The Worst Film Ever

From my favorite movies..

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

There's nothing here. No characterization, no plot. Netflix calls this a "thriller" but it has nothing even remotely resembling a thrill, reviews called it a "horror movie" but it never even tries to be scary in any way, although there is a couple of mentions of a "road to hell" that you never see more of than a few people taking a walk through ordinary woods during which nothing happens. They hired a bunch of teenage loadies who weren't actors, filmed them getting wasted and throwing up, and added the few minutes of them throwing up, and then 2 minutes at the end of a detective interviewing one of them about a crime that wasn't shown and isn't explained. A complete waste of film.

I'm a big fan of drug-related films; they can be fun or poignant (or both) when done right. Toad Road, on the other hand, is flat out boring. Even a few hits of acid wouldn't have made this slow, hard to swallow story any more appealing, nor the mediocre script any more convincing. The characters lack any kind of depth, and even when they're high, they have nothing interesting to say. The urban legend subplot isn't developed enough; going further into it may have amped up the horror aspect a bit, which was sorely lacking (especially as this is billed as a horror movie).Steer clear of this one, and stick to classics like Altered States, Fear and Loathing, Human Traffic, Trainspotting, or even lower-budget stuff like Pop Skull and Reindeerspotting.

So I finally found myself with absolutely nothing to do on a Sunday morning & decided to give this indie a go. I kept putting it on the back burner as I was expecting another appalling hipster piece of trash. Given some poor public reviews, there seemed only two real motivations for watching this film: 1) a connection to York & the Toad Road mythology every young teen on acid pursues in this town & 2) the eerie, macabre foreshadowing of actress Sara Anne Jones' heroin overdose at age 24 shortly after finishing this film. Having said that, it is otherwise not at all a bad effort for writer/director/cinematographer Jason Banker.The cinematography is, in my opinion, a strength to the film's credit. Keep in mind there was no Panavision Panaflex Platinum here. No budget attempts to film rural Pennsylvania have usually produced cheap, unimpressive, under-saturated stock. The outdoor photography here is adequate if not crisp, yet gritty & grainy when needed to convey tone. Also, the shots of Sara Anne Jones could have been pulled from an Urban Outfitter's catalog. The key strength of the film however is in it's editing. The hodgepodge of documentary style footage could have been amassed into a trainwreck, but the film maintains a fluidity from beginning to end fusing scenes together with ambient sound. Haunting but never lingering too long. It held my attention throughout & at no time did I find myself thinking, "is this over yet?" or "I know I have something better to watch," which unfortunately happens with sophomore artistic endeavors.Now for the misconceptions. I would classify this film as an experimental docudrama. It is not a horror film in that Picnic at Hanging Rock is not a horror film. The only horror element is some brief blood toward the end & a supernatural buzz in the air. Also it is more improv than acted. It has been reported that the drugs are real & a lot of the dialog is stream of consciousness. If you take the premise of the descent into hell at face value as a horror premise, you will be disappointed. The legend of toad road as it's relayed here,whether intended or not, plays out as a metaphor for the downward spiral of addiction. Sara starts her descent by innocently experimenting socially & with outwardly noble intentions; that of transcendence or enlightenment. She wants to pursue psychedelics to grasp something profound. She makes it clear she doesn't want to just take acid and "stare at walls." She is in search of elusive answers unaware that the end result will leave her lost in the wilderness, in this case the term "lost in the wilderness" being literal & not biblical. So what happened to Sara? It doesn't matter, she is gone. She opened a door she couldn't close and now she's gone. It's sad to say that without Sara Anne Jones' death I do not think this film would have gotten any attention aside from dialog amongst the film fest & art-house crowd.In closing, I think the film does work, and it does work well, but is perhaps best viewed in memory of Sara Anne Jones, the way, say, Synecdoche, New York can be viewed in memory of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

this movie would have been better off labeled and marketed as about the drug culture. the review of the movie sounded interesting and had overtones of ''dantes inferno'' but alas sucked moose testicles. it was slow in premise and promise but the acting was well done,again as a movie about drugs and not a horror movie. in total if you are seeking a horror movie then stay away from this one, if you are looking for a movie about the drug culture then this is worth watching. the movie plays out like a documentary rather then a play for the silver screen and at times loses it's focus as to what direction it wants to take. at times I wanted to turn it off but it can suck you into it, but the ending is confusing, aka it sucked and left you scratching your head. I even googled ''toad road'' as to the explanation of the ending with no success