The Forest is the David S.Goyer produced horror film that stars Natalie Dormer (Game Of Thrones, The Tudors, The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay) as the main character Sara. I love David S. Goyer as a writer and sadly this movie would have probably been better if he actually helped write it instead of produced it. The basic premise of the film follows Sara as she travels to Japan to look for her twin sister(Jess) that has disappeared in the Aokigahara Forest, which is widely known as the “Suicide Forest”.
A few years ago, I stumbled upon an article on this so called “suicide forest” and it’s definitely something that catches your attention. This depressing forest is known to be the most popular location for suicides in Japan with hundreds of bodies being recovered each year. Sad, right? So, why not make a horror movie about it? I will admit that the “suicide forest” does have “horror movie” written all over it – hell, I even thought to myself that a movie needs to be made on this concept, but unfortunetely this movie was not what I had in mind.
(Image From: www.nuvo.net)
Let me start with some of the things in this movie that I thought actually worked. First off, Natalie Dormer does perform really good in this movie and does show she can be in more roles than just playing Margaery Tyrell in Game Of Thrones. The movie was shot well and looked good throughout the film – it didn’t look campy or low budget whatsoever. Using the “suicide forest” as a base for Sara to get over her own personal demons is a good stepping stone to execute great personal character development. Where the movie really shines (although not used enough) is the sound design. The sound design is particularly effective in this film due to the fact that it mainly takes place in an eerie forest that already produces a creepy vibe. There’s a scene where Sara is sleeping in a tent that her twin sister left behind in the forest. She wakes up to branches breaking, running footsteps and rustling from the outside of her tent. Although it only lasts a few minutes, it was one of my personal favorite parts of the movie that was pretty effective.
(Image from: www.chicagotribune.com)
Now, where I think the film falls short is in its scares and execution. The scares in the “The Forest” fall into the cliche pattern that most horror films fall victim to these days – the build up, a sense of calm and following with a loud fake jump scare – this movie is filled with them. As I mentioned above, the sound design would of fixed this whole issue with the “scares”. If the film showed less and had you listen more I feel it would of packed a bigger punch. One of my personal favorite films, “The Blair Witch Project” plays on this wonderfully and was completely effective.
The ending is one of those endings where it tries to set something else up, but ends abruptly with slight explanation and hopes of a sequel. As a viewer, the film left me with the growing questions of “Is Sara crazy this whole time?” and “Is her sister even still alive?”, but toward the end of the 3rd act it leaves you with even more questions. I’m not going to spoil anything, but don’t expect a mind blowing plot twist. “The Forest” had a lot of potential to explore a different and more interesting avenue that dealt with ones personal psyche when experiencing a traumatic event as a child. If the film used Sara and Jess’ traumatic childhood event as a base and using the “suicide forest” as a tool to have them overcome it, it could of been a much stronger film – if that’s what they were going for, I personally couldn’t see it.
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