The Forest- Movie Review

2016 is here and started off with a horror movie! Nothing says kicking off a fresh year with another stereotypical jump scare flick, am I right? I went into this with no expectations because I genuinely didn't care about this project at all. The annoying part of The Forest was that although a decent movie at times, it just wasn't scary.

The Forest is a decent film. I will stand by that. I thoroughly enjoyed the setting and the story this film tried to convey. What this film had going for it was originality. I'd never seen anything like it at all. I thought the use of the setting to further the story was great and really help contrive an uneasy feeling throughout the entire movie. The setting was the scariest part of this movie and in some aspects, that's not necessarily a terrible thing. Where they struck out here was missing endless possibilities to really make this film something special. The scares just weren't all there. We were taken into this supposedly extremely haunted forest and the biggest scare, if you could call it that, was a little Japanese girl. I'm not making that up. That was the only part people in my theater actually reacted to. They struck out big time on making this film something that could stick with horror fans forever. If this film was awesome and full of truly scary elements, this had franchise written all over it. Yet, the folks that made this film totally dropped the ball. Just as this film was getting good, it ended. We were getting warm and somebody turned the water off. I left the theater just disappointed.

In terms of a story, I loved The Forest. I thought the plot was really well thought out and the writing wasn't remotely as bad as other previous January horror film releases (see Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones to see what I mean). Yet, the plot was lacking because this was advertised as a horror film. Yet, it felt like a gloomy, suspenseful, drama about a girl trying to find her missing sister. I won't say it was false advertising. I just think this is one of the least scary horror films I've ever seen. And what really cheapened this movie for me was the ending. Without spoiling anything, this movie ends with one of the newest horror clichés out there and has something jump towards the screen to get that last scare. I've seen I think five horror movies in a row end the same way. The Forest, although not scary, was at least a semi-decent film until they totally sold out and ruined a rather emotional ending.

A huge upside to this movie is Natalie Dormer. She was really good for a campy "horror" movie. I thought her performance actually came off really nicely. She carried the entire film and was a huge highlight. Taylor Kinney also was decent. The acting in this film was pretty okay for a movie that a lot of people are going to skip over.

In closing, The Forest is okay. It just isn't scary. It drops the ball on a concept that could've been something truly special.

Rating: C