Review of The Forest (2016) by Kate H — 25 Apr 2016

Where oh where do I even start with hot mess. The selling point for this movie is the famous Aokigahara forest in Japan; a forest where people tend to go to kill themselves. Something tells me the idea for this one came about thanks to that documentary that was making the rounds on social media a few years back.

Natalie Dormer plays twins Sarah and Jess. Before I go further let me get this off my chest: if you insist on doing a missing twin sister story and you also insist on there being flashbacks it is extremely telling when you never see them in the same frame. In the one or two occasions that they are you are only ever seeing one twin's face. *sigh* Your budget concern is showing.

The story also plays on the whole twin ESP thing. She is not dead because I would know. Fine. I'm not a twin and that's not even my main complaint here. Twin ESP, or at least as it affects Sarah, makes you very very stupid. Go to Japan to look for missing sister, okay. Decide to tear apart forest alone despite everyone telling you it is a stupid idea, unsurprising for this kind of movie. Partner up with random dude and seemingly competent guide and proceed to ignore everyone's advice, stupid. Beyond horror film trope stupid. Especially when the guide takes great pains to tell you how cold it gets at night and how unprepared you clearly are to spend a night in the forest.

Then we have the time in the forest. Jump scares galore, some hilarious CGI, and just some very obvious gimmicks. The most of which being one very important, and often repeated, piece of advice that Sarah ignores. Again, not surprising (and often expected) in a horror film but you can only buy it if the movie makes you buy it. I don't buy it. Not for a second.

Skip this.