Geomi sup

SPIDER FOREST is a fantastic, multi-faceted ghost story. In fact, there's so much going on that multiple viewings are -cheerfully!- recommended. The twists come in rapid-fire succession, building a layered story of loss, betrayal, deception, murder, and the beyond. If you're longing for an intelligent supernatural tale with heavy doses of mystery and suspense, then this movie will fill your need! There's even a non-linear, dreamlike quality! More horror bliss from South Korea!...

I also scoped this movie out at the Toronto Festival (Sept 14th). They showed it at the ROM theatre which has the unfortunately acoustic property of being directly over a subway.

I liked this movie a lot, more for its style than anything else. The tunnel scene has some of the coolest lighting I've seen in a while. The plot was a bit hard to follow and I did leave the theatre scratching my head a bit. I didn't know what to expect at all, so it took me a while to get with the flow. I'd like to see this film again to get a better handle on the story.

I definitely recommend this film for fans of visual, stylistic film making.

"Spider Forest" is a South Korean movie which would be better classified as a psychological thriller, in my opinion. Some would say it's a drama. Others would argue that it's really a horror movie, depending on your interpretation.

And that's what this movie is about: Interpretation. Much like David Lynch's puzzle movies, this one is all about what's real or not, and it's up to you to decide what's happening.

Two things I can say about it - it's that the movie has a cyclical nature, and that there's no real closure on screen. The ending can be interpreted as hopeful or depressingly frustrating, or anything else entirely. It's up to the viewer to decide.

So, While "Spider Forest" has many elements borrowed from other movies ("Mullholland Dr", "The I Inside", and to a lesser extent "Memento" and even "Lost" in the forest scenes), they are done well here, and help make a quality movie that poses a lot of questions, answers them all only to have you wondering what really happened in the end.

If you like this kind of movie (I know I do), get inside the Spider Forest...

8/10

Geomi sup (international title: "Spider Forest") excels in introducing the viewer to a world, in which everything is uncertain and up for discussion. Structurally and thematically the movie creates a rich atmosphere, with its creative and witty use of storytelling, and with its unreliable narrator. It falters somewhat in easing viewers into this otherworldly experience - making several plot twists rather predictable. Ultimately, it succeeds in transferring a dreamlike, surreal psychological fugue to a series of episodes, that must be rearranged, interpreted, and completed by the viewer.

Overall 7/10 Full review on movie-discourse.blogspot.de

I saw Spider Forest at the Toronto International Film Festival last night. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure of what to expect from it - was it a horror film? Or was it a detective story, a thriller, or something altogether different? The answer, I think, is that it is all of those things.

The film begins with a series of mysterious and shocking events in a cabin in the forest, and much like a spider's web, returns to this place quite often in an attempt to unravel its secrets.

Spider Forest manages to avoid most of the modern horror/suspense/thriller conventions, including scary pale children and does not rely on special effects to set the mood. Instead, the psychological predicament of the main character creates an atmosphere of blurred confusion and distrust of one's own memory.

The story is entirely unique and never quite goes in the direction the audience is expecting.

I give a confident recommendation to see this film.