Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

The Forest

Here are three things I know with nonconfuckulated certainty.

• Lies lead to elections.
  
• Prom nights lead to abortions.
  
• Successful TV shows lead small screen actors to believe they have a shot at big screen stardom.
  

With Game of Thrones entering its sixth season, it was as inevitable as glitter on a stripper that the show's "titty sistahs" would attempt the only move more difficult than a nice guy escaping the Friend Zone.  And, like the Nazi in The Last Crusade, they have chosen poorly.

Rose "Ygritte" Leslie figured a Vin Diesel witch hunter flick was her ticket out of the TV bubble, but it was just a bunch of toil and trouble.

Nathalie "Missandei" Emmanuel topped off with Diesel, too, in Furious 7 and made less of an impression than Paul Walker's digital ghost.

Gwendoline "Brienne of Tarth" Christie wins the "Bittest Part" award for the six lines she spoke from behind a stormtrooper's mask in The Force Awakens.

Emilia "Daenerys" Clarke fills out a princess dress like a pro, but she couldn't fill Linda Hamilton's combat boots in Terminator: Genisys.

At least Clarke got to work with Ahnuld on a first tier franchise.  Natalie "Margaery Tyrell" Dormer is surrounded by the likes of Taylor "Who?" Kinney, Eoin "Huh?" Macken and a handful of Japanese unknowns in The Forest, a January release horror flick as scary as a Care Bear.

Dormer plays identical twins Jess and Sara.  Jess, who teaches English in Japan, has dark hair and black makeup around her eyes, so you know she's troubled.  Sara is blonde and blissful but no less a nut job.  After having a bad dream about Jess, she immediately jumps on the next plane to Tokyo.  Because Wonder Twin powers activate! 

Sara learns that Jess has disappeared into the Suicide Forest (a.k.a. Aokigahara), a forest at the base of Mount Fuji where people go to kill themselves . . . or that is haunted by ghosts that force people to kill themselves (but only if they stray from the designated hiking paths) . . . or is a portal to "the other side." 

Yup, The Forest is another cheapo horror show that can't even be bothered to understand its own setup, rules, etc.  It's a haunted house movie too fucking lazy to include an actual haunted house.

And, of course, it's PG-13, so while Dormer's beautiful face is on display, her deliciously ripe and anything-but-square watermelons never see the dappled light of day - as they repeatedly have in not only Game of Thrones but also The Tudors.

Throw on either of those series and play "Spot Natalie's Mammaries."  It'll beat the fuck out of watching The Forest, the biggest bomb to hit Japan since Nagasaki.

January 17, 2016