1. The Forest

Here we go!  I kicked off my crusade with “The Forest” on January 16.  A little late to get started, I know, but January is typically a slow month for movies and I was out of town, last weekend.

Anyway, my thoughts:

I don’t have a lot to say in great detail  The movie sure didn’t get great reviews.  Personally, I had no major issues with it.  It’s a horror movie.  I tend to prefer PG-13 horror over R-rated horror.  Oftentimes, R-rated horror films use gore and violence as a crutch to sell the film as “scary”.  I have no problems with gore and violence, but they don’t make a movie scary.  Atmosphere, music, cinematography . . . these make a movie scary.

I liked it well enough.  It’s not going down as one of my top-tier favorites (my two favorites are “The Ring” and “The Conjuring”) but it had enough well-timed scares, frightening imagery, and slow-build tension to give me the vibe that I look for when I sit down to watch a movie like this.

It also managed to subvert a few clichés, which I appreciated.  I like being put in a position of mistrusting other characters in the film but I get tired of the mistrust always falling in the same direction at the end.  “The Forest” played out a little more believably than many comparable films in this regard.

Also, I’m a Natalie Dormer fan.  She won me over in “Game of Thrones” and didn’t disappoint me, here.

So, to put it simply, if you like atmospheric horror and/or Natalie Dormer, there’s enough to enjoy here.

One down, 99 to go!