real pain of the movie is the acting. The first two chapters have a cast from the Children's Hospital of the Terminally Talentless! The script lets 16 year olds act like toddlers. The dialogs are horrible. They are like an audio summary for the blind: never telling more than the absolute obvious. While I do think it refreshing if a horror movie for once doesn't exploit violence and gore, this movie is not giving a valuable solution - I have seen more violent fisticuffs in Stan&Laurel movies. The uneasy avoidance of graphic violence while actually implying its existence, leads to ridiculous scenes - like a girl bleeding from a head wound apparently because she fell on a mattress.There is no special twist. It is a well used recipe in filmmaking to divide a movie in several chapters that intertwine and all get connected in the end. This was professionally executed, but without major surprises. The movie in itself is neither scary nor startling or revealing. It develops some more depth with the third chapter, which is so much better than the others that it seems to be from a different director entirely. But too little, too late. 3 Stars because sound and cinematography deserve recognition.

I guess I have to point out something positive about the growing numbers of foreigners in our land, in that the numbers will justify cinema from their home country to be viable for big screen outings here. I get my fair share of the latest blockbuster movies from India given that it's one of the major cultural make up in Singapore already, then there's the Thai, Korean and Japanese flicks that not only cater to foreigners residing here, but to its legion of fans from time to time. And with films from ASEAN from The Raid to The Collector gaining prominence everywhere, it's only time to add Philippine Cinema to the list.It's true that indie or art-house films from the Philippines do make it to film festivals here, but for the mass market audience, The Road is perhaps one of the earliest to hit commercial cinemas here in a long while, as far as my memory serves. And what better way than for a horror film to try and open up the doors, one that features an ensemble cast of stars with idol looks to spark an interest, besides providing Filipinos here with something from home. But as with most horror films around the region, it's usually touch and go basis, and The Road, boasted for getting itself a US distribution, it's somewhat of a roller coaster ride with its fair share of creepy moments, ultimately done in via a runtime that artificially sustained a thin plot.Written and directed by Yam Laranas, The Road is actually made up of three story arcs each set in a different time line separated by a decade each, and linking them is the titular road along which something strange and macabre even that had happened in a dilapidated house found along it, together with an abandoned car. The opening shot, pardon the pun, set the stage for an epic mystery to be unravelled, with the stage set for a hot shot cop Luis (TJ Trinidad), decorated with a medal for his string of successful case closures, to prove himself in the series of events that follow.In the first arc, three friends go out for an illegal joyride, making a detour into The Road to avoid a police roadblock, and in what would be a case of bad luck, encounter ghouls that seem to be stuck in groundhog day fashion, repetitive hauntings of the trio. Things don't really happen with much logic here, and the strength of friendship amongst the trio got rather telling when it becomes every man (and woman) for him/herself. So much for solidarity when the poop hits the fan. This arc was more teenage drama before the effects and make up crew shifted gears and made it their own toward the end.The second arc tried to become a mini outing along the torture porn genre, but unfortunately with the more violent offering in practically every film in the genre, this arc turned out to be rather tame, with a man inexplicably hammering his victims, two sisters, away without remorse or reason, making it a battle for survival against complete madness. It's also responsible for some interest to wane, as the story here proved to be one of the weakest, and overstayed its welcome through a series of scenes that dragged out quite unnecessarily. We know who's alive and who's not from the earlier arc, and the narrative really took its time to get there.But thankfully, the redeeming factor came from the third act. While it didn't offer anything we don't know about nor new in the narrative sense with similar themes being explored before in other films, and tosses up some more questions than answers, it is the actors here delivering better performances from the rest, and a story that's set against a dysfunctional family, that showed of Laranas' strength in storytelling. The narrative got creepier as it went along, with practical effects enhancing moments within that will make your hair genuinely stand on ends. By now you'd realize that Laranas rarely dips into the oft used box of the same old techniques used to scare audiences with quick jump cuts and edits, preferring to let the camera take its time in revealing presence that's spot on in creating both suspense, and eerie atmosphere.The Road plays on the gimmick of having a horror film told from three expanded story arcs with common characters linking them all together, and in essence scores in its effort. However, horror film fans with a penchant for the same old boo scare tactics dished out by filmmakers may find this a little bit sterile. and not offering that adrenaline rush each time a scare comes on. For those who wish to explore what horror and their films mean to friends from the region.

MANILA STANDARD: Isah V. RedIf Sigaw and Echo were about a haunted apartment, what is The Road all about?Laranas explores the idea of terror in this sleek horror-thriller. No, there are no supernatural creatures that terrorize the other characters in the story, there is just a crime that for many years has not been solved, and the perpetrator is still on the loose.The police is baffled. So is the father of the character played by Tween star Barbie Forteza after receiving a call from her in the middle of the night asking for help.Even the audience is confounded as Forteza disappears from the screen after nearly 25 them endlessly. She is with Derrick Monasterio and Lexie Fernandez who spirited the car without permission for a good time.When Derrick and Lexie die in terror, the action shifts to Rhian Ramos and Louise de los Reyes in car that breaks down in the middle of the road. This is in a different era and Laranas wants us to take a closer look as this can provide us a clue on what happened to Monasterio, Fernandez, and Forteza.The sisters see a man walking and ask him if he could help them with their car. Without saying much, he leads them to a house. As soon as the two girls are in the house, they are subjected to a mind-boggling and terrifying torture. Richards seem to be a docile man, but inwardly he is sick and wanted to inflict pain on his victims.Again, this baffles us because there seems to be no direct connection to the previous scenes with the three younger actors.Yet, we suspect something, this could be the ghosts that haunt the road, but why?Laranas takes us to an even earlier time, at home, with a strange family. A kid, played by Renz Valerio, wonders why her mother, Carmina Villarroel, forbids her to talk to strangers, even to the laundrywoman, Yna Asistio. As punishment for even trying to connect to her, she is locked in a closet. Valerios's father, Marvin Agustin, tries to talk to Villarroel about not being to hard on their son, but to no avail. What happens after adds even more to the baffling issue of how are this connected to the three.When finally, Laranas takes us back to the present, we are able to breathe in relief. Forteza finally finds herself again, and the police wonder how she was able to be in the place,Oh, there's one character we failed to mention, that of TJ Trinidad, a policeman helping in the investigation of the crime. What he does to his fellow policeman at the end of the movie answered the question. No, Laranas isn't interested in a police story, he is interested in how people behave in terror.The Road is perhaps the first local movie I've seen in years that I didn't feel the urge to go out of the theater after the first 15 minutes. I would have if I wanted to, but something was telling me to stay so I can find out what the terror was all about. Is it a ghost, a creature, or is it all in the mind of Forteza, Fernandez, and Monasterio. But Fernandez and Monasterio have died, so it leaves Forteza to tell the story, but can she?Forteza surprises us with an honest performance. No, she's not the tween star we see on TV, but more of the young actress that delivers the kind of performance serious critics should notice. She reminds us of Dakota Fanning in her younger years starring in terrifying thriller Hide and Seek with Robert DeNiro.While the role is not lengthy enough to show more of what Forteza can do, I think it's enough that directors like Laranas is able to see beyond the 'tween stars sweet-young girl image.Alden Richards is in my opinion the biggest revelation in the movie. With nary a dialogue, he is able to imprint his character on the audience's memory bits as the disturbed murderous teen who tortures to death Rhian Ramos and Louise de los Reyes.Richards, in creating this character, makes a prototype for other actors who are dreaming of portraying a significantly different character.Yet, the actor that makes a big mark for us is the young boy played by Renz Valerio. Physically abused by his mother (Villarroel) and unable to be protected by his preacher-father (Agustin) we empathize with the young boy's confusion and inability to discern love from punishment. He is also unable to tell his father of his mother's infidelity lest he upsets her. And even after her death, he can still see her unaware of what his father did to her.It seems Laranas wrote the policeman role for TJ Trinidad. And he delivers exactly the kind of performance that I like in movies. With no frills but more substance, Trinidad's menacing character is hooded by his good looks and we are left with no inkling of what he is really made of and what he can do until the last minutes of the film.Laranas, apparently has picked up many things about filmmaking while making The Echo. He is now able to tell a story without too much bending to the whims of producers who want movies to be really so damn sophomoric you'd want to puke at th end. Here's a film that explores the Gothic and thriller genres, fusing them to make a really terrifying experience for the audience. This is way too ahead not by just a mile but by millions of miles of other local films shown in theaters.