The Forest (1982)

This film is awful yet I actually watched the entire thing. It's weird. I thought it was going to be a stereotypical slasher film - and it is in one way, the people isolated in the woods with a killer - but in another way, it's different than most slashers because of the ghost kids and wife.Ghost kids that are waiting on their killing dad to be dead so they can go somewhere in the ghost world (they haven't a clue as to where that is)... and the dead mom wanting to hurt her kids -- just weird. OH and the ghost kids help the one girl to live and her husband. The rest of the film is the crazy cannibal slasher dad trying to kill the couples. That's about it... not much else to the film.There is something about this film that kept me watching until the ending... I guess just the weirdness of it all.4/10

THE FOREST is an extremely low budget independent slasher film made in 1982. I imagine most horror fans will have never heard of it, so perhaps they might be eager to find out what delights it holds. So what does this film have to offer to the average horror fan? For a start there's the gore, which is very mild but still packs a punch, seeing as all of the people on screen actually have their own characters. Then there's the bad acting, which is always good for a laugh - check it out when one of the guys starts heavily emoting in the woods. It'll make you cringe! Otherwise there are some strange jump-cuts which obscure the action and a hilarious unexpected moment at the finale in which the film becomes slow-motion and the screen flickers repeatedly for no discernible reason. It's one of those "rewind" moments which makes you wonder what on earth they thought they were doing.Also check out the scene where a victim supposedly "dies" on a circular saw blade - it's pretty obvious that the saw isn't switched on as the blade isn't turning. Despite this we hear a whirring noise and the guy falls down dead - noticeably bloodless, though. Although most people will hate this movie because it's so poorly made, I think the setting holds a lot of suspense and atmosphere for the film which makes it at least partly effective. Just don't expect a masterpiece, expect the worst possible and you might be nicely surprised.

A truly disturbed, cannibalistic psychopath, John(Gary Kent, under the pseudonym Michael Brody) who lives in a cave, stalks campers who make the unfortunate mistake of backpacking in his wilderness. Steve(Dean Russell)and his buddy Charlie(John Batis)get into a playful argument with their wives, Sharon(Tomi Barrett, the late real-life wife of Gary Kent))& Teddi(Ann Wilkinson)over surviving in the woods camping by themselves. To prove a point, the gals decide to head for the wilderness out of Los Angeles for a camping trip disturbing their partners to the point that they soon follow afterward. Falling prey to John, Teddi is soon killed as Sharon runs for her life as the men arrive late to the wilderness due to their truck's overheating. Afraid, tired, and paranoid, Sharon receives some very unusual assistance..John's ghost children! That's right, John's children remain in the wilderness, ghostly apparitions which spy on those who exist in the woods, taking a special liking to Sharon, helping guide her to safety and her friends. Meanwhile, Steve and Charlie soon find shelter from a down pour and the darkness of night in the very cave where John lives. Cooking over a burning fire, the meat simmering is actually from Charlie's wife, Teddi! Unknowingly Charlie eats from the meat when offered by John who finds the outsiders inside his dwelling place! Anyway, soon, worried about their wives, Steve and Charlie set out to find them as morning breaks. Meanwhile, John goes a hunting, with Charlie, Steve, and Sharon in a fight for survival. When Steve suffers a compound fracture stumbling between two massive rocks over a flowing river, he will be handicapped only increasing such an already nightmare scenario, with Sharon following her ghostly young friends to potential safety..they even, at one point, plead with their father to not kill her. Charlie, unfortunately, doesn't have such friends.Director Donald Jones(..who also wrote it and went broke funding the film)smartly shoots the film in such a breathtaking, gorgeous location in the Sequoia National Park, in California, where those gargantuan trees tower to great heights, and I basically watch backwoods slashers for this very purpose. For some strange reason, I didn't particularly find Jones' direction of the setting very atmospheric..the dread was missing, although there are some rather disturbing attacks by John using his knife(..shot in a clever way, Jones' camera suggests more than what is actually on screen, yet, somehow, still achieves that gasp at what John is doing to victims). Within such a picturesque landscape, to see innocents preyed upon by a maniac, that kind of increases the terror. City folk attempting to spend a nice few days in a different place, to smell the clean, fresh air, enjoy the sights of a lovely view, only to find themselves stalked by a creepy predator with a very intimidating knife. Providing the back-story to why John is the monster he is, Jones allows us to witness his memory flashback in discovering his wife's adultery and reacting accordingly(..she is also a ghost in the wilderness looking for her children, wishing to punish them for "being naughty")killing both her and the lover in bed(..a refrigerator repairman). The children, sad and depressed committed suicide and now "haunt" the wilderness, still interacting with their pa or whoever they so choose. I realize such a novelty as ghost children in a backwoods slasher is unique and appreciated by some, but I found the idea rather hokey and too silly to take serious. They do help our heroine escape a few potentially dangerous situations, but it was awfully hard for me to keep from giggling uncontrollably. The music I found hideously 80's and the performances aren't mind-blowing. I mean I could react to the situation they were in, because it is indeed quite terrifying to find yourselves in an unfamiliar and hostile territory being hunted by someone who knows the area so well. I think the film is similar in many ways to DON'T GO INTO THE WOODS..ALONE!, except that THE FOREST has the aforementioned ghost children(..their voices echo when talking to Sharon, their father, or each other). Gary Kent looks like a filthy George Lucas, with tattered clothes, and humanity lost. As I mentioned above, the violence isn't as grisly as what is suggested because director Jones is able to effectively cut away from a great deal of knife penetration, yet the way he stages the set pieces leave you rather unsettled(..such as Teddi's murder, the violence mostly silhouetted on the surface of a nearby huge stone formation, her pleas for John to stop and, once stabbed several times, attempts to crawl away from her predator only to be finished off;a hanging corpse John is skinning). I've seen better and worse of this type of slasher film, it's rather mediocre, at best, with some effectively shot scenery. I don't really think it's particularly memorable, for the exception of the ghost children.

"The Forest" is a decent enough entry, if only for a few really interesting moments.**SPOILERS**Trying to relax, Steve, (Dean Russell) and Charlie, (John Batis) suggest a camping trip in the woods, which their wives Sharon, (Tomi Barrett) and Teddi, (Ann Wilkinson) want to get in on. When they get their first, they quickly begin to realize that something is wrong with the situation and try to leave. As the men arrive, they find the camping area completely abandoned and the women nowhere around. Stumbling upon loner John, (Gary Kent) who reveals that he has been living in the area for years after witnessing his wife cheating on him, it quickly dawns on them that he has been terrorizing the area and is responsible for their disappearance. Along with his two ghost children, he chases after them while they attempt to get out of the woods with the survivors of his attacks.The Good News: This one does have a few pretty good moments in it to keep it afloat. One of the best is it's complete eschewing of slasher conventions to make something similar without really distancing itself from it's target. The victims, not the typical horny teenagers, are not relentlessly stalked by a remorseless killer whose reason for killing is a total mystery. Here, we have a murderer whose reasons are clearly laid out and understandable, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else. Additionally, he only kills out of necessity, not because he's deriving some type of pleasure. Those are two really surprising features that are quite unexpected. There's even no spring-loaded cats or other false scares. In fact, there really are no sudden jump scares in the entire film. There are some fun segments to be had from the chasing, which do get somewhat fun. The chase by the river that soon includes a dip through the icy water. The later chase at the end isn't half bad, and it opens with a really nice one through the woods that includes a few really nice moments and ends with a big bang. The last big positive is that this one has an incredible story to it. This one has a very logical reason for staying in such a dangerous situation while most would've left the area long before being put into danger. First, the two women arrive in the woods long before the others on their own camping trip and manage to become lost as the men arrive, delayed with car problems. Finally making it to the campsite, they discover their wives are missing and thus must stick around to investigate. This splitting up allows them all to be menaced by the killer but still provide a reason why they don't all immediately take off back to civilization. The lack of a single teenager in here, especially from the time period, is also nice. That helps this one be more believable and terrifying. One would expect a group of inexperienced teens to get themselves in trouble by lacking the experience or wisdom to make the best decisions under the circumstances, whereas adults would be expected to extricate themselves from bad situations with little or no help. Seeing them at the mercy of the land, as well as the killer, reminds viewers that they might find themselves in just such a situation. These more believable reasons for the characters to willingly remain in a dangerous area is a welcome change of pace, and are part of the reason why this one is at worse watchable.The Bad News: This one here does have a couple of really big flaws that are kinda hard to get over. The fact that this one really doesn't offer up much in the way of blood or gore is a big factor, especially once the cannibal overtones get thrown around. Seeing a victim strung up ready to be consumed doesn't do that, and some off-color blood splotches is little better. The gore here isn't convincing, when it gets around to showing it as nearly all of the kills are done more through implication rather than actively doing anything that might suggest a violent, brutal end. That very few are done on-screen is a big one, especially when it gets around to showing them. The very low body-count here is what really hurts that factor, since there isn't much of an opportunity to really let loose, even though the ones that are shown could've been much more brutal or even shown on-screen at the very least. There's also a problem with the back-story. A member mentions early on that the camping area to which they are going is so secluded that very few people even know about it, that they can expect to be all alone out there. If the area is that far off the beaten track and that few people frequent the area, how is the killer even staying alive? There shouldn't be enough passers-by to require sole sustenance on human flesh, yet there's enough kills each year to do so, requiring that others should know about it and meaning that there should've been more to keep visitors safe, since it's mentioned in passing about the disappearances yet nothing else is done. There's a couple of other weird little flaws in here, but none will matter as much as those.The Final Verdict: While not a complete waste, this one doesn't offer up much and really only has a couple of good points for it. This is really only for those who enjoy the backwoods slasher genre, while those who expect more high-brow horror or figure that the flaws are too much won't have a fun time with this one.Rated R: Violence and Language