THE FOREST (1983)

CHARLIE’S REVIEW:

Titles don’t get much more generic than The Forest. As I sit down to write this review, I am having a hard time remembering that, just last month, this movie was part of ShockJanuary. My notes help a bit, providing me with details concerning a group of super macho men (talk of red meat, traffic, women—can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em), their ultra-girlie girlfriends, and the camping trip on which they embark. It’s generic stuff. And then I get to my scribblings on the ghostly children, a.k.a. The Reverb Twins. Ah, it’s all coming back to me now.

The Forest opens with a standard-but-fun guy-and-girl-in-the-woods scene. She hears a noise in the woods and becomes scared, while he is of the oh-come-on-baby-it’s-nothing-or-if-it-is-something-then-it’s-only-the-wind persuasion. It isn’t long before they’re dead meat—as in foodstuff, we come to find out. The audience is now aware of a menace in these woods.

It is to this very forest that our aforementioned guys and girls are planning a camping trip. An early scene features the group sitting around at a table, exchanging overly spirited dialogue. None of the characters has a distinguishing trait; though this is common in bad horror movies, it is really taken to the extreme here. Maybe it was just me, but I had a hell of time trying to keep the characters straight. Our generic humans touch upon the general topic of the male gender versus the female, while also specifically insulting one another. Such cruelty! It is as if they deeply hate one another.

Due to an inane set of circumstances, our guys and girls decide to head to the woods as two separate groups. It is, of course, standard horror movie practice to break your characters off into groups, paving the way for divergent plots. Once isolated, our characters are free to engage in sexual activity and then die. By breaking up the guys and girls, the filmmakers have taken away the possibility of any amorous activities, a major component of the horror movie experience. It is a major faux pas, tantamount to cutting off the movie at the knees. Will The Forest be able to recover?

The movie does indeed persevere, thanks to a sizeable dose of lunacy. Our characters are now in the woods on the way to their campsite. One small problem: nobody seems to know exactly where that campsite is. One of the guys asks his friend if he knows how to get to the place at night, to which the supposed navigator replies, “I don’t know—I’ll give it my best shot.” Any Boy Scouts in the audience must cringe at his lack of preparation. The guys bumble along, half searching for the girls, half trying to figure out where the heck they’re going, when they happen upon a unique individual.

This new character is a cave-dwelling maniac, and he saves the movie from the bland shores of obscurity. I love the fact that we are supposed to believe this guy has been able to set up house in a cave and live out his life, just like taking an apartment in a new town. He even has a candelabrum to brighten his quarters. It isn’t long before this former butcher is gushing out his hard luck life story, which we get to see in flashback. And it doesn’t disappoint, complete with a vicious, philandering wife, the repairman who beds her, the children caught in the middle, and an epic butcher vs. repairman battle that ends in bloody murder. Those planning on fighting a butcher should take note: these artists of meat can apparently warp themselves bodily through time and space, so running away is useless.

Our campers don’t hold the butcher’s deeds against him, nor do they wonder where his food supply comes from. Right after his murder confession they decide to unfurl the sleeping bags and catch some sleep in his cave. Just roll aside those thighbones and skulls and you’ll have plenty of room to stretch out.

Whatever happened to the butcher’s kids? Well, it seems they moved out to the woods with him, but cave life proved too rough for their feeble constitutions. Though they are dead, our kids are still with us. Yes, it seems they roam the woods as benevolent ghosts. The children show up throughout the movie, speaking in reverb-drenched tones to our lost men and women, and helping them find their way through the dense woods. The kids are like Greek Gods who descend on a whim and alter the lives of mortals. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be a horror movie.
For some more ghostly fun, the kids’ mother, bane of the butcher’s existence, also floats about the woods, constantly in search of her children.

Our characters aren’t too phased by these ghosts, however. One woman has a nice, civilized conversation with the kids while they help her find her way. Those that don’t have the children to guide them aren’t so lucky, though, and we get a healthy dose of aimless wandering. One guy, I think Steve is his name, hurts his leg, and tries to limp back to the car. His journey is long, boring, and filled with bouts of male crying. As any self-respecting horror fan knows, male whimpering and complaining should be verboten from our beloved genre. I wasn’t a happy audience member during these scenes.

The conclusion is stranger than anything that has come before. By now, most of our characters have been either killed by the hungry butcher or have wandered away. The term “aimless” understates the proceedings. If I am correct, crazy as it might sound, the finale concerns heaven and hell. It seems that our butcher—killer and cannibal though he may be—is able to ascend into heaven, joined by his kids. The mother’s adultery is too grievous a sin, for she is barred from joining her family in their eternal reward. So she can’t get into heaven, but she isn’t sent down to hell either. Rather, it seems she is doomed to forever wander the woods searching for her children, bumping into various campers and waiting for The Forest Part 2 to begin filming.

The Forest plays like a demented late-1970s’ live action Disney picture, and I sort of like it.