Review of The Forest (2016) by Quincytheodore — 08 Jan 2016

Hanging on the verge of mediocrity, "The Forest" is a resident of old horror spectacle.

Aokigahara, otherwise known as Suicide Forest, literally writes its own stories. It's a place where people go to end their lives, a real life horror vista which has haunted many documentaries and videos. As creepy as the setting is, The Forest is still trapped on archaic horror gimmicks. It doesn't mean it has no merit, few of its moments are quite delightful, yet it spends most of the time wandering across predictable set-ups and mundane scares.

Sara (Natalie Dormer) goes to Japan to find her missing twin sister Jess (also Natalie Dormer). The search leads her to Aokigahara, the infamous forest. Unfazed by this revelation, Sara is still determined to search for her, almost stubbornly so. Natalie Dormer of Game of Thrones’ fame is definitely a draw as this is a different genre than her other works. She does put in the effort, her strong motivation persists although the character is stuck on typical scream queen stereotype.

It's insane how many times her character randomly strolls to dark corners or investigates weird occurrence alone even though ample warnings have been given. These are actions common sense would dictate as unwise, especially on a place called Suicide Forest, yet she performs them blindly anyway. It's pretty over saturated that the excuse of her being in trance because hypnotic forest made her do it is not sufficient anymore.

There are some good moments that are chilling and well presented, it even occasionally ventures to psychological perspective of the ordeal. However, the movie usually returns to average scares of oriental horror such as vague ominous warning or lost girl in peculiar outfit. It's a rigid showcase of horror, one that's been used since the days of Ju-On and arguably even before that.

While the draw of exotic location and appealing lead actress might interest visitors, they would only find basic horror in The Forest.