There are horror movies that make you afraid to go into the woods—and then there’s The Forest, which makes you afraid to go to the theater. Directed by Jason Zada and starring Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer (twice, because apparently one Dormer wasn’t enough to save this mess), The Forest tries to mix Japanese folklore, psychological horror, and twin-sister drama. Instead, it ends up being a cinematic scavenger hunt for logic that no one wins.
This is a movie that wants to be deep, atmospheric, and emotionally devastating. What it achieves is none of the above—but it does make you wonder if the real curse of Aokigahara is being trapped in a 93-minute film that feels like eternal damnation.
Welcome to the Suicide Forest: Please Turn Off Your Brain
The movie begins with Sara Price (Dormer), an American whose twin sister Jess (also Dormer, but with “rebellious” eyeliner) goes missing after entering Japan’s infamous Aokigahara Forest—known for its grim reputation as a suicide site. Naturally, Sara hops on the next flight to Tokyo because she’s seen one too many Dateline episodes.
Ignoring everyone’s warnings—her fiancé, local authorities, and the universal rule of horror films (“never follow white noise into the woods”)—Sara dives into the forest armed with nothing but determination, poor judgment, and plot armor.
She meets Aiden, an American travel journalist played by Taylor Kinney, whose sole purpose in the film seems to be handsome foreshadowing. Together with Michi, a local guide who clearly knows he’s in a doomed movie, they venture into the forest to find Jess—or at least what’s left of her.
Then, things go wrong. Not supernaturally wrong—just narratively.
When the Forest Is the Smartest Character
You know a horror movie’s in trouble when the trees have more personality than the leads. Aokigahara, as a setting, should be terrifying. It’s dense, misty, and full of tragic history. But Zada shoots it like a nature documentary about emotional detachment.
Despite its reputation, the forest here looks less like a haunted deathtrap and more like a particularly moody hiking trail. It’s as if someone filmed a REI commercial and decided to add ghosts in post-production. The cinematography tries for “ethereal unease” but lands squarely on “Instagram filter gone wrong.”
And about those ghosts—well, technically, they’re yūrei, the vengeful spirits of Japanese folklore. But don’t get excited. These spirits are less “terrifying manifestation of cultural trauma” and more “forgotten extras from The Grudge 3.” They pop up randomly, make generic scary faces, and vanish before doing anything interesting. You half-expect one of them to hold up a sign saying, “Boo. Please clap.”
The Characters: Lost in Translation (and in the Script)
Sara is supposed to be our emotional anchor—a woman desperate to save her twin while battling her own guilt and grief. Instead, she comes off like someone who mistook a haunted suicide forest for a weekend spa retreat. Natalie Dormer does her best, but she’s fighting an uphill battle against dialogue that sounds like it was translated from English to Japanese and back again using Google Translate.
Example:
Aiden: “You can’t trust what you see here.”
Sara: “I’ll trust what I feel.”
That’s not drama. That’s the script trying to justify 40 more minutes of bad decisions.
Aiden himself is equally undercooked—a man whose main job is to look rugged and occasionally yell, “Sara!” He’s the kind of horror character who exists solely to make you shout at the screen, “Why are you still following her?”
Then there’s Michi, the Japanese guide, who’s basically the movie’s designated voice of reason. He warns them repeatedly about the dangers of Aokigahara, but of course no one listens. If this movie had any justice, he would’ve been the protagonist—and the film would’ve been 20 minutes long, ending with him sensibly leaving the forest while the Americans ignore him and die off-screen.
The Horror: Boo! Now Go Back to Being Confused
You’d think a story about a forest filled with the spirits of the dead would be naturally terrifying. But The Forest manages to drain every ounce of fear from the concept. It’s like watching a National Geographic special on how not to build suspense.
There are jump scares, sure—but they’re so predictable you could set your watch by them. The sound design cranks up the violins every time Sara turns her head slightly, as if the real horror is repetitive audio cues. The ghosts don’t haunt so much as politely interrupt, appearing for a second before disappearing again like awkward coworkers at a party.
Even the forest itself seems tired of the script. “Oh great,” it seems to sigh every time Sara screams into the void. “Another lost foreigner with family issues. Fabulous.”
The Plot Twist: You’re the Problem, Not the Forest
Eventually, the movie decides it wants to be about trauma. Sara, we learn, has been repressing memories of her parents’ murder-suicide (because of course she has). The forest feeds on emotional pain, and—spoiler alert—Sara’s got it in bulk.
Cue the hallucinations. Suddenly, every tree trunk becomes a symbol, every shadow a metaphor, and every ghost an unsubtle reminder that therapy might’ve been cheaper than a plane ticket to Japan.
By the final act, Sara can’t tell what’s real anymore—and neither can we. She kills Aiden, thinking he’s evil, only to realize the forest tricked her. The big reveal is that she never escaped; she’s been dead the whole time. Which, to be fair, is also how the audience feels by this point.
Jess, the supposedly dead twin, is miraculously alive and rescued by searchers. Meanwhile, Sara’s spirit now lingers in the forest, possibly waiting for a better script in the afterlife.
The Cultural Sensitivity of a Brick
It’s hard to talk about The Forest without mentioning how tone-deaf it is. Aokigahara is a real place with a tragic history of suicide, yet this film uses it as a backdrop for Hollywood hokum. The movie’s idea of “Japanese culture” consists of cherry blossoms, schoolgirls, and mystic old men who mutter vague warnings.
It’s like someone Googled “Japan spooky” and built a screenplay from the first three search results. Even the yūrei, which could’ve added depth, are reduced to lazy CGI jump scares. It’s exploitation without even the courtesy of being entertaining.
The Direction: Jason Zada and the Curse of Mediocrity
Jason Zada, best known for directing viral marketing videos, proves that sometimes virality should stay in the ad department. His direction is technically competent but emotionally vacant—like someone who read “Horror for Dummies” and stopped halfway through chapter two.
The pacing is glacial, the scares mechanical, and the tone confused. The movie wants to be psychological horror, supernatural thriller, and travelogue all at once, but ends up being none of the above. It’s Eat Pray Love meets The Blair Witch Project, but without the calories or the creativity.
Final Verdict: 2/10 – Lost, Not Found
The Forest is what happens when Hollywood finds a genuinely disturbing real-world location and says, “You know what this needs? Twin drama and ghost clichés.”
It’s a film where grief meets geography and both lose. Natalie Dormer tries her hardest, but not even two of her can save it. The script is confused, the direction uninspired, and the scares so telegraphed they might as well come with warning labels.
If you’re looking for a movie about being lost in the woods, go rewatch The Blair Witch Project. If you want Japanese ghost stories, try Ringu or Ju-On. If you want to waste 90 minutes of your life and question your faith in cinema, The Forest is waiting.
But don’t say you weren’t warned.
Because in this movie, the real horror isn’t the forest—it’s the filmmaking.
