Yellow Brick Road (2010)

In 1940 the entire population of Friar, NH walked into the woods never to return. Searchers found the bodies of half the townsfolk along the path, but what happened to the others  and why they left remains a mystery.  As the documents on the case have recently been declassified, a research team decides to go to Friar to discover what really happened.

When the team arrives in town, they are stumped to find that the coordinates for the head of the trail are on a sidewalk in front of a movie theater.  This leads me to conclude they are the worst researchers ever.  Seriously, did no one look at a map?  Has anyone ever done basic research before? Have they never heard of this thing called the internet?  Or did they just decide to make like Scooby Doo, pack their cars and go solve a mystery?

They obviously didn't do any research online as they could have found information regarding the current state of the town, including google maps to check out the current terrain.  Yeah, real nice research, jackasses, I'm sure you'll be successful in your quest.

After talking to people in the theater they do stumble upon the path.  After going deep into the woods, they begin to hear music.  But they are terrible researchers and only entertain theories involving the music having something to do with the mystery of the missing people.  How about entertaining some other possibilities?  Maybe someone else is camping in the woods and listening to music.  Or perhaps the sound is carrying up the mountain from a lake area.  Or maybe it is a radio station being picked up by something.

The group start to act weird and get urges to hurt others.  After a fight with his sister who steals his hat - a hat that he had found in the woods and believes is from the townspeople who disappeared seventy years ago, yuck why was he wearing it? - her brother goes insane, chases her down, and starts pummeling her.  Then he rips her leg off at the femur with his bare hands. That's right,  I said the femur. Sigh, it's all down hill from here people.

The best summation for this film is people wander through the woods for days listening to big band music, and then they're insane.  Yup, that about sums it up.  The biggest problem is that not much happens in the first half of the movie.  Plus almost every scene takes place during the daytime.  Pretty scary, huh kids?

Also the music is happy, bouncy, big band stuff, and while sometimes music can be effective when used ironically, it isn't here.  When bursts of noise occur, it was just unbelievably annoying, rather than scary.