Here are review links for this film submitted by our members:
- Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: [a] disappointing affair given that it features a strong (dual) lead performance, production design, cinematography and sound mixing in service of a script which undermines everything it worked to establish.
- David Crow @ Den of Geek
- Excerpt: All of this is to say that the history of the “Suicide Forest” is fascinating and more than worthy of any number of films, including those of the horror variety. Which is perhaps why I’m less than enthused about The Forest—a new supernatural chiller with a beautiful nightmare of a premise that still ultimately plays like any other paint by numbers PG-13 horror movie.
- Matt Donato @ We Got This Covered
- Excerpt: The Forest is an almost passable Suicide Forest thriller that wants to freak your mind, but a heavy-handed focus on cheap scares prevents it from doing so.
- Mark Dujsik @ RogerEbert.com
- Excerpt: The Forest ends up feeling like an extended journey to a predestined shrug of a conclusion.
- James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: ‘The Forest’ takes the fascinating legend of a haunted woodland and fails to make a scary movie from such a fertile resource.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Formulaic, wannabe horror story that fails to schieve the necessary suspense to sustain audience interest…
- Ben Kendrick @ Ben Kendrick
- Excerpt: The Forest struggles to transform its spooky premise and haunting setting into memorable or unique on-screen movie scares.
- Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: The Forest is not inept, but it’s not a very scary place to visit.
- Daniel Lackey @ The Nightmare Gallery
- Excerpt: There’s probably a good horror story to be told about Aokigahara. Sadly, this ain’t it.
- Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: If you’re going to base a horror story on something so gruesome, you can’t wimp out. The Forest isn’t the worst thing ever made, but it absolutely wimps out.
- Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: The Forest is plodding and uninspired, not particularly frightening, and worst of all boring.
- Frank Ochieng @ SF Crowsnest
- Excerpt: Zada seems to struggle in incorporating any convincing sizzle that can propel ‘The Forest’ into a cultural creepfest that really tantalizes. [A] thin and jittery payoff that is nothing more than a toothless trek through the pseudo petrified Forest.
- João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- James Roberts @ Glide Magazine
- Excerpt: The Forest is completely empty and hollow, going through the motions of having meaning in order to mask the internal nothingness it actually contains.
- Thomas Spurlin @ DVDTalk.com
- Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: Based on a promising premise but quickly devolves into a grab bag of routine “gotcha” moments embedded in a plot that slides into incoherence and torpor.
- Ron Wilkinson @ Its Just Movies
- Excerpt: Jason Zada’s narrative feature debut stays in the safe zone but is a good ride.
- Andrew Wyatt @ Gateway Cinephile
- Excerpt: The whole affair feels weirdly uneven and unsatisfying: flickers of technically spot-on horror filmmaking in a gray expanse of dreary, bleary storytelling.
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