Simply Perfect

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

A top-drawer script can be ruined by a poor director but no amount of top-drawer direction can improve a rotten script - I want my one-hundred-and-ten minutes back from this schmutz used to cover the porn hidden under the socks. This epic-fail is almost better than I could create in a weekend with some teenagers, an outline and a handy-cam with broken steady-shot because if it were well trimmed and tightly cut there would only be enough story to fill a quarter-hour. The plot is… is a decorated rogue cop who…, who…, oh yeah, there's no plot. The open-caption narrative subtitling in English throughout distracts even native Tagalog viewers, because the subtitling delivers the lines better than the actors. Schizophrenic hallucination transference (I must assume,) and the supernatural aren't enough undelivered explanation to fill the Kaybiang Tunnel sized plot-holes in this intentionally confusing yawner best screened in a theater for an air-conditioned nap. It's too easy to fall asleep trying to watch this pablum schlok, but there is no plot to miss should you do, it put the focus-puller to sleep over and over again. Low budget is no excuse for not employing a competent continuity script-girl, but apparently the fuzzy forms which vanish and re-appear among scene cuts and frame edges is. A tip to the viewer resulting from four frustrated attempts at genuinely trying to stay awake and stick with it - I was finally able watch it through to the credits, in fast forward. In FF you'll miss no story because the dialog is built into the open-captions, you'll not miss the easily forgettable laboriously long-drawn-out score and much of the film will return to normal speed. Here's a tip for Yam Laranas - Minutes do not manufacture mystery. Creeping a film along does not a creepy film make. If you're stuck with a thin script of kiddie-pool-shallow characters which is stretched several minutes between lines by vacuously empty repetitive images, don't liberally sprinkle your all-filler/no-killer film with over-crank and slow-motion to substitute for genuine tension or thrilling excitement. We want the killer, not the filler!

THE ROAD was somewhat great in a mediocre way.The story was beyond compelling and interesting. Critics says that the movie is scary but I disagree. The movie wasn't scary, it was just creepy and mind-disturbing.The 3 parts of the movie, which is in backwards chronology, will keep you up in your seat. But to enjoy this movie, you have to be a keen observer about the details of the story.Some says that the movie was a big plot hole, but it's not.If you're filipino like me, you would relate to the story and not say that it's a plot hole. You just need to understand the movie more. There was no plot hole. Every question of the movie was answered in the end.It was scary though, for filipinos like me, because mostly everyday, these things happen to us (people get lost, get killed, they turn to ghost and stuff) because in Philippines, we do believe in this stuff and there are big chances for these things to happen to us because Philippines is one big ball of mischief and horror. the script and the acting were both mediocre and a little bit lousy, Overall, the movie was great, the story was well build, the cinematography was beyond amazing and the movie itself was in a powerful premise which was powerful enough to compel foreign viewers.I give this movie a decent 7 out of 10

"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.

The Road is not your ordinary horror-film, being a horror film enthusiast, I always crave to watch a non-mediocre type of such genre. The Road successfully delivered the elements that I wanted to find. First is that, it has an excellent cinematography, the ambiance in the movie manifests in the theater where I am watching. It has very great shots, that I was not able to witness in other horror movies. In, terms of the musical scoring, it is absolutely great, though it has some loop holes. But I find it okay for the team pull it off. . It is one of the elements in the movie that might give you the "shock value". The actors delivered fair with their acting. There might be weak acting in some parts, but it is venial. What makes The Road recommendable to watch is the story per se.I loved how the film flowed, it's narrated through flashback and with that, you should start the movie from the beginning, do not go into the movie house if it already begun. For it will spoil you, 'cause it'll help you to discover the mystery of the story. Don't expect scenes that might jump you off from your seats (like what Insidious have, for example). The Road is a psychological thriller, that will give you the eerie feeling upon leaving the theater. If you able to loved "The Echo" which was directed by the same director, You'd be able to love The Road 100 times more. This is a movie that will scare you not because of gore, of disturbing scenes, not because of a lot of scenes that will shock you, but because of the story itself. The story that will make you think and will jolt you in the end. You'll remember the movie forever, and probably be included in you favorite horror movies.