Horror Court: The Forest
Court is now in session with Jason Zada's The Forest (2016). 2016 has apparently been the way to go for me lately, but for those that haven't heard of this one this film follows the story of a twin named Sara on a quest to find her sibling after she goes missing in Japan's Aokigahara Forest. I've got a lot of feelings about this one. As always, my long-form review will be spoiler-ridden, so skip down to the scoring if you want to know what to expect before you watch.
The Evidence
I'll be straight with you, this film has a lot wrong with it with only a few things that are note-worthy. The story of a twin following her "twin-sense" to find her sister in a foreign country on a hunch is...something that you don't see every day. There are a lot of things that are mentioned about the sisters that are just never gone into in detail leaving a lot of questions about both of them and the other lead Aiden. Now, I enjoy an unreliable narrator as much as the next person. There are a lot of fun things that you can do with a narrator that the audience can't trust.
Unfortunately, they leaned into not only having an unreliable narrator, but also a setting that was prone to making people see things and do things that they typically wouldn't. This just wasn't very effective since it wasn't clear what was and wasn't normal behavior for both Sara and Aiden. It mostly resulted in a lot of choices and results that didn't make a lot of sense in the moment or after the film. The choices in imagery were really muddy as well. It wasn't clear if Zada wanted to keep with Japanese or American horror sensibilities which further confused the experience.
It's never clear who if anyone is in the right or wrong or if any of the betrayals and subsequent one-dimensional reconciliations actually happened or what the "true" set of events are. It was jarring to move between things that you'd see in The Blair Witch Project (1999) to something I would expect from a film like The Descent (2005). The choices made it really unclear if Sara was ever that lucid to begin with and it is never explained if Aiden actually caused any problems to indicate if I have any feelings about Sara murdering him near the end.
To make matters worse, I had so little audience connection with Sara and her sister that I didn't care if either of them died or not. I know it was supposed to be a twist that Sara killed herself and got trapped with the other souls of Aokigahara, but I just didn't care. It wasn't clear if it was a case of demons, ghosts, natural forces, or psychosis for anything that happened in the film, so it just made for a muddy horror experience with a weak connection for any audience. It further weakened the whole experience to have some really contrived scares that were just really predictable.
On a more personal note, it was disappointing to see the director travel so far to see so little of the culture that the film takes place in. Furthermore, the way that they framed Aokigahara felt almost disrespectful? It was just such a glossing over of a location that could have been treated not only with more respect, but with more genuine horror. Aokigahara is in some ways "just a forest" but in others not. There's such a long history of heartbreak in the area that is barely given a nod and is only addressed with a creepy school girl that might be a demon. Honestly, this was such a let-down.
What's the Score?
Total Score - 1.6
Here’s the breakdown:
Behind the Scenes - 2
There were just so many odd choices made in the script and this story. The delivery by the actors was fine, but there just seemed to be such a lack of direction with this film.
Effects - 2
The practical effects weren't bad at all, but the cgi was pretty weak. They would have done better without it.
Threat Execution - 0
I'm still not sure what the exact threat was even supposed to be to give this a score. They implied too many things and executed none of them well.
Technical Design - 3
The camera work was nice enough. The score seemed to suit decently even if I don't remember it well. This film has one of my audio pet peeves though where I had to fiddle with the remote to hear some things and then rush to turn it down with overly loud attempts at weak jump-scares.
Personal Preference - 1
Nope. Not a fan. I've seen worse, but this is pretty darn low on my list. They could have picked a direction and stuck with it instead of going with the ""more is more" approach to everything in the film.
The Verdict
Give this one a pass. Blair Witch was better and I don't even like that film. You can find something better to spend your time on. If you want something set in Aokigahara, I know that there are others out there and I doubt that they're as weak as this one.
Closing Statements
Thank you for joining me for this unfortunate look at The Forest (2016) here at the Horror Court. As always, if you have any suggestions or want to give your take on the film I'd love to hear from you in the comments. Until next time!
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