Too many fans seem to be blown away

Disappointment for a huge fan!

Best movie ever!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Toad Road is absolutely mislabeled as a horror film, and the DVD case synopsis is extremely misleading as the vast majority of the film has nothing to do whatsoever with the literal Toad Road urban legend highlighted on the synopsis (and for which the movie is named).However, there is something worthwhile that can be taken from it if you've not been duped into believing this would actually be traditionally horrific or even slightly scary.Toad Road, as the urban legend in the film, is entirely metaphorical. It isn't a "real" place - It's what happens when a person goes down the road of drug addiction.The first "gate," which causes the feeling of being watched, can be attributed to either paranoia as a side effect of certain recreational drugs or the fear of being caught doing drugs.The second gate, where you hear voices, can obviously be attributed to hallucinations, but the specific mention of the voices being family/friends "disappointed" in you refers to those around you appalled at your decision to begin drug abuse.The third gate, where you see things that aren't real, is again referring to hallucinations but probably also the delusional view that your life will be fine.The fourth gate, where everything starts to die, refers to one's physical body after long-time drug abuse - this metaphor is especially obvious to those who have seen time-lapse photos of meth addicts.The fifth gate, where time distorts and things seem unreal, is when the continual drug use makes you start going insane literally all the time, and your life becomes an incomprehensible mess of harsh reality and horrifying fantasy.The mention that "no one's ever gotten to the 6th gate" is because the 6th gate is the point of no return. No one ever gets back from the 6th gate because once you're there it's when the body and mind finally succumb to what the drugs have put you, mentally and physically, through.The 7th and final gate, of course, is death.Sara's belief that Toad Road leads to something good is the blind, naive assumption that continual drug use will always take one to a higher, better state of mind - Instead of resulting in pain and eventual death.Toad Road is not a horror film - It is a cautionary metaphorical tale. While I personally wish the DVD case wasn't so amazingly misleading, it was still interesting... though it would be a lot more so to people who actually seek out this sort of film instead of a horror film.2/10 for horror, but 8/10 for metaphorical cautionary tale. The average of those is 5/10, thus my rating.

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.

I had high hopes going into this movie. I enjoy urban legends and what not. It starts with a group of young twenty somethings doing different types of drugs in various way that I had never seen. It all seemed very casual and not a lot going on. Just kids with no real direction in life, filling their days by getting high.Then we have the semi naïve lead girl who decides she would like to delve more into the drug scene purely for the "mind opening" experience. She becomes obsessed with the Toad Road urban legend and decides she wants to do it. Even though her "boyfriend" says it's a bad idea. She decides to become stubborn about it,even saying she'd do it alone. Reluctantly, the boyfriend agrees to go along. So,the trip begins. The scenes are rather boring with her voice over trying to sound all intelligent and deep. So,the guy finally wakes up and heads back to city after a feeble attempt to find the girl. What bothers me is that he never asks anyone how long he's been gone. And when it seems he finally does realize, he doesn't freak out or anything. He just goes into hiding because he thinks he'll be blamed for the girls disappearance. It's like he's not even concerned about what happened to her. He doesn't help with a search team or anything.Also, how would he have survived for months in the woods? What did he eat? I mean, he seems to have just been passed out the whole time. It's technically, not possible. So, then he delves deeper into drugs, alcohol, pain, etc. He starts to have odd flashbacks about his time in the woods. Then, it just ends. WTF? How was there any resolution to this movie? What was the point? Did he kill her in the woods? Did she disappear into the seventh gate? Lots of questions that are never resolved in a "going no where" movie. If anyone else has any insight into what the hell this movie was supposed to be about (Besides kids getting high because their lives are boring and pampered), please let me know!

I read the bad reviews here and I was determined to find something of worth in Toad Road, really I was. But in a nutshell, it's true it offers almost nothing to the viewer. The first 45 minutes of it's running time (of 75) is basically just a bunch of student types experimenting with recreational drugs. It's not unpleasant to watch, and I even found it kind of relaxing. You'll feel like a fly on the wall of some hipster party as the chemicals are passed around and you marvel at your observations. It's also acted pretty well too. But what has been claimed here already is very much true - almost nothing else takes place. The last 35mins involve two of the group heading into some woods in search of some urban legend of 7 gateways to other realms. They take some more drugs and sit and wait for darkness to come. The film then cuts to the male character waking up on the floor, alone, with his female friend missing and when he heads back to civilization we are lead to believe that many months have now passed and the girl is being searched for. It's all very vague however and there is no tension or chills involved which I expect was the intention. This film may be the first of Elijah Woods movie company meanderings so I hope things get (much) better. I've heard he's a big horror fan, so that's good news, but Toad Road is one big bore I'm afraid.