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Old 02-18-2014, 07:50 PM
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Giganticface Giganticface is offline
Evil Dead
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 950


Toad Road (2012)

This one messed with my head a little bit. It's a bit like a mumblecore film, with lots of meandering, improvised dialogue. However, since most of the activity in the film is not simulated, including drug use, pranks with fire, and drunken face-punching, it comes across more as a raw, wasted youth documentary than a pure drama. The fiction stuff (i.e., the horror parts), are surreal and genuinely creepy, and intertwined with the docu-stuff makes for a disorienting experience.

As if the film were not already chilling enough, I noticed during the closing credits that the film is "In Memory of Sara Anne Jones," who I recognized to be one of the two main actors. My first thought was that it was a Blair Witch-like marketing ploy, but a quick internet search reveals ample evidence that the actress died of a heroine overdose not long after making the film. Given that her story arc in the film is that of a newbie drug user who goes further down a spiral of (unsimulated) drug use, this fact left me shaken. I'm still not sure what to make of the experience, other than I enjoyed the film and am still thinking about it, and am grateful to have survived my years of similarly reckless behavior.
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