Having presumably run out of viable Japanese horror movies to remake, Hollywood decided to build one of its own from the ground up with 2016’s The Forest, only to walk headlong into controversy.
Unfolding in the Aokigahara forest, criticisms were aimed at director Jason Zeda’s film for trivializing the number of suicides to have taken place on the grounds, as well as being disrespectful to those who died there. Racial insensitivity and the uneasy mining of countless tragedies were a recurring theme of the countless scathing reviews, which contributed heavily to an outright embarrassing Rotten Tomatoes score of 10 percent.
Natalie Dormer does deliver a strong dual performance in the lead role, though, with The Forest finding the Game of Thrones veteran’s Sarah experiencing a premonition that leads her to believe her twin sister Jess has gone missing in Japan. Heading into the forest to investigate the matter, a detour off the beaten path opens the door to much in the way of supernatural shenanigans and haunting visions of the dead.
The Forest did do a turn at the box office by recouping its $10 million production costs almost four times over, but a critical pounding quickly saw it become lost to the sands of time. At least, until it was added to the Netflix library in many international markets, which has suddenly propelled the questionably cross-continental tale of terror right onto the streaming service’s global most-watched list, per FlixPatrol.
Logan Paul almost destroyed his entire career after visiting Aokigahara, but at least The Forest was flatly denied a request to shoot anywhere near the actual location.
