11th February 2012, 05:31 PM
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| Cultist on the Rampage | | Join Date: May 2011 Location: Leeds, UK | |
IF A TREE FALLS - A quartet of young Canadians head out for the woods where they're set upon by sinister mask wearers who proceed to torture yadda yadda... actually though, this was unexpectedly harrowing. Beyond the hackneyed set up and the arbitrary neo-grindhouse stylisation lurked the last thing I was expecting - a genuine, depressing sense of grimness. As I say, some of the visual devices seemed a bit meh at points, but on the other hand these effectively set up the detached atmos of some of the most distressing bits. I was a bit confused by the ending... but in this case, confusion felt good. YELLOWBRICKROAD was a whole filmful of good-feeling confusion, and again, quite a departure from the more standard piece of horror I was anticipating. Slightly 'Blair Witch' in scenario, it follows the investigation of a rural legend, this time based on the mysterious disappearance of an entire township in 40s America (though thankfully not through 'found footage', an approach I don't really care for). The team of explorers involved soon find themselves lost in the wilds and at the mercy of an unseen horror which manifests in the form of ghostly war-time ballroom music! The music becomes an annihilating force and everything ends in total madness... cool! Could've been scored by The Caretaker, for those of you into the Hauntology thing. I liked the abstract approach and the whole idea of sound-as-menace and, although the 'Oz' references didn't really go anywhere (at least on first viewing), I was impressed by the strangeness and bleakness of tone. Another '?' type ending, but OK by me.
Last edited by Frankie Teardrop; 11th February 2012 at 06:26 PM.
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