The Forest | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jason Zada |
Produced by |
|
Written by | |
Starring | |
Music by | Bear McCreary |
Cinematography | Mattias Troelstrup |
Edited by | Jim Flynn |
Distributed by |
|
| |
93 minutes[1] | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $10 million[2] |
Box office | $37.6 million[3] |
The Forest is a 2016 American supernaturalhorror film directed by Jason Zada and written by Ben Ketai, Nick Antosca, and Sarah Cornwell. Starring Natalie Dormer and Taylor Kinney, it follows a young woman who travels to Aokigahara (the suicide forest) to find her sister.
The film was released on January 8, 2016 in the United States by Gramercy Pictures and was negatively received by critics, but was a box office success, grossing $37.6 million against a reported budget of $10 million.
Plot[edit]
The majority of the story is set in and around the Aokigahara Forest, a forest at the northwest base of Mount Fuji in Japan known as a popular destination for suicide.
Looking to watch The Forest (2018)? Find out where The Forest (2018) is streaming, if The Forest (2018) is on Netflix, and get news and updates, on Decider. Jan 07, 2016 Directed by Jason Zada. With Natalie Dormer, Eoin Macken, Stephanie Vogt, Osamu Tanpopo. A woman goes into Japan's Suicide Forest to find her twin sister,.
Sara Price (Natalie Dormer), an American woman, receives a phone call from the Japanese police telling her that they think her troubled twin sister, Jess Price (also Dormer) is dead, as she was seen going into Aokigahara forest. Despite the concerns of her fiancé, Rob, she journeys to Japan and arrives at the hotel where her sister was staying.
At the hotel, Sara meets a reporter named Aiden. They drink together, and she tells him of her parents' death. In reality, her father killed her mother, then committed suicide, but she tells him they were killed by a drunk driver. Her sister saw the bodies, but Sara didn't look. Aiden invites her to go into the forest with him and a park guide, Michi, so she can look for her sister.
As the three enter Aokigahara, Michi tells Sara that Jess has most likely killed herself. Sara refuses to believe this, explaining how, being a twin, she can 'feel' that Jess is still alive. Deep in the woods, the group discovers a yellow tent that Sara recognizes as belonging to Jess. With nightfall approaching, Michi suggests they leave a note for Jess and leave. Sara refuses, and Aiden volunteers to stay with her through the night.
That night, Sara hears rustling in the bushes and, believing it may be Jess, rushes into the woods after her. Sara finds a Japanese girl, Hoshiko, who claims to know Jess. The girl warns Sara not to trust Aiden and flees at the sound of his voice. Sara attempts to chase after her but falls and loses her.
The next day, Aiden and Sara become lost and begin to walk around the forest. As they walk, Sara's suspicions are raised and she demands Aiden to give her his phone and finds a picture of Jess on it. Aiden denies any involvement with Jess, but Sara runs into the forest alone. While running she begins to hear voices telling her to turn around. She appears to be unfazed by this until she hears the voice directly behind her. She turns around to see a hanging body and continues to run away. She then falls through a hole into a cave and, later she wakes up and discovers that she is in the cave with Hoshiko, who turns out to be a yūrei. Hoshiko then turns into what appears to be a 'demonic figure.' Sara then runs back towards the cave's opening, where Aiden finds her and helps her out of the cave. After some convincing, they continue to walk together. Rob arrives at the Aokigahara forest with a search party and Michi, determined to find Sara.
Aiden takes Sara to an old ranger station he claims he discovered while looking for her. Sara hears her sister's voice coming from a locked basement and finds a note which implies that Aiden is holding Jess captive there. Convinced that he is a threat, Sara attacks and kills Aiden with a small kitchen knife. As he dies, Sara realizes that Aiden was telling the truth and that the picture on his phone, the voice at the basement door, and the note had all been hallucinations.
In the basement of the ranger station, Sara sees a vision of the night her parents died. The ghost of her father suddenly appears and lunges toward her, grabbing her wrist. She cuts his fingers away from her wrist and escapes the station. Running into the forest, she sees Jess running toward the lights of the search party. Sara calls her sister, who is unable to hear her. She realizes that her escape from the ranger station was another hallucination. When she cut at her father's fingers she actually cut deep into her own wrists and is now dying from blood loss in the basement. As she succumbs to her wounds, the hands of a group of yūrei pull Sara beneath the forest floor. Jess, very much alive, is rescued by the search party and explains that the 'feeling' of her sister is gone, and it is assumed that Jess knows Sara is dead. As the search party leaves, Michi suddenly sees a dark figure at the edge of the forest and realizes that it's Sara who has turned into a yūrei.
Cast[edit]
- Natalie Dormer as Sara and Jess Price
- Taylor Kinney as Aiden
- Eoin Macken as Rob
- Stephanie Vogt as Valerie
- Yukiyoshi Ozawa as Michi
- Rina Takasaki as Hoshiko
- Noriko Sakura as Mayumi
- Yûho Yamashita as Sakura
- Akiko Iwase as Head Teacher
Production[edit]
Goyer came up with the idea after reading a Wikipedia article on Aokigahara. Surprised that a horror film had not been made about it he came up with a rough outline.[4] After being pitched the idea, Zada instantly became attracted to it.[5] He was most attracted to the fact that the 'Suicide forest' in Aokigahara was a real place, which he became 'obsessed with', reading as much information as he could about the location, including watching an online Vice documentary.[5] Prior to shooting, Zada took a trip to Aokigahara as he felt 'There's no way I felt that I could make a movie about a real place, and not go visit it.'[5] Zada had described the location as '..a very frightening place. It was not a place where I wanted to spend the night.' [5]
In October 2014, it was reported Natalie Dormer had joined the cast of the film.[6] in April 2015, it was announced that Taylor Kinney had joined the cast as well.[7]
Dormer cited the opportunity to play two characters in one film enticed her to accept the role. 'That's like a life tick box as an actor, to be playing against yourself. It's certainly surreal,' she said. '(But) it's hard to make choices as Sara when you don't quite know how you're going to play it as Jess yet. You haven't got the other actor to react against. You have to be a bit schizophrenic.'[8]
Kinney cited a confluence of reasons for accepting the role: the story and its location, the ability to tweak his character, and the attachment of Dormer. He stated he was looking for something 'more cerebral than gory slasher films', in the vein of The Amityville Horror, Friday the 13th and Halloween, as well as the Stephen King adaptations Cujo, Pet Sematary and The Shining.[9]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography began on May 17, 2015, in Tokyo, Japan.[10] As filming in the Aokigahara forest is not permitted by the government, the filmmakers chose a forest near the Tara Mountain in Serbia to double as the Japanese forest in which the film is set.[11] Poor weather plagued the production in Serbia, and many scenes were shot in a former warehouse.[12]
Release[edit]
In May 2014, Focus Features acquired domestic distribution rights to the film.[13] On May 20, 2015, Focus Features relaunched their Gramercy Pictures label for action, horror, and science-fiction movies, with the film being one of its releases.[14] The film was released in the United States on January 8, 2016.[15]
Home media[edit]
The Forest was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 12, 2016.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
As of April 11, 2016, The Forest has grossed $26.6 million in North America and $12.2 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $38.8 million, against a budget of $10 million.[3]
The film was released on January 8, 2016, alongside the wide release of The Revenant. In its opening weekend, the film was projected to gross $8–10 million from 2,451 theaters.[16] The film made $515,000 from its early Thursday screenings and $5 million on its first day, including Thursday's gross.[17] The film grossed $12.7 million during its opening weekend, finishing fourth at the box office, behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($41.6 million), The Revenant ($38 million), and Daddy's Home ($15 million).[18]
Critical response[edit]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 10% based on 136 reviews with an average rating of 4.08/10. The site's critical consensus reads, 'The Forest offers Natalie Dormer a few chances to showcase her range in a dual role, but they aren't enough to offset the fact that the movie's simply not all that scary.'[19] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 34 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating 'generally unfavorable reviews'.[20] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of 'C' on an A+ to F scale.[18]
Brian Truitt of USA Today thought the movie was a 'mostly scare-free zone', and gave it 2 out of 4 possible stars. He teased the premise of the movie, saying that '[i]t’s OK to go into these woods because there’s not much to get spooked by in The Forest, unless you’re creeped out by the occasional Japanese schoolgirl.' Comparing the film to some of its peers, he wrote the movie is 'definitely a step up from screaming teenagers and some guy running through trees with a chainsaw', but expressed disappointment that the 'film never makes the most of its conceit'.[21]
Peter Keough of The Boston Globe zeroed in on the writing as a source of fault, while approving of the acting and directing, writing 'Zada gets credible performances from Dormer and Kinney, but their characters undergo such unlikely psychological contortions that these efforts are to no avail.' He echoed the complaints of most critics, saying 'Had Zada strayed more from the generic path into such unknown territory, The Forest might have had genuine depth and darkness'.[22]
Alonso Duralde, writing for TheWrap, voiced these gripes as well, faulting the writing is saying 'By the time screenwriters Ben Ketai, Sarah Cornwell and Nick Antosca unpack the inevitable third-act reversals and twists, it’s too little, too late, especially since those revelations rely upon an investment in the characters that the movie has expended too little effort in creating.' He praised Dormer as well ('Dormer, for her part, invests herself in the proceedings, and manages to build two characters out of a script that barely bothers to give her one'), while panning Kinney ('so wooden here he could be playing the title role').[23]
Neil Genzlinger, writing for The New York Times, also praised Dormer's performance, while finding enough within the rest of the film's aspects to give the movie a positive review: 'a decently executed creeper built around a convincing performance by Natalie Dormer.'[24] Justin Chang of Variety also allotted the film a positive review, writing 'Dormer is sympathetic enough in her double scream-queen roles, and Zada shows an occasional aptitude for generating suspense through framing, music and sound design, even if the beats he hits are often tediously familiar.'[25]
Slate's David Ehrlich said that the film's release date was the most significant indicator of its lack of quality. 'Every year, during the first proper weekend of January, the studios' niche labels trot out the horror movies they know have nothing to contribute to society and leave them for dead in your local multiplex,' he wrote. '[A]nybody with access to a calendar already knows that The Forest is bad; at this point, that's less of a presumption than it is a tradition.' Keeping with the film's setting and themes, he likened the practice of releasing such films at that time of year to the supposed ancient Japanese custom of ubasute, in which elderly people who could no longer take care of themselves were abandoned to their fate on a mountain.[26]
Controversy[edit]
The film attracted controversy for what some believed to be trivializing the issue of suicide in Japan as well as disrespecting the people who have died in the real life forest.[27][28] Critic Kevin Maher wrote in his review that 'The Forest is a dumb and dreary horror movie that's notable only for its racial insensitivities, lack of horror, and for making Natalie Dormer from Game of Thrones play identical twins distinguished only by hair colour.'[29]
The film's plot has been compared to the 2011 comic book The Suicide Forest, also taking place in the Aokigahara Forest, written by El Torres and illustrated by Gabriel Hernández.[30]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'The Forest'. British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved January 19, 2016.
- ^McNary, Dave. 'Box Office: Leonardo DiCaprio, 'The Revenant' to Clash Against 'Star Wars''. Variety. Retrieved January 5, 2016.
- ^ ab'The Forest (2016)'. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
- ^BENARDELLO, KAREN. 'Interview: David S. Goyer Talks The Forest (Exclusive)'. Shockya. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
- ^ abcdBENARDELLO, Karen. 'Interview: Jason Zada Talks The Forest (Exclusive)'. Shockya. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
- ^McNary, Dave (October 21, 2014). ''Game of Thrones' Actress Natalie Dormer Joins Supernatural Thriller 'The Forest''. Variety. Retrieved October 30, 2014.
- ^Fleming Jr, Mike (April 20, 2015). ''Chicago Fire's Taylor Kinney Lights Up 'The Forest''. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
- ^USA Today Dorner Role
- ^Shockya.com
- ^'Filming Starts for The Forest, Starring Natalie Dormer and Taylor Kinney'. comingsoon.net. May 17, 2015. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
- ^Toronto Sun- Filming
- ^Shockya.com Interview
- ^The Deadline Team (May 22, 2014). 'Cannes: Focus Features Acquires U.S. Rights To Supernatural Pic 'The Forest''. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
- ^Petski, Denise (May 20, 2015). 'Focus Features Revives Gramercy Pictures Label For Genre Films'. deadline.com. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
- ^Lincoln, Ross A (September 30, 2015). ''The Forest' Trailer – A Trip Into Japan's Notorious 'Suicide Forest''. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
- ^''The Revenant' Will Bear Through Box Office Weekend Dominated By 'Force Awakens' – Preview'. deadline.com.
- ^''Revenant' & 'The Forest' Begin B.O. Journey On Thursday; 'Force Awakens' To Cross $800M This Weekend – Box Office'. deadline.com.
- ^ ab''Force Awakens' Crosses $800M On Saturday & Holds No. 1, 'Revenant' Taking No. 2 With $38M'. deadline.com.
- ^'The Forest (2016)'. Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
- ^'The Forest reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
- ^USA Today Review
- ^Boston Globe
- ^The Wrap
- ^The New York Times
- ^Variety
- ^Ehrlich, David (January 8, 2016). 'The Forest'. Slate. Retrieved January 12, 2016.
- ^Cruz, Lenika (9 January 2016). 'The Forest: The Problem With Trying to Make Suicide Spooky'. The Atlantic. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^Alexander, Damian (14 January 2016). ''The Forest' Plays Suicide for Cheap Scares'. Pacific Standard. Retrieved 11 May 2016.
- ^Maher, Kevin (26 February 2016). 'The Forest'. The Times. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^Piñón, Manuel (15 January 2016). '¡Han pirateado mis cómics!'. Cinemanía (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 May 2016.
External links[edit]
- The Forest on IMDb
- The Forest at Box Office Mojo
- The Forest at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Forest at Metacritic
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Forest_(2016_film)&oldid=941929867'
The Forest of Love | |
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Directed by | |
Produced by | Hiroshi Muto |
Written by | Sion Sono |
Starring | |
Music by | Kenji Katoh |
Cinematography | Sôhei Tanikawa |
Edited by | Takayuki Masuda |
Distributed by | Netflix |
Release date | |
Running time | 151 minutes |
Country | Japan |
Language | Japanese |
The Forest of Love is a Japanese crime film, written and directed by Sion Sono. The film is based on the murders, torture and extortion committed in Kyushu, Japan from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s by convicted serial killer Futoshi Matsunaga, who was sentenced to death. Matsanaga's accomplice was sentenced to life in prison. It stars Kippei Shiina, Kyoko Hinami and Shinnosuke Mitsushima.[1][2] It premiered on October 11, 2019 on Netflix.
Plot[edit]
Joe Murata (Kippei Shiina) sits in a restaurant. A television report details the latest misdeeds of a serial killer. Murata carries an all-girls school yearbook with numerous photos crossed out. We happy few trailer joy time. He tells the waiter he’s a screenwriter, and asks if he knows what it’s like to kill someone. The waiter, being a conscientious human being, isn’t sure how to reply.
Two young men, Jay and Fukami meet another young man, Shin who is playing guitar on the street in Tokyo. They take him back to the vacant warehouse where they're living. Jay tells Shin about his desire to make movies, where one can explore all kinds of criminal behavior, legally. Jay hopes to make a film with their video camera, and win at a film festival, guaranteeing him a career as a director in the film industry.
Shin later reveals that he's a virgin and Jay takes him to meet a girl he knows to lose his virginity. The girl, Taeko, despite her promiscuity, refuses but, offers to take him to meet a high school classmate, Mitsuko. Mitsuko is a shut-in with well off but, strict parents who are obsessed with maintaining their social image. In Mitsuko's bedroom Mitsuko says she, too is a virgin but, isn't interested in Shin. Mitsuko disregards Taeko's arguments that she should forget the past, 'make some scars and move on.'
The scene reverts to when the girls were in high school. Mitsuko, Taeko and other classmates are working on a production of Romeo and Juliet for a school festival. Mitsuko was to play Juliet opposite another girl, Eiko as Romeo. Being students at an all girls high school with little experience with boys they explore sexuality and romance among themselves. Eiko (who the girls refer to as Romeo) is killed after being hit by a car. The play is cancelled. Inspired by the romanticism of the play, five of the girls decide to drink a 'sleeping medicine' and play a game by standing on the edge of the school roof. Taeko swears that if she survives she will become a slut. Mitsuko is distracted by a vision of Eiko behind her, calling to her and does not fall. The others fall to the parking lot below. Taeko survives, landing on the roof of car. This leaves her with a limp and a scar on her right thigh. She has 'Romeo' tattooed on the scar.
The scene returns to the present. At home Mitsuko receives a call from Joe Murata, a man claiming Mitsuko had lent him 50 yen years before, when she was in high school. Mitsuko doesn't recall any of it and is suspicious of Murata. He insists that now, he is very successful, having graduated from Harvard and MIT and it's very important to him to return the money she lent to him in his time of need. She agrees to meet him in a public park. Murata drives up in a sports car and begins to charm Mitsuko and express attraction for her. Shin, Jay, and Fukami watch their meeting and video record it. Later, watching the video with Taeko, she says she recognizes Murata as a con artist who had attempted to con her family out of money, saying he wanted to marry her sister. Taeko recalls having had sex with Murata and seeing him trying to seduce their mother and kissing her in the hallway of a restaurant. Murata was rejected by her family when it was discovered he had been checking into the family's finances. The boys obtain a film crew and begin making a film about Murata's con game, with Shin playing the role of Murata.
Meanwhile, Murata begins taking Mitsuko out on dates and begins seducing her younger sister Ami. Murata also, is meeting Taeko at a hotel. Murata stages a concert as a singer. A large group of Murata's previous female confidence game victims show up and are still competing for his affection. The three film makers, Mitsuko and Taeko meet Murata at a restaurant afterwards in a private room. Mitsuko reveals that she has started having sex with Murata and shows them that he's a sadist revealing scars from cigarette burns and electric burns and displaying obedience to him. Murata is pleased by this and lifts Taeko's shirt revealing electric burns he had made on her, as well. Jay and Fukami are sickened by this. Murata says he can help them make their movie, as he is wealthy and interested in the project. They agree believing Murata can finance the film. Fukami decides to quit and leaves.
It is soon revealed that Murata really has no money. The film crew all quit leaving Jay, Shin, Taeko and Mitsuko, who want to continue working on the film with Murata. Murata, now takes control of their film. Murata revels in cruelty to all of them. Mitsuko reveals to Taeko that she is pregnant with Murata's child. Murata takes them to a country house to work on scenes. Murata coaches Mitsuko in a scene where she is strangling Jay. Jay dies. Murata convinces them that they must dismember and pulverize Jay's body and dispose of him in a lake. Taeko jumps from the boat and attempts to escape but, is killed by an unknown gunman.
They all then go to Mitsuko's home where Murata uses Mitsuko's involvement in Jay's death to blackmail her parents. He begins forcing her parents to drink alcohol and tortures them with electric shock. He has them all dress up in punk garb. He video records it. Shin begins taking notes. Murata convinces them to use a relative to fund the remainder of the film. Mitsuko's younger sister, Ami revels in the sadistic torture of her parents and Mitsuko. She has frequent sex with Murata.
Mitsuko begins to rebel after watching Ami having sex with Murata. She attempts suicide. Murata, Ami and Shin decide, 'tomorrow will be Mitsuko's death scene.' Mitsuko and Ami go to buy a dress for her death scene. Mitsuko attempts to escape in a taxi but, Ami prevents it. Later, Mitsuko has a miscarriage and is hospitalized. In the hospital, the doctor wants to contact the police about Mitsuko's bruises and electric burn marks. Ami calls Murata who then pretends to be their father. He convinces the doctor that Mitsuko is abusing herself.
Their relative discovers that their film company is a sham and returns to demand his money back. He walks past the bottles and garbage in the yard and is met inside by Mitsuko's drunken parents who begin to rave about their situation. Murata and Shin return finding Mitsuko's father has hanged himself and sees her mother and relative lying on the floor with a bloody knife, nearby.
Ami continues being cruel to Mitsuko in the hospital. Mitsuko is confused and only wants her 50 yen. Ami returns home to find her dead parents. Murata and Shin have already dismembered her relative. They tell her to dismember her parents. She saws off her father's head and discovers her mother is not dead but, at her mother's request, kills her. Shin begins helping dismember their bodies.
Murata, Shin and Ami pick up Mitsuko from the hospital and take her to a forest. Shin informs her that they are planning to kill her. Mitsuko consents to it. Mitsuko begins reading an essay she had written in the hospital. She explains she had not drunk the 'sleeping medicine' and hoped Taeko would die, that she was not a virgin after high school and had sex with all her friend's boyfriends as well as Ami's boyfriend. She says she knew from the start that Murata was a con artist and that Shin was a killer but, hoped they would kill Ami, her parents and Taeko (who she'd hated for stealing Eiko's attention from her). Shin pulls out a gun and shoots Ami at Mitsuko's request and then shoots Mitsuko. Shin gives the gun to Murata and demands he kill Ami who is has been shot but, is begging Murata for her life. Shin berates Murata for being unable to kill her. Shin takes the gun from Murata and kills Ami. He reveals himself to be the serial killer reported on news broadcasts throughout the film and that he's going to kill Murata. They struggle and Murata escapes through the trees.
Murata waves down a car being driven by a woman with a striking resemblance to Eiko. When asked where she is headed, she simply responds 'to hell.' Shin then drives off in the car they'd come in and gives a lift to an attractive woman with car trouble. He sees a girl by the side of the road in high school uniform, Eiko. He stops the car and runs into the forest after her, leaving the woman wondering what's going on.
Text reveals that the people behind the murders that inspired the film were caught in 2002 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Cast[edit]
- Kippei Shiina as Joe Murata
- Shinnosuke Mitsushima as Shin
- Kyoko Hinami as Taeko
- Eri Kamataki as Mitsuko
- Sei Matobu as Mitsuko's mother
- Denden as Mitsuko's father
- Young Dais as Jay
- Natsuki Kawamura as Eiko/Romeo
- Yuzuka Nakaya as Ami
- Dai Hasegawa as Fukami
Release[edit]
The Forest of Love was released on October 11, 2019 on Netflix.[citation needed]
Reception[edit]
Brian Tallerco of RogerEberts.com wrote, 'It is a movie that wallows in its excess, undeniably long and repetitive and somewhat nonsensical, but never boring.' With regard to the film's length, Tallerco wrote, 'There’s no reason for this movie to run over two-and-a-half hours. Some of the scenes wallow in their length like they're challenging you to switch away.' Nevertheless, he wrote, 'There’s too much filmmaking craft on display to care that this movie seems to go on forever. Hardcore Sono fans may wish it was longer.'[3]
References[edit]
- ^'Netflix Adds Sion Sono, Ridley Scott and 'Grudge' Films to Japan Originals Slate'. Variety. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
- ^'Japanese Auteur Sion Sono to Direct Netflix Series'. Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
- ^Tallerico, Brian (October 11, 2019). 'The Forest of Love'. RogerEbert. Retrieved November 9, 2019.
External links[edit]
- The Forest of Love on IMDb
- The Forest of Love on Netflix
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Forest_of_Love&oldid=940932900'