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Jakarta Post

Countryside Joyride reawakens the ghosts of a bloody past

Calm skies and serene savannahs in a horror movie have never been so beautiful

Adisti Sukma Sawitri (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, October 18, 2012

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Countryside Joyride reawakens the ghosts of a bloody past

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alm skies and serene savannahs in a horror movie have never been so beautiful.

In Philippine director Yam Laranas’ latest work, The Road, the soothing outdoor scenes go some way to offer respite from the tension of nerve-rattling chapters that focus on murders and haunting spirits.

The film opens with three teenagers — Ella (Barbie Forteza), Janine (Lexy Fernandez) and Brian (Derrick Monasterio) — on a nighttime drive down a lonely path into the woods. Their car meets another that has no driver that drags them into the darker side of the forest. Top detective Luis Medina (T.J. Trinidad) is tasked to find the missing teenagers.

As the story takes us back in time, the woods dormant secrets awake — the old road has already taken the lives of two teenage sisters, Joy (Louise delos Reyes) and Lara (Rhian Ramos). In a nearby house, deaths have crippled a family and orphaned a little boy (Renz Valerio).

It is an understatement to say that the movie is only about flesh-slashing and the unquiet dead. In fact, the movie does not suffer from an excess of goriness.

Much focus and detail is applied to the art direction and colorization of scenes, creating dramatic visualizations that tie together the script (also written by Laranas) and artistic cinematography.

Despite the killings, life in the countryside is abundant with sunshine and butterflies. Scene colors — often bright yellowish or dark — and stills are something that is more commonly found in art house cinema. These creative decisions evoke the sadness and tragedy of the main characters.

“The Road is about the crimes of the past that haunt people in the present. It is about our own ghosts haunting us, wherever we are,” Laranas told The Jakarta Post. He said he aimed to bend genres, “to mix horror with thriller and drama”.

Following offerings from Japan such as Ringu (The Ring) or Ju-On (The Grudge) and Hong Kong’s Gin Gwai (The Eye), The Road takes its well deserved place on the long list of Asian horror flicks that have been screened in US.

It is also the first Philippine movie to have mainstream theatrical releases in North America.

“I wanted to create a different Asian horror experience that stays away from long-haired, pale-faced ghosts and focus more on the atmosphere. The objective was to show less and create tension for the audience without relying on special effects and prosthetics,” said the 43-year-old director.

But do not worry about not getting goose bumps, the eerie sound score and the vivid capture of brutes will make your skin crawl with fear.

The Road is Laranas’ third horror movie. It followed Sigaw (Scream) in 2004, a story about a man living in a haunted apartment building and was remade into The Echo in Los Angeles four years later, produced by the makers of the American/Asian retellings of The Ring and The Departed.

In 2009, Laranas released his second feature film Patient X, which featured the Aswang, a Philippine mythological creature, similar to a vampire.

The Road
Thrill channel
Saturday, Oct.20
8 p.m.

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