In 1940, the entire population of Friar, N.H., scaled a mountain trail. Only one person survived, and he went crazy; the others 571 were found frozen, slaughtered or not found at all. Nearly 70 years later, a small group of obsessives follows the same path to unravel the mystery. Interesting premise you have there, YellowBrickRoad, and one you botched completely. Its crime is not being purposefully vague, but utterly boring.
Led by Teddy Barnes (Michael Laurino) and his wife, Melissa (Anessa Ramsey, The Signal), who plan on co-authoring a book on their subject, the group of eight take a hike — literally! — and unfortunately, it feels like one shot in real-time. After a long stretch, weird things start to happen to them — the kind a $500,000 budget can afford: Teddy having nightmares, a compass going willy-nilly, and all hearing music of the old-timey, juke-joint variety that used to score Betty Boop cartoon shorts.
One by one, step by step, the campers sloooooowly go bonkers, and periodic video interviews captured by a psych professor (Alex Draper, Mimic 2) demonstrate their increasing loss of memory and deteriorating spatial orientation. But that doesn’t count as anything “happening.” Little does until the final hour, when — spoiler alert — the mapmaker (Clark Freeman) rips off the leg of his sister (Cassidy Freeman, TV’s Smallville) after she runs off with a stinky hat he found along the trail while urinating. Swiper, no swiping!
Written and directed by feature first-timers Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton, YellowBrickRoad is like having a piping-hot slice of pizza placed in front of you, but being told not to eat it for a while: It looks good and smells good, yet when you finally take a bite, its lukewarm blandness has even your taste buds questioning whether it was worth the effort. The difference is that the movie is interminable, right up to the pointless, pretentious end. At least it’s not a found-footage film, but you’ll still want to click your heels.
Lordy, it’s the worst. As one of its taglines reads right on the DVD cover, “DO NOT FOLLOW.” You’ve been warned. —Rod Lott