Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

Cast: Natalie Dormer, Eion Macken, Stephanie Vogt, Taylor Kinney, Ibuki Kaneda, Akiko Iwase, Noriko Sakura, Yûho Yamashita, Terry Diab, Yukiyoshi Ozawa.

There are places steeped in their own mythology and natural setting that it is a surprise to find that it has had relatively few films or television programmes devoted to its uniqueness, its solitude or its folklore and traditions. Perhaps in the case of Japan’s Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji that might be a good thing for the restless spirits that abide in that lonely place are not ones that should be talked about in the craven image of film making.

Whilst The Forest is a tremendous idea, some film making notions should arguably be left alone out of consideration for the dead, those that are contemplating following their instincts and breathing their last in a place where the act of suicide is a ritual and for the actors that made the Horror film in the first place. The Aokigahara Forest is unforgiving, so perhaps are Horror fans when it comes to enduring a film that revels in every cliché known to humanity and doesn’t seem surprised when the gentle snore of indifference nudges it to the next scene.

Undoubtedly the star of the film is the setting, it fulfils every wish a Horror fan might wish to have, something exotic, a secret that is surprising to find out and read into and one steeped in Japanese culture and ritual. It is with fondness that the cinema goer finds themselves enchanted by the truth by Aokigahara Forest but also rightly disturbed by the sorrow that emanates from the screen as Natalie Dormer’s twin roles discover the truth that brings people deep within The Forest’s grip.

It is the Japanese stars who fare best out of the film, who don’t struggle with the cliché heaped mound that makes The Forest arguably one of the most desperate Horror films to have come out in the last 20 years and Yukiyoshi Ozawa’s Michi certainly displays enough respect for the idea and for the poor unfortunates who make their way to the sacred place.

Sometimes a place is too beautiful, its history too hallowed, to conceive making a film out of its misfortune and The Forest is that all over, an unfortunate piece that hardly delivers and offers nothing new to the Horror genre, a dense and insignificant film, a near travesty to cinema.

Ian D. Hall