Jason Zada’s The Forest has a relatively competent set up, but it gets lost in a Rube Goldberg-esque plot and an over use of genre troupes. There are adequate leads in Natalie Dormer and Taylor Kinney but in predictably robotic characters, and the more it tries to further its plot the less cohesive the film gets.
The Film begins promisingly as Sara (Dormer) sets out to search for her missing twin sister Jess who was last seen entering Japan’s infamous Aokigahara forest, notoriously known as a place people go to take their own lives. She enlists the help of Aiden (Kinney) an Australian journalist willing to guide her in exchange for her story. They have been warned that the spirits in the forest pray upon the sadness and fears of those who enter, but Sara is sure her sister is in there and she is alive, being twins, you know they have that inexplicable bond allowing them sense each other’s fate.
One would think that with a forest that has such a gloom stricken background that it would make for an extremely effective backdrop, yet aside from a few creepy visuals it really just feels generic. In fact every move made in first time feature director Zada’s fright flick seems all too familiar, jumping from one horror troupe to the next, never fulfilling on its initial promise. As the forest begins to prey on poor Sara, driving her to the brink of madness, it gets increasingly less effective. The harder it tries to get you to question Sara’s psyche the sloppier it becomes. Which is one of the films problems; it cannot decide if it wants to scare you or just really bum you out. It’s a pretty obvious conclusion you jump to early on and for all it tries to do to make you question your assumption it never does it in a way that’s either effective or interesting. At no point do you ever really get a true sense of horror, it just gets more and more annoying.
It does manage to scrounge up a handful of creepy visuals and auditory dread but not remotely enough to make its hour and thirty some minute running time worth the investment. I do commend Zada for sticking to mostly practical effects and camera tricks avoiding the pitfalls of the modern CGI ghost flicks, although when it does employ the assistance of computers its laughably ridiculous. Maybe more could have been done with upping its fright factor by going for an “R” rating, but they needed to make sure they scrounged up enough money to cover marketing costs and the less critical thinking the audience does the better, so fill those seats with tweens and youth too busy trying to cop a feel than pay attention.
And much like the twin’s inexplicable bond, as one feels the others’ life slip from the other’s body, you too can’t help but relate. Something in you dies a little; hope that they will ever stop making this PG-13 Ghost horror schlock. It’s boring, predictable and uninspired. My stomach hurts, I’m going to go watch The Evil Dead.
BLU-RAY SPECS
The Blu-Ray doesn’t add much in the area of interesting extras, a drab featurette about the film and forrest and a director’s commentary track. As if one is going to sit through it a second time to listen to a director defend why he chose to waste your time over doing genre cliché’s and boil down a somewhat interesting premise into a movie about as engaging as watching paint dry.