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.

The second installment in the "Horror Village" series by Takashi Shimizu, following "Howling Village." Takashi channeled his Ju-On era by creating a frightening lore surrounding Japan's infamous suicide forest. The out-of-the-box innovative death scenes and a brilliant cast of prettiest girls proved J-horror still got the originality and aesthetics.

I'm a huge fan of director Shimizu, but this is one of his most least interesting and engaging films since he retreads elements he's done better in previous films. This being said, the film still looks amazing and is atmospheric but it will appeal more for those who haven't seen a ton of his films or a lot of haunted location films. It was an inspired choice to do something slightly different with the subject of the suicide forest but not enough to make it stand out. The cinematography and editing are very good and overall, it is a serviceable film.

All the performances are also decent but nothing really stands out or shines.

After finding a strange box in a friend's house, a woman and her sister learn that they've become embroiled in a frantic search to unravel the mystery surrounding a local forest rumored to be cursed with the spirits of numerous visitors that have committed suicide in the area and must try to stop it.

There's quite a lot to like with this one. The film is at its best in detailing the great atmosphere of the forest in addition to the main central mystery surrounding the titular area of the country. There's a lot of folklore given about the use of the forest as a popular site for suicides and strange deaths which serves to entice the girl rather easily into investigating which provides an excuse to investigate the cursed area and uncover the mystery about why it's haunted. This investigation not only uncovers the dark secret of the forests' history with the use of the cursed box and its meaning but also the family legacy of mental illness that crops up. With this section also leading into the backstory of the village and how it got cursed, this all has a lot to like about it, and on top of that, these scenes manage to generate some decent jump-scares including the cursed video call with her friends or the visit to the hospital to visit an injured friend that helps to influence more of the storyline while also giving those jump scenes with the ghosts. As well, the film manages to follow this up with an array of impressive and chilling haunting scenes. The opening video of the Youtube star going through the forest on a Livestream with her fans offers up some startling imagery with the forest seemingly coming to life to attack her live on camera. The later scene where the girls and their friends manage to find the cursed box only to be met with tragedy moments later contains a similarly startling sequence that comes off rather well. A trip through the woods with the group where she's attacked by malevolent trees yet no one is aware of it through the circumstances involved in rescuing a trapped friend likewise has some freaky visuals present, and a later sequence with a crying baby wailing in the distance keeps up the eerieness of the scene. That becomes a prominent aspect throughout the second half of the film where it's focused more on quick chilling setpieces or visuals to denote the curse has taken hold as the environment around the character comes to life in chilling means. The frantic finale, offering all sorts of fun scenes from the group of hikers encountering the deformed bodies left behind, the visions of what happened to the original villagers that started the curse, and the final confrontation with the spirits of the forest all come together to provide plenty of likable aspects here. While there's a lot to like, this one does have some minor issues. The biggest factor involved in the film is the sluggish and drawn-out pacing which offers up several scenes that don't need to be there. A trip to the hospital that centers around the main girl being treated for schizophrenia and other mental issues that sidelines her as the lead character in favor of her sister could've provided something had it been used for anything other than baseless psychological jargon attempting to explain the medical condition plaguing her. Since this section requires her to be under lockup for the duration of the study, switching characters to the less expressive and just generally lifeless sister does the film no favors by bringing her into the forefront rather than the side character she was before. Another factor for the dragged-out pace is the need for several flashbacks explaining the cursed forest and how it came to be known in the present day. A single retelling of the legend involving the locals tormenting and killing the undesirable ones and causing the curse to come into play would've made more sense than stopping the pace three different times to reveal more of it, especially if the only thing the later reveals add to the folklore is more gruesome gore in the tortures shown to be afflicted upon others. With these aspects making the film far longer than it needs to be, they're enough to knock this one down despite the positive features here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.