The Forest

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 The Forest stars Natalie Dormer from Game of Thrones as a young woman who goes searching for her missing sister in Japan’s fabled Suicide Forest. While there, the trapped spirits of those who commit suicide torment her psychologically. First things first, I want to get the positives out of the way. I love the location of Japan’s suicide forest, as the setting and the lore behind is fairly creepy and makes for a good backdrop for a horror movie. The cinematography is pretty solid too. There’s a moment where you see Natalie Dormer walking down a hallway, and the way it is filmed is genuinely creepy. I want to talk a little bit about Natalie Dormer’s performance in the movie. Generally, I thought she slipped between being good and being bad. Although, I will admit I do think she gets better as the movie goes on. There are points where I think she can be very expressive, which I personally feel is due to her natural talent. Other times, I feel as though she is sleepwalking through her performance, and can sometimes give a flat, monotone delivery. The male lead on the other hand, played by Taylor Kinney, is generally fairly charming through his entire performance. Overall, I think the best way to describe this movie is hit and miss. The scares also easily fall into this category. One of the first major scares you get is a mix between a lazy, uninspired jump scare that doesn’t work and a tired, cliched dream sequence. Nowhere do I feel the idea of hit and miss is better exemplified than by the shift the movie starts to take about halfway through. The first half I feel is kind of boring. Once our main characters enter the forest and night settles in, I start feeling more of the atmosphere and actually think the scares are a little more effective. Continuing on the first half of the movie, which I feel is the weaker half, the pacing is slow, and I really don’t think that always works in the movie’s favor. At points, the movie drags and plods along, and that really drags the movie quite a bit for me. oh, and if you're wondering, this is a horror movie. So, yes, the main character does make some pretty idiotic decisions. Overall, I think this movie has a boring first half, and is almost saved by a pretty strong second half, where the scares actually become more psychological and I actually found I had started second guessing myself. I still find this movie incredibly uneven, and found this to be a solid one-and-done movie for me.

5 / 10