Jukaï : La Forêt des suicides

This film essentially begins with a YouTube blogger by the name of "Akina" (Rinka Otani) recording herself as she enters a thick forest known for the number of people who venture inside to commit suicide. While she is recording, strange things begin to happen, and her screams are the last things anyone hears. The scene then shifts to a teenage girl named "Hibiki Amasawa" (Anna Yamada) watching the video at home and becoming quite disturbed by it. Not long afterward, while helping some friends move into a new apartment, a strange box is found under the house which terrifies Hibiki--and immediately afterward the people around her begin to die in horrific ways. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I was extremely impressed with this movie--for the first hour or so. Unfortunately, the plot began to drag to such a degree that I almost felt like entering this deadly forest myself. It was almost as if the director (Takashi Shimizu) decided to abandon any pretense of a plot and simply fill in the remaining minutes with special effects instead. That being said, while I don't consider this film to be that bad necessarily, I do consider it to be a missed opportunity, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

After teen friends find a mysterious box under the house of one of them, strange events lead Hibiki to believe they are all cursed. Seeing her sister's downfall, Mei must discover the truth before the curse gets to all of them.

Suicide Forest Village (2021), by the director of Ju-on, is one of those Japanese lore-intensive stories, heavy on folk elements and the basic ghost haunting premisse that we see on most Japanese stories - not a bad thing at all. This movie is good enough to keep us hooked, though, Western audience might feel the heavy hit of drama-related Eastern acting; they do tend to repeat each others name often, apparently.

One a few occasions, I felt as if I was missing bits of the plot. At one point, one of the characters gets hurt, but that apparently happens offscreen, or editors removed the scene, and the result is a confusing setup, regardless of it being linear.

The horror elements are light on this movie. Don't wait for the sinister haunting of crawling-shoked Kayako; in Suicide Forest Village, the ghost presence is subtle, but effective.

The finale is heavy on folklore, which could diminish its effectiveness. The story does not explain any rules, leaving us with a heavy drama scene that feels Ex-Machina. It kinda works, but I'd want more explanations as to WTH is going on.

There is one post-credit scene that was nice. Hopefully, Suicide Forest Village enables a sequel.

I'd recommend this movie for fans of East-oriented horror. If you are too mainstrem, skip this entry.

When I stumbled upon the 2021 Japanese horror mystery titled "Jukai Mura" (aka "Suicide Forest Village") of course I had to watch it. Sure, I hadn't ever heard about the movie, but I am familiar with the phenomena of the 'suicide forest' in Japan and have seen other movies dealing with it. And given my love of both Asian cinema and horror cinema, of course I had to watch what director Takashi Shimizu had to deliver here.

The movie wasn't off to a good start with the video blogger style of footage. I can't take those self-absorbed people serious, and nor is that style of shooting a movie something that entertains me in any way. And not even 10 minutes into the movie I was good and ready to get up and turn off this laughable footage. But luckily the movie switched back to ordinary movie style around 10 minutes in.

But while the movie returned to normal movie style of shooting, then the narrative just was insanely slow paced and uneventful. I grew more and more bored and distant as the narrative progressed, because there simply wasn't anything interesting happening on the screen. It felt like I was watching a tirade of random scenes shot independently of one another and then pieced together to make a movie.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with actor Jun Kunimura. The acting performances in the movie were a bit bland, because the actors and actresses didn't really have anything solid to work with in terms of character gallery, dialogue or contents of the storyline.

For a Japanese horror movie then director Takashi Shimizu failed to deliver anything worthwhile or watchable with "Jukai Mura". And it most definitely is not a horror movie that I would recommend fans of the Japanese horror scene to rush out and get to watch. Nor is it a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time.

My rating of "Jukai Mura" lands on a generous three out of ten stars, and that is primarily because of the production value of the movie.

I thought this film had excellent acting, really amazing high quality CGI effects, and the scary parts were actually terrifying. It's by the director of "Ju-On", or "The Grudge" which the Japanese version will always haunt me. It even had HBO's "The Last of Us" vibes and the overall storyline was excellent. It is slow in some parts but like I said, when the scary scenes happen they make the movie. I actually cringed in fear a couple times which it takes a lot for me to do! Not sure why it got some negative reviews, maybe they wanted more action, but to be a truly scary film, it has to have subtle fear that really digs into your soul. I've watched countless horror films and this was something definitely different and refreshing.

This movie offers some sharp direction, with certain angles that instantly put the viewer on edge. It has some unexpected style changes throughout the movie, of which at first, I thought I wouldn't appreciate, but grew to enjoy the differences. The story is fairly unique as far as Japanese ghost related movies go. While I wouldn't call it a scary film, you'll definitely experience some cringe-worthy scenes and the perfect mix of bright and dark cinematography that kept my eyes on the screen.