Marvin is happy with the success of The Road

MANILA, Philippines - 2012 will be another fulfilling year for Marvin Agustin. Marvin, the actor-chef-producer in Knorr’s Sabaw Challenge on TV, kept the airwaves alive making his name already a by-word among cooks and housewives out there. He awed us with his antics in the successful movie from Viva Films Moron 5 and The Crying Lady. His business keeps growing and the chain of restaurants under Sumo Sam Foods Inc. just keeps the food scene alive. Marvin is also line-producing TV5’s biggest and newest reality singing search, Kanta Pilipinas. He has two more upcoming endorsements.

Recently, Marvin was in Hollywood for the successful international screening of  GMA Films’ The Road directed by Yam Laranas. Also starring Carmina Villaroel, Rhian Ramos and TJ Trinidad, The Road is about a 12-year-old cold case reopened when three teenagers went missing in an abandoned road. The movie is shown in cities across America and Canada. It has been reaping rave reviews even from Hollywood critics.

Todd Rigney of BeyondHollywood.com wrote, “The Road is a fantastic horror film, a well-written, sharply directed ghost story that boldly assumes that its audience has a brain and knows how to use it. The film is dead serious in its presentation, which is precisely why it works so well. Yam Laranas knows how to get under the skin of even the most jaded of viewers, and he does so on a fairly consistent basis. The icing on the proverbial cake is the film’s cast, a savvy group of talented youngsters who effortlessly hit their marks, even during the picture’s more demanding scenarios. I honestly can’t recommend it enough, especially if you’re discerning fan who demands a bit of substance from the genre you love. If you have the chance to see The Road, do not let the opportunity pass you by.”

New York Times’ Critics Pick wrote, “The Road takes several horror genres and melds them into a creepy, stylishly photographed story that will keep horror buffs revved up from start to finish.”

New York Post’s V.A Musetto said, “[Laranas] delivers a maximum of suspense and horror, working wonders with a small budget.”

“The film’s three-pronged narrative does a fair job of laying a spooky groundwork for the revelatory emotional sadism that lies behind most acts of evil; it just takes a bit of clunky exposition to get there, ” said Robert Abele of Los Angeles Times.

According to  Jeannette Catsoulis of New York Times, the movie is “a powerfully atmospheric blend of ghostly encounters, horrific situations and missing-persons mysteries from the Philippine director Yam Laranas.”

The Road is the third Filipino film distributed internationally by an American film studio after Genghis Khan (released by United Artists in 1953) and Small Voices (released by Warner Bros. Pictures in 2002).