The story of YELLOWBRICKROAD begins in 1940 when, after a viewing of The Wizard of Oz, the residents of the small town of Friar, New Hampshire, walked up a mountain trail and mysteriously disappeared into the wilderness. There was one lone survivor who recounted stories of chaos and death before going insane. Seventy years later, a group of intrepid researchers made up of history buffs, filmmakers and psychologists, find the long-forgotten trail marker and proceed on an expedition to discover what happened to that long ago town and its inhabitants. Unfortunately, what they uncover lurking in those still New England woods is certainly not what they expected.

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Video Quality

YellowBrickRoad comes to Blu-Ray in a 1080p presentation that has been digitally restored in 2K with updated special effects. The film operates in two distinct modes, the crisp natural world and the more low-rent recording captured by the video camera, each of which are handled well given the scope of the production. The natural landscapes impress on screen with a fine amount of detail. From the forests to the grungy old theater, this transfer shows off when it comes to textures on display. The colors throughout are pretty muted and desaturated, so do not expect dazzling hues. The skin tones look very detailed and natural to the color grading and environment. The white levels are strong without veering into blooming, not to mention the deep blacks that do not appear to suffer from any compression artifacts. There are no instances of intrusive digital noise in the presentation outside of a few brief instances along with some banding. This film is not one that was ever made to be demo material, but it is probably the best it has ever looked.

Audio Quality

The film comes to Blu-Ray with a pleasing DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and LPCM 2.0 track in the original English. The dialogue and sound effects are appropriately balanced with the music where nothing gets overpowered in the track. There are moments where you can tell the original source material has limitations due to how it was captured, but never so much that you feel major deficiencies in the listening experience. The unsettling music that is repeated throughout ramps up the atmosphere of the narrative as sounds come through with flawless fidelity. Surround channels get some subtle environmental activity from being out in nature. The movie is pretty subdued when there are no moments of hysterics happening. The low end of the track is not put to the most use, but it adds moments of texture. This track gets the job done effectively. There are optional English SDH subtitles provided.

Special Features

Audio Commentary: Directors/Writers Andy Mitton & Jesse Holland provide a really informative commentary track in which they discuss the ragtag nature of this micro budget production, the collaborative nature which inspired some people to volunteer their time, the moments that they had to sacrifice in order to serve the story, shooting different sequences out of order, some tricks of cinematography, the flexibility they had from shooting with the RED camera and more. There is a good mixture of personal anecdotes and technical details which fans should appreciate.

Practical Blood FX On An Indie Budget: An 11-minute archival piece which shows the special effects team crafting some of the most gnarly and memorable moments in the movie and getting the performers ready to sell the experience on screen.

Walking The YellowBrickRoad: A 17-minute collection of on-set footage featuring interviews with the cast and crew which provides a nice sense of the mundanity of production life, the obstacles that arise for creatives, how the departments collaborate with one another, the camaraderie and more. There are a lot of candid conversations which are really enlightening.

Focus On Andy Mitton: A new seven-minute conversation with writer/director Andy Mitton in which he reflects on his experience making the film, his love for the feature and its legacy, his feelings about making such a polarizing film and more.

Focus On Jesse Holland: A new eight-minute conversation with writer/director Jesse Holland in which he he intends to build upon their commentary track by discussing some important people he feels they did not highlight enough, his feelings about all of the people he got to spend time with during the production, the audience reaction to the film and more.

Focus On Clark and Cassidy: A great new 37-minute Zoom conversation between Actors/Executive producers Clark and Cassidy Freeman in which they discuss their memories of the film, whether they would change anything with the knowledge they have now, what they learned from making the project, how working on this set differed from bigger productions, the difficulties of shooting outside, and so much more. This is so much fun due to the shared sibling dynamic which allows them to have a shorthand of joking around that is infectious.

Focus On Eric Hungerford: A new 16-minute conversation with Producer Eric Hungerford in which he discusses meeting Mitton and Holland through a Craigslist ad, coming up with solutions for potential problems, the nuts and bolts of the production, the life of the film and more.

Trailer: The two-minute trailer is provided here.

Final Thoughts

YellowBrickRoad is the type of deeply polarizing film that you love to discover and show to as many friends as possible just to see their reaction. It is more than a little shaggy, but that remains part of its charm as it accomplishes a surprising amount with a very limited budget. You don’t have to go broke to make something entertaining, and YellowBrickRoad does just that with its strong command of tone and ability to convey the decline of mental faculties. Many will be frustrated by the lack of concrete answers, but those along for a creepy journey should get a lot from this. Lightyear Entertainment and MVD Entertainment have released a Blu-Ray featuring a strong updated A/V presentation and some fun special features. If it sounds intriguing to you even in the slightest, you owe it to yourself to see on which side of the fence you fall. Recommended

YellowBrickRoad is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Lightyear Entertainment and MVD Entertainment have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.

Interview with Director Andy Mitton