(dir. Jason Zada)
 |
| Gramercy Pictures |
*First time viewing
A woman travels to Japan’s suicide forest to find her twin
sister who has recently gone missing there.
The Forest had the
potential be one of those surprise January horror films that actually worked.
After all, it’s based on an ever-popular piece of lore and features rising star
Natalie Dormer. Unfortunately, The Forest
never manages to use either the history of the Aokigahara Forest or Dormer to
its advantage. The Forest is
listless, entirely lacking of personality. Tokyo isn’t given any sense of
cultural flavor despite filming there, and the forest itself could be any
wooded area in western America—there’s no sense of production design in this
movie. Since filming is actual Aokigahara forest is illegal, those scenes were
shot partly in Serbia and partly in a warehouse, but given how little sense of
space there is in this movie, I would assume that most of it was shot in a
warehouse. I’m quite taken by the idea
of using the forest to showcase a character’s position of feeling lost inside
their own grief and mental illness, but the visuals never match the intent of
the story…nor does the acting. Dormer seems at a loss in this movie, not simply
because her character is constantly in a state of search and confusion, but
because the script does little to give her any personality. Sara is given so few
important actions that it never seems like she’s actually achieving anything another that passing time. Even
with pulling double duty as Sara’s twin Jess, Dormer is never given a chance to
put her impressive acting chops to use.
There are images in the film that taken alone work well. There’s a scene in a hotel hallway early on and a scene in a cave
later in the movie that both show Zada’s ability to deliver scares when not
bogged down by the laziest of jump noises. Even the film’s twist, achieved through
its earlier use of flashbacks provides the film with an interesting theme, but
it’s just delivered so flatly and surrounded by a film utterly lacking a pulse
that it’s all a bit of a shrug. What’s frustrating about The Forest is that it doesn’t feel like a complete misfire. There
are some truly good ideas hidden in this film, and in broad strokes there’s a
worthwhile story searching to get out. Another draft of this script and a
visionary direction could have really made The
Forest something memorable.
Scare Factor:1/5 The Forest is reminiscent of the
American J-horror remakes in the mid-2000s, only this time there’s no better-made,
original version for me to recommend to you so the best I can do is suggest you
skip this one.
**Available to rent at Redbox
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