THE FOREST – Don Jones' 'The Forest' has few admirers, certainly not among the kind of critic who likes to go on record as the voice of reason. Rejecting 'The Forest' is a pretty sound position, and definitely a safe one – you can't really defend it in any language that makes sense. It's not a very good film, and, after a moderately rousing opening during which the bloodied hand of a woodland murder victim flops down next to a bunch of flowers that look like they've been coloured by a mad child, 'The Forest' settles into a dull, detail laden account of a camping trip. After about twenty five minutes, you're expecting a tedious F13 retread – then something magical happens. 'The Forest' is just weird. OK, so it's basically about two guys and two gals wandering around in the woods, but this banal minimum is superseded by the strangeness of the tale of a cannibal who lives in a cave with the ghosts of his kids. The kids pop up throughout the film to give helpful advice to the camper-victims, and we know they must be ghostly because everything they say goes through an echo pedal. Their dad, the cannibal guy, is played to mad perfection by Gary Kent, who has a very convincing thousand yard stare and a kind of hang-dog resignation in the face of a world of woe. And his world has been woeful like no other – in a flashback, we see him find his wife in bed with a repair man. After he kills his wife, he goes outside to find the repair man actually finishing off his repairs! How much of a loser must he really be? Cue ridiculous fight scene with awful soundtrack. Speaking of soundtracks, 'The Forest's one veers between early eighties slasher electro and its own bespoke little number, which is kind of like a seventies easy listening version of goth. It's just another little detail which makes 'The Forest' so special. I could go on at length about why I like this film so much, but I sense I'm already beginning to bore you, plus I may find that I run out of reasons. But, 'The Forest' is not a reasonable film. I haven't done a very good job of capturing its weird and elusive atmosphere, but, if I had my say, it'd be turned into a serial like 'The Singing Ringing Tree' or something... it has all the vital ingredients. Fanciers of low seventies / eighties trash will need no introduction, but I certainly recommend this to any lover of shriekedelic video sludge, and, if after 'The Forest' you're still Jonesing for a Jonesing, then there's always 'The Love Butcher' or 'Schoolgirls in Chains'.
 |