“Yellow Brick Road”
is a psychological horror film that was released in 2010. The horror movie’s
title is a key part from a recognisable children’s fantasy story (the wizard of
Oz) this is a clever way to intrigue horror fans and make them curious as to how
this beautiful fairy-tale will be twisted, darkened, and developed into the
horror genre. The film consists of a group of intrigued individuals that
are hoping to have the first successful trip to find out why many did not
return when trying to walk the yellow brick road. Before starting their journey
into the wilderness the group have to prove their intellectual level, alongside
their memory ability and overall personality, this is recorded from before they
set off to then every day into the quest. This is where we start to see the
deterioration in the characters and the gradual forgetfulness about how far
they have travelled and how to get home. A contrapuntal music sound in the
world of the characters gradually starts to turn them insane and animal like, a
simple argument could then lead to death, so much so that many characters end
up killing themselves because of the torture that their mind is suffering. Lack
of food supplies, aggressive deaths, and a broken group leads to every
character dying on the path to the yellow brick road.
This particular film has many key genre parts, however it
also challenges some making it even more interesting to analyse. The most
common within the film was the distinctive contrapuntal music that plays within
the world of the characters making it very noticeable. In the majority of the
film it reflects the opposite emotion to those of the characters, to create a
juxtaposition between the characters and the yellow brick roads power. Another
vital part to a successful horror films is the creepy location in which they
are set, and this horror film sets the scene very well by making a giant road
seem so enclosed and trapped within itself. Pathetic fallacy also adds to the
creepy location, and helps us understand the characters emotions more in depth.
There are many editing techniques used ranging from quick
montages in death scenes, slow montage for a more emotional effect, and
collusion cutting to make scenes become more dramatic, however the most
effective technique within the film seems to be the hand held camera, as we
feel as though we are the ones recording their answers and the first ones that
start to see the unusual behaviour taking place. We can convey that the hand
held camera is there so that we become part of the adventure, and so we
experience the same emotions as to those of the characters. Characters and representations are the most difficult to
tick of the genre checklist as the nice friendly characters become the killers,
but not by choice, it’s the insane, crazy location that starts to turn them
into the monsters that they never wanted to be. I think this is purposely done
to create shock and to make the audience become mortified to what they have
witnessed. This horror also lacks a female survivor and a visible male hero,
however we could deduce that this is because you can’t survive or save yourself
from the power of that the forbidden yellow brick road holds. We could also
suggest that the male hero is the man that asks the young girl to kill him
before he kills her, as this is self-sacrifice so that he doesn’t become a
murderer.
I took many aspects of the film that I would like to include
when making my trailer, the key one being the use of the hand held camera, and
camera shots from canted angles to make things seem more rapid and
disorientated. The one part of the film I would avoid in my own trailer is the
lack of key characters, because I personally believe that you cannot make
attachments to six or seven characters, however when you have one or two
dominant leaders you start to feel their pain and worry. The most interesting
part to the film was the first death and the reactions of the characters as
they look stunned, yet their shock only seems to last for a while before moving
on and forgetting about the horrific death that had just occurred. I think that
this works well when creating a horror movie because if death starts to become
normal then you know that the equilibrium will never return back to normal or
even have a happy ending.
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