Forest, The (Blu-ray/DVD)
Starring Natalie Dormer, Taylor Kinney, Yukiyoshi Ozawa
Directed by Jason Zada
I was actually looking forward to The Forest. I’ve enjoyed movies that other horror aficionados have hated before, so my hopes were high that Natalie Dormer’s adventure in the mythic Aokigahara would be memorable. Unfortunately, it was not. A lot of negative reviews focus on how monumentally egregious a particular film is. Isn’t it much worse to just be utterly forgettable? The Forest isn’t an affront to filmmaking. It isn’t insulting to audiences. It’s the embodiment of mediocrity. A passable film devoid of any risk, I struggle to remember details a mere hour after watching it.
Here’s what I do remember. Some lady named Sara (Dormer) learns that her sister, Jess (also Dormer), has gone missing in Aokigahara, the infamous suicide forest. With her magical identical twin powers telling her that Jess is still alive, Sara travels all the way to the mystical land of Japan to follow the trail and save her sister. Since, you know, the Japanese authorities just can’t be bothered to give two fucks about a schoolteacher going missing. Upon arrival, she encounters cultural and language barriers, ranging from awkward misunderstandings to being fed live shrimp. It’s a bizarre mix between inexplicably catty and entirely inconsequential, much like all of high school.
Eventually, she meets dreamboat Aiden (Kinney), the one redeeming quality of the film. He’s a reporter who’s familiar with Aokigahara and offers to be her “in” with the local guide. He wants to use this opportunity to write a character piece about her struggle to find her sister, mixing opportunity with human kindness in a way strangely realistic for this script. He has his fair share of silly lines, but at least he acts like a normal human being, equal parts skeptical confusion and helpfulness.
There’s some backstory about her father killing her mother, Jess seeing it, and Sara feeling bad about it. Since the twins look the same at the time (they masterfully have different colored hair in the present day), it’s unclear who saw it really, but it turns out to be totally inconsequential. Everyone warns her that the forest is haunted, which, paired with explaining the backstory, comprises about half of the movie. It would make sense spending half of the movie outside of the titular forest if there was a lot of plot, but I basically just wrapped it up in two paragraphs. There are a lot of pointless shots of Sara feeling awkward in a foreign environment, which could have easily been integrated into the plot-relevant scenes.
Once they finally get into the meat of the haunted Aokigahara, it still takes a good amount of time to get to the actual ghosts. The yūrei come much too late to develop, each predictably appearing for a couple of scenes before fading off into the archives of “what could have been interesting.” Their design is visually impressive but feels awkward in the overall narrative.
What bothers me the most about The Forest is that it could have been good. The visual design of the ghosts is excellent, with the gruesomely human spirits exuding a tortured menace. The little bits of intrigue are pretty interesting, with the overall concept of “what is real” a rich ground to grow a very memorable story. I liked the moment where the ghost was passing notes. Unfortunately, it’s those little streaks of brilliance that give it that “forgettable” label. If it was just all terrible shit, it would at least be fun to watch for that. Unfortunately, this is a movie with the telltale signs of people that knew what they were doing being saddled down by a committee that had no idea.
It’s easy to imagine. Picture a group of suits, sitting around a projector, all with clipboards in hand. As scenes flutter by, they tilt their heads, nod and shake, pens darting onto paper taking heated notes. “It’s been 20 minutes without a jump scare! Teens will find this boring! We didn’t demand this to be PG-13 for nothing! Wake the audience UP!” Several quick cuts to spooky faces were added as a result. “What’s this bullshit about her family dying in a car accident? That’s not what we see at the end! I am confused! Add a segment where we see, specifically, that her father actually killed her mother. Otherwise, audiences will get lost.” A shadowy figure emerges from the depths of hell, horns obscured by the molten vapors of the brimstone, “Yessssss, yessssssssssss. And end it on a nonsense jump scare. Otherwise, the audience might not know the film was spooky!”
It’s just barely good enough to not be likable. It’s that slog of bland muck that sits between a piglet endearingly smearing itself in mud and delicious bacon. It’s a visually fine movie with a mixed bag of acting, meh plot, and passable production values. I can’t imagine any but the most starved really liking this movie. It’s a cheese sandwich, passable for consumption, but in no way a meal. Watch if exceptionally bored or high. Or even if you’re just a little high. Or if you’re sober. You won’t remember it anyways.
As for the special features, if I thought my career choice was the pinnacle of slacking off, I was wrong. The guy in charge of The Forest’s special features approached the task with a level of not giving a fuck generally reserved for bartenders pouring drinks for fat dudes at clubs. We get a few galleries of concept art and set photos, none of which are particularly interesting.
The Exploring The Forest featurette is basically just Jason Zada talking about his vacation to Japan. I did think it was kind of neat to learn that the trip she takes in the film reflects the actual route to Aokigahara, but at the point where travel logistics marginally excite me, the rest of the feature has done something terribly wrong. Even if you bought this Blu-ray, I couldn’t recommend you watch these.
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Film
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Special Features
Categorized:Reviews
