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| Natalie Dormer |
If you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from the tame, forgettable horror film "The Forest" unless you find traipsing through some trees scary. One of the first major new releases in 2016, you're better off finding a holdover from 2015 to see or see once more ("Star Wars" again anyone?). When her twin sister disappears in Japan, a young American named Sara ("Game of Thrones" Natalie Dormer) becomes determined to find out what happened to her. Sara's investigation leads her to the legendary Aokigahara Forest, located at the base of Mount Fuji. Accompanied by expatriate Aiden ("Chicago Fire's" Taylor Kinney), she enters the mysterious wilderness after being warned to "stay on the path." Her investigation plunges her into a dark world where the angry and tormented souls of the dead prey on those who dare to explore the forest. Directed by video and commercial director Jason Zada in his feature debut, the dull, lifeless "The Forest" is about as lively as that oak tree in your front yard, and probably less entertaining. What could've been an edgy, dark horror movie infused with some Japanese-style chills ends up a muddled, yawn-inducing story about a girl wandering around some trees looking for her lost sister. We never really find out why she disappeared or where exactly she's been, and some confusing backstory involving the girls' parents is never really fully explored. Worse off, "The Forest," loosely based on mythology surrounding an actual, creepy Japanese forest, aside from a couple of the usual jumps, is lacking in anything that's genuinely scary, with minimal, low-grade special effects that add little to the proceedings and a dumb ending certainly will have you leaving the theater more confused than when you entered. I feel sorry for handsome, recognizable TV actors Dormer and Kinney, who are both wasted here by the uneven story telling and the fact that "The Forest" is really just a crashing bore.
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