The Road

**** Production Company: GMA Films / Freestyle Releasing / Jalan Distributors ****

~~~Prologue~~~

Luis (TJ Trinidad) is a successful policeman who was recently awarded for his skill in investigations despite his track record of being reckless and not following Protocols. After his award ceremony, the chief of police is approached by a woman asking for new information about her daughters who went missing 12 years ago. Luis asks the name of her daughters so he can try and find them. The woman tells him that their names are Joy and Lara Luna. Asking his partner to retrieve the missing persons file and despite his colleague, Greg, telling him not to give the woman false hopes, he sets out for his investigation.

~~~~ Story 1: 2008 ~~~~

Ella (Barbie Forteza) snuck out at night with her cousin Janine (Lexi Fernandez) and Brian (Derrick Monasterio), Janine's boyfriend to take the car belonging to Janine's mom so that the three could find somewhere quiet to learn to drive better. Ella and Brian are on bad terms because of Brian's alleged cheating on her cousin and are thus always arguing. Brian was teaching Janine how to drive for her driver's test. As the three of them drive on the highway they spot a patrol car. They panic because they don't have drivers licences. Brian tries to make a U-turn, but he accidentally drives into a fence blocking a dirt road. He gets out to check for damage and notices a gate which he opens and then gets back in the car and continues to drive down this isolated road, thinking it would be the perfect spot for them to learn to drive. As the three switch places in the car, they notice a red car which keeps on overtaking them although they never overtook it, they can't work out how it keeps getting behind them. What's worse is they notice that the car doesn't seem to have a driver. Panicking, Brian tries to get them out of the road but are in an endless loop, passing by the same tree again and again. Finally, the car stalls and Brian and Janine gets out of the car but Ella stays behind in the car. Janine tries to convince Brian to go back for her cousin but Brian refuses to do so and instead promises Janine that they will go back for her with help. As the two walk through the woods, they spot a crashed red car. Meanwhile, finally panicking, Ella leaves the car and manages to catch up with the two. Ella manages to call her father and begs for help but are then forced to leave the location and crash site that she told her father about because the car they were waiting beside suddenly bursts into flames. The three run but the two girls are separated from Brian. They manage to get back to their car but a ghost scares Janine, who was behind the wheel. Ella, in a panicked state of mind, accidentally opens her car door and falls out of the car while Janine loses control and hits her head on the wheel. As Ella opens her eyes, she screams upon seeing the ghost of a burned woman looking down at her.
A few hours later, Ella's father, Luis and some officers, appear at the same road. They find Brian dead by the corn fields and it is revealed that Janine died when she hit her head on the wheel but they are unable to find Ella. Luis and Officer Allan finds a house deep within the woods. Officer Greg tells them that he already searched the house and tells them that Ella isn't there. They also find the crashed car that the three teens passed by earlier. When Luis opens the backseat door, he sees a skeleton wearing a heart shaped locket.
The next day, they take the three bodies to the morgue. It is revealed that the skeleton corpse that they found is Lara Luna, whom her mother

~~~~ Story 2 : 1998 ~~~~

Lara (Rhian Ramos) is driving with her younger sister Joy (Louise delos Reyes) on the same dirt road. As they drive, they pass by a teenage boy walking along the road(Alden Richards) and a few feet away from him, their car overheats. They get out and then ask him where they can get water and the boy tells them that he'll give them water by his house, which is the same house Luis and the others found years later. As they wait for him outside his house, Lara senses that something is wrong and tells Joy that they should leave. As they try to, the boy comes out and hits them with a wooden stick.
Lara wakes up a few hours later, with her foot chained to a bed post. She hears Joy's screams for help and begs him to let her and her sister go. The boy takes Joy down to the basement and proceeds to savagely beat her. A few minutes later, he returns Joy to her room beside her sister's. Lara apologizes to Joy that she couldn't protect her but Joy tells her that it's not her fault. As the boy comes to take Lara, she puts up a fight and scratches his neck. For now, the boy leaves her alone. Lara notices that he dropped the keys to her chains and proceeds to take it. She tries to search for Joy but notices that she's no longer there. She manages to sneak out of the house and falls into a pit which has corpses dumped in it. She sees that one is Joy. As she cries, she apologizes once again and finally leaves. The boy, meanwhile, has taken their car and proceeds to chase Lara with it. Eventually, he gently runs her over. As Lara tries to crawl away, The boy knocks her out and wraps a plastic bag around her head and ties a belt around her neck and her hands. As he drives back to his house, Lara suddenly awakens, causing the boy to crash. He leaves the car and watches it and Lara burn.
Back to the present day, Luis takes the officers back to the same house to look for Ella. As he and Officer Allan scope around, they find a picture of the old owners of the house. As Officer Allan goes to search someplace else, Luis finds Ella, who wasn't noticed by Officer Greg. She keeps yelling at him to 'let us go home' and finally passes out as Luis holds her in his arms. Luis takes her to the rendezvous point and takes her to the ambulance. As Ella's father tries to talk to her, she says that their car stalled due to overheating and tells him that they asked a teenage boy for water, revealing that Ella is possessed by Lara. Luis and Officer Allan decide to return to the house.

~~~~ Story 3 : 1988 ~~~~

A young boy (Renz Valerio) lives with his family in the house deep in the woods. As he looks out of his window, he notices a girl named Martha (Ynna Asistio) looking for his mother. The girl was there to see if the family needed their laundry doing. It is revealed that the boy isn't allowed to come out of the house and his abusive mother Carmela (Carmina Villaroel) tells Martha to come back tomorrow morning. Mistaking her son's conversation with Martha as an attempt to go out, Carmela locks him in a cabinet. During the evening, the boy's father (Marvin Agustin), who is a preacher, comes home and lets him out of the cabinet. The reason behind his isolation is because his parents believe that the outside world is full of sin. The reason behind Carmela's bitterness is because the family is struggling financially and her husband refuses to ask money from his congregation. The next day, the boy spots Martha doing their laundry. As he comes down and watches her by the door, she invites him to come out to play but he tells her that he's not allowed to come outside. Wanting him to experience some fun, Martha comes inside with a bucket of soap and they blow bubbles. Carmela comes down and is enraged at the sight. As Martha tries to stop Carmela from hurting the boy, Carmela accidentally knocks her into the door post and Martha dies. As the boy tries to wipe the blood away, he faints. Later that night, the boy wakes up and sees his mother hugging another man. As he comes down, his father tells him to wait upstairs so he and his mother can talk. It is revealed then that Carmela plans to leave her husband and the boy for the man. The boy's father tries to convince her not to do it, but she is stubborn and decides to go through with it. As the boy was listening, he passed out by his bed. The next morning his mother woke him up to have breakfast. When he came downstairs, his father tells him that Carmela left them and his father starts to throw up due to drunkenness. The boy adamantly insists that his mother is still there and in a fit of rage, his father shows him Carmela's corpse, revealing that his father killed Carmela. Frightened, the boy locked himself in the cabinet where he sees Martha's corpse. His father tries to get him out of the cabinet but when he sees Martha's corpse, he is shocked and has a breakdown. The next morning, the boy comes out of the cabinet and when he enters his parents' room, he sees that his father hanged himself. It is revealed that the boy didn't go out of the house until he became a teenager and that the boy was the one who killed Joy and Lara Luna.

~~~~ Epilogue ~~~~~

Back to the present, Luis and Officer Allan arrive at the house and when Allan finds a room bound with a new padlock, Luis orders him to beat the door down. When he does so, he sees that the room is a bed room. As they look around, Officer Allan notices Luis' medal. Luis knocks him out, wraps his head with a sheet and seals it with a belt around his neck, revealing to the audience that the boys in the second and third parts of the movie was none other than Luis himself. He walks back to the rendezvous point as other cops search the house. As he walks, he keeps on muttering 'I'm sorry, Mama. It won't happen again.' Back at the rendezvous point, Ella's father asks her who was the boy and Ella, still possessed by Lara, points at Luis. As the Chief of Police calls out to him, Luis shoots the chief two times in the chest. He gets in his car and drives away but his car stalls. As he tries to get out, the ghosts of Joy and Lara are with him in his car. He reaches for his gun and it is shown that Lara is forcing his hand to point his gun to his chin. As he mutters 'Mama, I'm sorry', Lara forces him to shoot himself. A few minutes later, the other cops find Luis in his car, dead.
The film ends with Luis as a young boy, finally able to go outside of his house and be free from his mother.

**** Directed by Yam Laranas ****