Hey, y’all! And welcome to my very first installment of Terror Tuesday!

Here’s the deal, baby seal.

Currently, I work full time, record and edit 2 podcasts, and I am reading one book a week. I wish I could read more, but unfortunately I am not a robot or a stay at home housewife. (Somewhere in my life, clearly, I f*cked up.)

What this means is, I am unable to post a book review more than once a week! 😦

But I want to interact with you more! I want to talk about fun things like books, mysteries, true crime, and horror! I guess what I am saying is, I want to start having some other things to post about besides books, because I like talking to you guys so much.

After minimal thought or planning, I introduce to you…

This should be easy for me to keep up with because I watch horror movies all the damn time.

Daily Schedule: Wake up, brush my teeth, watch a horror movie. Go to work, use the bathroom, and watch a horror movie. Come home, take off my bra, watch a horror movie.

Just kidddinnnggggg. (Except for that last part.)

But I do suck back horror movies and true documentaries like it’s my life force. So I am excited to have something else to talk to you guys about!

In the hot seat this week…

Oh man, I should’ve known this wasn’t going to be worth watching the second I saw it was rated PG-13. But for some reason, I really couldn’t help myself.

Why, you ask?

In 2011, Vice released a short documentary about the Aokigahara Forest in Japan, right outside of Mt. Fuji.

In the video, we follow around an extremely wonderful man who frequently searches the forest to help those who are contemplating suicide, as well as to hopefully bring closure to families and friends who are missing loved ones suspected of going into the forest.

At the time of this video’s release, the Aokigahara Forest wasn’t well known to people outside of Japan, so this was a mind blowing documentary! (Be forewarned, if you decide watch the Vice documentary, there are real skeletons.)

As far as I know, we don’t have a place that compares to this in America. Therefore, I was equally enamored and horrified by the concept of “The Suicide Forest.”

After the Vice documentary, tons of people with morbid curiosity wanted to travel to Japan to go into the forest themselves. But then we had Logan Goddamn-Epitome-of-Privileged-Paul who actually went to the suicide forest and tactlessly filmed a dead body in an extremely disrespectful and boorish way. (I will not link that video, that kid is a total pube.)

So, I knew it was only a matter of time before a movie was made about it, which also seems a teensy bit insensitive in my personal opinion, (both to the families of lost loved ones and the Japanese Culture,) but predictable none the less.

At the end of the day, yes, sure, cultural and personal insensitivities aside, a forest where people go to end things is a decent concept for a horror film or book.

The plot goes a little something like this…

Sara’s twin sister works in Japan teaching English, until one day she goes into the Aokigahara Forest and doesn’t return. Desperate to find her sister, she travels to Japan and faces the forest head on, accompanied by some bro she randomly meets there named Aiden. But they better watch their step, because angry and tormented souls line the trails of the forest just waiting to prey on the people who dare enter.

This is a promising premise, right? Too bad this movie was trash!

The Good

The acting in this film was surprisingly decent. Our leading lady is Natalie Dormer, who those of you may know from Game of Thrones. She did the best she could with the role(s) that she had, playing Sarah and the twin sister Jess. A for effort, Natalie.

The Bad

In order to remain respectful to both the Japanese culture and families who’ve lost loved ones, why not just change the place and name of the forest? It seemed far too exploitative of Japanese people, traditions, culture, and overall just came off a bit tacky to me.

Also, I wish there were more significant and actual scares outside of just temporary and cheap jump scares. You’re in the woods with ghosts, gorl. There was ample opportunity to rely on the intelligence of the viewer and do some more subtle and more creative methods of scaring them!

The Ugly

Stop it with the goddamn computer graphic, open, long mouthed, skin turning green, yelling girl, jump scare thing! (We all know wtf I’m talking about.) It wasn’t good in 2000 when it started and it certainly wasn’t any better in 2016.

My Rating: 🔪

(1/5 knives)

I have a book in my TBR called “Suicide Forest” by Jeremy Bates. This is another attempt at using the Aokigahara Forest as a horror plot, but all I can hope is that it’s better than this movie.

Did you see The Forest? What were your thoughts?

I’m dying to know.

xoxo

Ande