YellowBrickRoad is a horror film from 2010 directed by Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton and that stars Cassidy Freeman, Anessa Ramsey and Laura Heisler. Yes, YellowBrickRoad has a small connection to The Wizard of Oz, hence the title.

The story is about an expedition in the town of Friar, New Hampshire that is trying to locate and discover what happened to all 572 townsmen that disappeared into the wilderness seventy years earlier after watching The Wizard of Oz, a movie the town was obsessed with. The entire town left everything behind, including their clothing! Crew leader Teddy Barnes (Michael Laurino) heads the expedition along with crew members Melissa (Anessa Ramsey) who is Teddy’s spouse, their collaborator Walter (Alex Draper), sibling cartographers Daryl Luger (Clark Freeman) and Erin Luger (Cassidy Freeman), forestry expert Cy Banbridge (Sam Elmore, and an intern Jill (Tara Giordano). It starts out peachy at first but before you know it, the crew members starts to attack one another and all kinds of shenanigans happen with loud music, some people eating fruit that causes hallucinations, delusions with people facing violent deaths. Down to just a few members of the expedition they learn the secret as to what happened to the entire town!

I thought YellowBrickRoad was decent, with some suspenseful moments, gore, and some surreal moments but it really wasn’t a movie that I would watch again. It will remind many of The Blair Witch Project.

YellowBrickRoad is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lightyear. It has been given a 1080p transfer with an AVC encode.  

The image quality for this release wasn’t too good with colors overall looking flat, and desaturated. Flesh tones were decent enough, black levels were also acceptable. The contrast wasn’t consistent for some reason. It is watchable if nothing else but yes it could have been better.

There are two audio options for YellowBrickRoad. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks are both on the aggressive side. Dialogue, action sounds and music are wonderfully balanced with everything coming in super clearly. English subtitles are not available for this release.

The YellowBrickRoad Blu-ray has a lot of extras including a commentary track featuring directors Andy Minton and Jesse Holland.

Practical Blood FX on an Indie Budget is a featurette with Blake Myers and Josh Russell from the Special Effects team talking about, you guessed it the special effects!

Walking the YellowBrickRoad is another featurette that is narrated by Production Supervisor and Media Manager Sam Roberts. It is basically a lot of behind-the-scenes footage.

Focus on Andy Minton is a feature about the co-writer and co-director of YellowBrickRoad, which is followed by Focus on Jesse Holland thatfeatures the films’ other co-writer and co-director.

Focus on Clark and Cassidy and Focus on Eric Hungerford are another pair of features focusing on the two actors and the producer of the film respectively.

There is also a trailer to round out the supplemental materials!

YellowBrickRoad is a wicked, nightmarish independent horror film that may not be for everyone, including myself. But the release, which surpasses the DVD in terms of the audio and video with more extras on the Blu-ray makes this a recommended release!

YellowBrickRoad

Directors- Jesse Holland and Andy Minton

Cast- Cassidy Freeman, Anessa Ramsay

Country of Origin- USA

Distributor –Lightyear

Number of Discs – 1

Reviewed by – David Steigman

Date –9/22/22