When I saw the previews for The Forest, I initially wanted to see it, but I am so glad that I was dissuaded by outcries about the trivialization of suicide in the Aokigahara Forest in Japan and lack of diversity in the casting. Apparently The Forest is not the first fictional film in which a white protagonist travels to Japan to either contemplate suicide or find a loved one who is missing in the Aokigahara Forest, but it is the first one that people noticed. People probably noticed The Forest because horror movies attract audiences, and Natalie Dormer plays twins. Dormer is well known for playing hot royals in The Tudors and Game of Thrones.
I did not spend money on The Forest, but saw it on DVD at home. The Forest is bad, but unfortunately not so bad that it is good. If you are scared in the bustling streets of Japan when a homeless man hits the car window while grinning madly, maybe you should not go anywhere remotely spooky. I hate it when characters randomly don’t follow someone’s instructions for no good reason. I understand that there would be no movie if characters did not do stupid things, but at least let them do stupid things for plausible reasons. At one point, a character gets seriously injured and can’t do anything, then does a whole lot. It is annoying. Dormer was good, but not Tom Hardy good so Dormer fans can skip The Forest. Rest assured, Dormer remains fully clothed throughout The Forest so you won’t be missing anything.
While it was clever to have the main character tell a story, but show what really happened to illustrate that she is an unreliable narrator, it does give away the suspense of the rest of the movie, which relies on gender norma and expectations to create a tense atmosphere. If I decide to be generous, The Forest is about how shielding yourself to reality only leaves you unprepared to handle that reality later on and leads to self-destruction, but The Forest does not succeed in fully exploring that theme. If you are looking for a scary movie, don’t watch The Forest. I’ll leave it to The Love Life of an Asian Guy to explain why The Forest is offensive.