The Forest

You know what's scarier than a Suicide Forest? Not much really. What an utter failure. Natalie Dormer has a nice long future of looking at things with her eyes wide open.

I for one am shocked that a movie with Natalie Dormer twins would be this boring, disappointing, and unenjoyable.

I wanted to like this. Like I *really* wanted to like this. I really wanted this to be more than what it is. Like... JAPANESE SUICIDE FOREST, that should be all this needs to be atmospheric and creepy and... BE GOOD, DAMMIT, WHY WON'T YOU BE GOOD!?!? The only thing that keeps this from being a red-spectrum, candidate-for-worst-of-2016, is that I feel that there's enough there for the average movie-goer to latch on to, even if it IS just the jump-scares. But for me, it's alllllll a hallucination.

Natalie Dormer gets out acted by trees and Taylor Kinney's nipples are stoked to be in a movie again.

I kept waiting for the obvious telegraphed twist, only to realise that the movie hadn't even put THAT much thought into it. Just about passable up to the "ooops we ran out of money" ending.

The Forest is a bland ghost story that feels like what you would get if you crossed The Grudge remake and The Blair Witch Project - but worse than that combination should make. An American goes to Japan in search of someone in a forest, and then jump startles happen for the rest of the film. This one had the potential to be more interesting, but for one reason or another, decided to take the safe, mechanical, and generic route.

Somewhere under the horrible acting, amateurish jump scares and brutal editing is a good horror movie. Unfortunately this isn't it.

Don't follow any of the rules. Kill a guy that just saved you. Then add in a stupid ending.

So...it's January again - must be time for yet another schlocky, lackluster horror picture from the dregs of Hollywood, eh? Enter The Forest. Er, on second thought...don't. I don't so much want to review this film as kinda wanna flunk it. This is one of the laziest, stupidest attempts to cash-in on (PG-13 friendly) Asian ghost stories in quite some time. https://magnolia12883.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/reviews-the-forest-2016/

The Forest stars Natalie Dormer, who is definitely the only reason this film will have any success in the box office, besides the infamous January horror release tradition. This film had the potential to be something great but at the end of the day, was sub par at best and tried be way smarter then it truly was. Although I did enjoy the first half, the final 20 minutes of this film were abysmal as was the ending and failed to tie up 90% of the introduced questions.

The worst kind of movie - so mediocre and inhuman as to become instantly forgettable. This is the danger of living by three act structure.

48.4

Gänsehaut

A January release that tried a tad too hard to be artsy. While it doesn't match the horrendousness of other January horror releases, The Forest's story is bland and not scary, as it seems like it was never fully decided what it was supposed to be. The acting isn't awful at all though, and really bolsters an otherwise forgettable film.

There are two reasons to watch this film: Natalie Dormer and the real legend of the Suicide Forest. The premise sounded pretty nice, but in the end it's like you expected: sometimes scary, mostly dull.

This movie was inspired by real events which happened (and continue to happen) in Aokigahara forest. These events are super creepy. The more than slightly racist, cookie-cutter, supernatural horror narrative in this movie is not creepy at all though: It is drab, predictable, full of plot holes, and ultimately just a total waste of a great premise.

Why pretty lady, why??

Nice ideas (done better by Oculus), best use was the river. The characters are extremely moronic though. Pretty much for horror fans only.

Such an incoherent slog of a movie. Impossible I think for an English filmmaker to nail the feeling of the suicide forest unless you go completely over the top and stupid like Eli Roth style. Where you’re purposely playing into the whole stupid westerner thing. They want this to be an acute mediation on death and I just wanna die watching it

The first horror film of the year never seems to go quite well. Promising & ambiguous, it doesn't take long to realize the potential along with any sense of fright is lost in the woods.

The movie is about as bland as you'd expect from the title.

Natalie Dormer was the only aspect of this movie that didn't it movie completely ridiculous and awful. Still - pretty shitty movie.

A failure in almost every way (except Natalie Dormer, who is very good). Aokigahara is genuinely beautiful and breathtaking (so much so even Ancient Aliens dedicated a large part of an episode to it), but its impact is cheapened here by the cliches the movie offers, which disrespect and capitalize on the very real suicides that take place in the forest as well as require problematic racial typing (all Japanese people are scary, mystical, etc.).

Bad.

Way better than "The other side of the door".

not so good

6 jump scares. Dormer forgets how to act. I did enjoy the hike through the japanese mountains. I like hiking.

For one of my least favorite genres of film, this isn't so bad. This is one of the few horror films where tacky horror tropes sort of work. Sure, it is beyond absurd at times, but even then the allegory of how mental illness can distort reality in surreal ways turns the absurd into something practical. Was this intentional? No idea. Initially, I thought that combining a fictionalized horror plot with the tragedy of the Aokigahara Forest was tacky and overkill. I was wrong. This works, somewhat.

Wandering Through the Woods While Going Insane: The Movie