‘The Forest’ Review: Wooden frights

Oggs Cruz

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‘The Forest’ Review: Wooden frights
'Game of Thrones' actress Natalie Dormer stars in 'The Forest,' directed by Jason Zada

The first few minutes of Jason Zada’s The Forest is a feat in economic storytelling. 

Sara (Natalie Dormer), looking both pensive and worried, is aboard a cab in Tokyo. Through flashbacks, we see that just the night before, she was enjoying dinner with her boyfriend (Eoin Macken) when she receives a call about her twin sister (also played by Dormer) who’s gone missing in Tokyo.

 

 

Through a dream sequence that culminates in a predictable jolt, we see that Sara is harboring a deep trauma from childhood. The entire sequence of flashbacks and dream sequences ends when a crazy Japanese man suddenly pops out of nowhere to surprise both Sara and the audience out of their prolonged daze. 

The sequence is disjointed, but it functions as a quick summary of everything to expect from The Forest. The film proceeds from there, indulging in old scares and psycho-babble cliches that are set in a foreign location whose promises are abandoned for genre conveniences.

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Into the woods

Zada diligently mines Japan for all possible stereotypes that can give his film the oddity that could serve as the diving board to further terrors. Before Sara enters the titular forest, the film indulges in schoolgirls in uniforms, elderly women in kimonos, subtitle-free conversations in the Japanese language and other elements that can only arouse excitement as to what the Aokigahara Forest can offer. (READ: An unsettling visit to Aokigahara, Japan’s ‘Suicide Forest’) 

The biggest problem of The Forest is that it is based on the infamous forest, which has been described as a place where people go to commit suicide. The film’s depiction of the forest however is lackluster. While Zada peppers the forest with bizarre details that emphasize its bleak place in local culture, the setting itself offers very little atmosphere to sustain any interest on a generally uninteresting tale of a woman who will do everything to rescue her suicidal sister.

In fact, the film seems to be in a rush to get out of the forest, especially when things get repetitive. The film’s climax happens in a featureless hovel, betraying all of the film’s attempts at mining its Japanese setting for strangeness and novelty. In the end, The Forest looks and feels just like about any other standard horror flick Hollywood has released recently. 

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Measly moods and wasted trauma

Zada relies too much on boilerplate frights that are coupled with the measly mood manufactured from the film’s exploitation of its locale. The film has all the staple elements of unimaginative horror. It has jump scares, characters who become inexplicably stupid when faced with life and death decisions, and an unsurprising twist that could not salvage the entire exercise of hackneyed startling. 

There is an intriguing film underneath The Forest’s tedious deficiencies.

Remove its failed attempts at horror, the film actually has something to say about childhood trauma, and how it lingers even amidst outward signs of normalcy. With the film’s obsession over flashbacks which showcases Sara’s horribly imperfect past, the film somewhat tackles a character who has been rendered unhinged by the past and forced to face it through peculiar means.

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Unfortunately, Zada envelopes everything in a messy medley of convenient but ineffective scaring that almost nothing is left except incoherence and banality. Whatever metaphor the film attempts at making is drowned by ineptitude and a grave lack of imagination. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.

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