Sara (Natalie Dormer) goes to Japan to Aokigahara Forest in
search of her twin sister Jess who has gone missing and presumed dead. She soon learns that her sister Jess ventured
into Japan’s so-called “Suicide Forest”, a place where people go to commit
suicide. This is the premise for The
Forest (2016) which is the first major American film to take a look at the
infamous real life place.
Sara refuses to believe that her sister committed suicide
and ventures to Japan to find her sister even if no one else will help
her. She eventually convinces Rob (Eoin
Macken), in Japan on assignment, to help her into the forest but when she
refuses to listen to the advice of her guide to not spend the night in the
forest and not to venture off the path, she starts to experience haunting
visions that start to drive her mad and question her own sanity. Soon she finds herself lost and with no way
of finding herself back on the right path as the forest itself seems to close
in on her and she can’t decide what is real and what is a living nightmare.
Written by Nick Antosca, Sarah Cornwell, and Ben Keith there
is an interesting premise to the film but the concept relies too much on the
jump scare and your typical supernatural horror film tropes. It’s actually quite a well written film
except you can tell that test screenings probably didn’t go over well and
because of the slow build up. The jump
scares (and there are many) were probably added after the fact. Without the jump scares the film would have
been a moody and atmospheric and very effective but instead it’s just a
mediocre film with a great concept that hopefully someone else will explore
again.
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