Terror en el bosque

I've been collecting 80's slasher films recently and I got my hand on a copy of the Code Red DVD release of The Forest, a little known and not very liked 80's supernatural slasher film. The Forest is pretty interesting for your typical slasher fare, it revolves around a group of hikers, adults mind you are hunted by a cannibal hermit in the woods who is haunted by the spirits of his dead wife and kids. It gets a poor 3.5 on here which is the same of Don't Go in the Woods...Alone! and I will say The Forest is a better film.

Now, let's get down to the usual criticisms here. The acting is atrocious, the best acting in the film is by Gary Kent who plays the cannibal hermit and he's really not that good either but he's given somewhat solid character development for his character and he is not annoying which is more than I can say for a lot of slashers. The directing is about average for slashers, nothing special but I do like the setting and I think it's captured decently here. The body count is low, but this film is not about the body count, more about the story instead. The score I actually didn't mind, there's song which is horrendously funny but the score itself, isn't that bad, in fact, I liked the score they used for the opening kills. My two favorite scenes are the opening with the two kills and the flashback sequence though poorly acted by everybody but Kent, gives us decent character development and while cheesy, actually makes us sympathize with the killer.

The Forest is not a good film by any means and I paid quite a bit for the DVD but it's a solid DVD and I liked the film more than I thought I would. Recommended to slasher fans who want something a little different than just the killer in the woods formula.

Some happy campers are stalked and viciously butchered by a demented cannibalistic killer called Daddy."The Forest" is one of the strangest slasher flicks I have ever seen.It starts fairly competently,but quickly becomes boring and tedious.The opening murder scene of two backpackers in the California wilderness is quite suspenseful and gory.The acting is really bad and the script is not better.Still there is a lot of cheese for fans of slasher movies.Unfortunately the gore is kept to minimum,so gorehounds may be disappointed.The film features also the ghosts of two kids and their mother and I can safely say that this supernatural element adds some touches of originality to the plot.So if you are a fan of slasher films you can check this one out.However I prefer Donald M.Jones earlier horror film "Schoolgirls in Chains"(1973),which is way more demented than "The Forest".

I first saw this in the late 80s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently on a ff mode.

The director tried his level best to make a genre mash up but failed miserably maybe due to the budget.

The movie also failed to cash in on the atmospheric feel of that a forest set up.

They even failed to make it a poignant story regarding the two kids' harassment by the mother n their death due to starvation n illness.

The wife's lover is attacked n chased by the husband but to my surprise the lover keeps throwing different objects n the husband keeps getting different weapons.

Later the lover dies on a circular saw which ain't even switched on.

A grown up woman while being chased by a killer meets two small kids n she tells them "pls dont kill me, pls dont hurt me". Whoa man!

Shudnt she be worried about the killer n not the helpless kids.

No, this movie is not one of the best horror movies to come out of the eighties but it does have some great qualities. I found the storyline rather refreshing, it was different from any "in the forest" horror movie I've ever seen. And as cheesy as the soundtrack was, it still was interesting... but hey, I even like the cheese factor! I admit the beginning of the movie was pointless, but still, it was great to laugh at. I'd recommend this movie to any horror fan but you must also not expect too much from it, I mean, it's no Halloween or Friday the 13th, but it is enjoyable. There were times I felt spooked and times I just wanted to laugh. A great combination!

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