This Japanese horror film revolves around a group of friends who take a driving shortcut into a lush forest where others have mysteriously disappeared or encountered supernatural phenomena. One by one, members of the group encounter sinister entities and find themselves in a fight for survival against a malevolent spirit haunting the woods. This movie owes a lot to BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, as off-screen strange noises supply most of the suspense as the characters argue at length about what could be going on. The introduction of a biker character trapped by the forest spirit illuminates the nature of a resident ghost, a Jack-in-the-Box type floating white head with a characteristic (for J-horror) sliced open mouth slit. DEATH FOREST might have worked better as a short film, but after repetitious and confusing ghost attacks the filmmakers did construct a fairly exciting escape-from-the-forest-ghost chase sequence. The movie eschews gore in favor of psychological horror elements, with the forest acting as a character in itself, embodying the mystery that the group faces. This approach works only sporadically because the actors strain to project any sense of dread. Also, there's only so much shock one can achieve through the repeated use of the poorly done death's head special effect, which is a lively bit of business that falls flat. This movie was followed by several sequels.
