Review of The Forest (2016) by Jack G — 26 Jan 2016

I sometimes go to see a movie and just know that I will not remember this movie in a week's time. There may be the general, vague sense that this movie did not work on any concrete level, or just on that level of engaging me, but I won't remember any of the scares or anything that makes The Forest worth recommending. One scene is somewhat interesting: the main character Sara, played by Natalie Dormer, tells someone about how her parents died in a driving accident, and then the flashback we witness on screen is what *really* happened (murder/suicide in a basement), and that is a nice counterpoint - it was a moment of visual storytelling that made use of contradicting what the character was saying, but we know what the truth is. If only anything else in the movie was as striking as that, but alas it's all the easy-road from there.

It's a 'twin-sibling-ghost-horror' type of story (that's a sub-genre, right?) where one sister goes into the Japanese suicide woods - also called Aokigahara, by the mount Fujuyama - to find the other, who has gone in a fit of depression and angst. The problem with the movie is that, whether it's due to the script or how the director (first timer Jason Zada) staged his actors or the lack of emotion, it just didn't connect emotionally or have much resonance. It's full of cliches and things we've seen before, and characters do dumb things (let's stay in the woods overnight... then let's leave the camp ground... then let's x-y-z), and Natalie Dormer, while fine on Game of Thrones and in supporting roles, can't really carry what's asked of her in the movie (what little there is).

I wish I could go further into what didn't do for me, whether it's lack of scares or real atmosphere (that's part of it), or a climax and conclusion that just gets nonsensical and stupid and with a final shot that is insulting and the most horrid current horror movie cliche used for the 39293th time... but I don't really recall even now what makes it so bad, which is the problem with it. It's simply forgettable and inane, full of jump scares that don't scare (or really jump well either), and atmosphere that feels tired and that if this isn't a rip-off or remake of a horror movie from Japan it seems all the stranger. It's a weak movie, plain and simple.