“The Forest” wants to be a tense, atmospheric horror film about a real place in Japan where people go to die. Instead, it becomes a slow, repetitive slog that earns its low reputation through sheer tedium rather than scares. Directed by Jason Zada from a screenplay by Ben Ketai, Nick Antosca, and Sarah Cornwell, the film stars Natalie Dormer as Sara, a woman searching for her missing twin sister Jess in the Aokigahara Forest.
The premise is simple. Sara travels to Japan after her sister is presumed dead in the forest, a real location where suicide is common. She checks into the hotel where Jess stayed last, meets a travel journalist named Aiden, and agrees to let him document her search in exchange for his help. What follows is a crawl through dense foliage, a few jump scares, and a mystery that refuses to build momentum.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures At Home.
Sara and Jess
Natalie Dormer carries the film as Sara, a woman whose grief is sincere but whose actions are increasingly baffling. Her fiancé Rob, played by Eoin Macken, pleads with her to come home. Sara ignores him. The film spends significant time establishing Sara’s backstory, including the death of her parents in a car crash that Jess witnessed but Sara did not. This trauma is meant to explain Jess’s disappearance, but the connection is thin and never fully explored.
The film’s central relationship is supposed to be between Sara and Jess, but Jess barely exists beyond a photograph and a few mentions. The audience never gets to know her, which makes her disappearance feel less tragic and more like a plot device. Sara’s determination to find her sister is admirable, but her insistence on staying in the forest despite warnings from everyone around her reads as stubborn rather than heroic.
Aiden and the Hotel
Taylor Kinney plays Aiden, the travel journalist who joins Sara in the forest. His character is meant to be a foil, offering a different perspective on loss and guilt. Aiden reveals that his brother lost hearing in one ear after a fight Aiden did not join, leaving him feeling obligated to help his brother. This parallel is a decent idea, but the film spends too much time on Aiden’s backstory and not enough on why Sara trusts him.
The hotel scenes, where Sara meets the other guests, are some of the better stretches. Stephanie Vogt plays Valerie, a fellow traveler who seems genuinely concerned for Sara. The film leans on these small interactions to establish a sense of dread, but the tension never quite snaps. The hotel staff, led by Osamu Tanpopo as a homeless man and Yasuo Tobishima as a sushi chef, add color, but their roles are minor and underwritten.
Michi and the Guide
Yukiyoshi Ozawa plays Michi, the local guide who warns Sara about the forest’s supernatural dangers. His advice is consistent: people who enter Aokigahara carry emotional pain and may be vulnerable to illusions that drive them to harm themselves. Michi’s warnings are the film’s clearest attempt at building atmosphere, but they are delivered in service of a plot that cannot sustain them.
The film’s pacing is its biggest problem. Large portions of the runtime involve Sara walking through the forest, following paths, and finding empty campsites. The yellow tent she discovers is a brief moment of hope, but the film spends so long getting there that the payoff loses impact. Night falls, and Michi advises the group to leave a note and return in the morning. Sara refuses, and Aiden stays with her.
Hoshiko and the Final Stretch
Rina Takasaki plays Hoshiko, a mysterious girl who warns Sara not to trust Aiden and implies he is lying about Jess. This is the film’s best scene, but it arrives too late. By the time Hoshiko appears, the viewer has spent so long watching Sara wander that the twist lands as a relief rather than a revelation.
The final stretch is where the film collapses entirely. Sara cuts her hand while chasing Hoshiko, and the next day Aiden insists on escorting her out of the forest for medical attention. The film’s ending is not described in the source material beyond this point.
What Works
There are moments where “The Forest” shows flashes of competence. The tagline, “Everyone comes here looking for a way out,” captures the film’s intended tone of existential dread. The forest itself is a genuine location with a grim history, and the film occasionally draws on that weight. The performances are generally solid, with Dormer giving Sara a palpable sense of grief even when the script lets her down.
The film’s visual style, with its muted greens and shadows, is competent if unremarkable. The sound design is effective in isolated stretches, creating a sense of isolation that the plot never quite matches.
What Doesn’t Work
The film’s biggest failure is its inability to generate tension. Jump scares are deployed frequently, but they are so predictable that they lose their power within the first ten minutes. The forest is vast, but the film rarely uses it creatively. Characters walk in straight lines, follow paths, and stumble upon campfires that offer no new information.
The plot is thin. Sara’s search for Jess is a mystery with no suspects, no clues, and no resolution. The film introduces a supernatural element but never commits to it. Michi warns of illusions, but the film never shows what those illusions might look like. The audience is told to fear the forest, but shown nothing to substantiate that fear.
The Verdict
“The Forest” is a film that misunderstands its own strengths. It has a real setting, a genuine tragedy, and a talented lead actress. It squanders all of them by refusing to pace itself, refusing to commit to its mystery, and refusing to scare the audience in a meaningful way. The film is not scary because it is not clever. It is not clever because it is not focused.
The film’s failures are easy to list:
- Too much time spent walking through the forest with no payoff
- A mystery with no suspects and no resolution
- Supernatural elements introduced but never shown
- Jump scares that lose power within the first ten minutes
“The Forest” is a film that could have worked if it trusted its audience. It could have been a quiet, unsettling portrait of grief set against a grim landscape. Instead, it became a film that wastes its potential on a plot that never delivers.
| Element | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | Real forest with a grim history | Thin, underdeveloped backstory for Jess |
| Lead performance | Solid grief from Natalie Dormer | Script that lets her down |
| Hotel scenes | Small interactions establish dread | Tension never snaps |
| Supernatural warnings | Clear atmosphere-building attempts | Plot that cannot sustain them |
The final score is 3.4 out of 10.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
