Movie Review: The Forest

Nothing's creepier than twins. Well, actually there's one thing that's creepier. Japanese girls. Ever since I saw The Grudge, I've been terrified of Japanese girls. I can't help it.

The Forest is about a woman named Sarah (I likes the names) looking for her twin sister Jess, a school teacher in Japan. Her school had gone on a field trip to the area around Mount Fuji, which just so happens to be near the "Suicide Forest" and she didn't come back.

Sarah meets Aiden, a guy at a bar (Uncle Teen Wolf and Lady Gaga's fiance'), and he knows someone who can act as her guide. She tells Aiden about how her parents died, but as she describes a car crash in front of their house, we see the truth is that her parents died in a murder suicide in the basement while their grandmother watched the girls upstairs. When the guide tells her he doesn't think she can go because she's sad, I nearly started to cry.

The three of them go to the forest, crossing over the NO ENTRY sign. They find a man in a tent, who the guide deems fine. He says people that bring tents aren't sure whether they want to live or die yet. Then they find a man who'd hung himself. The guide cuts him down and makes a note of where he is so the rangers can retrieve his body. They find a tent. Jess's tent. Sarah refuses to leave and she and Aiden stay the night in Jess's tent.

Now Dingo and I are planning to go camping in the near future and of course I had to watch this creeptastical forest/tent-based movie beforehand.

Sarah tries to get some shut-eye, but is woken up by something scampering by. Aiden is gone. She sees someone and follows them. It's a teenage girl. She says she found Jess and that she asked for Sarah's help. Well, creepy Japanese girl turns out to be a creepy Japanese dead girl and keeps luring Sarah into hazardous places. She believes Aiden has done something to Jess and in a struggle in a radio hut, she accidentally stabs him in the chest. She's lured into the basement where she's thrown into a reenactment of her parents' deaths. Her father chases her up the stairs and she has to cut his fingers away from her wrist to escape.

Jess is alive. When she sees the guide and Sarah's boyfriend, she runs to them. She's alive and rescued. They tell her about Sarah coming to find her and that's when she realizes that the forest has gone totally silent. Creepy Japanese demon/ghost girl shows Sarah the truth. When she cut her father's fingers away, she cut her own wrist. She has died in the suicide forest.

I enjoyed The Gallows more, but The Forest was a great movie. It was thought-provoking and eerie in all the right places. It kept me riveted and I'll be surprised if I'm not a bit creeped out on our next hike.

Moral of this movie: Anything you see that's bad isn't real, it's just in your head.

"I still don't think you should go." "Why?" "Because you're sad."