By Michael Andrillon | Staff Writer
A horror film about the horror process. Behind the masks, gore, and special effects, what motivates the creation and interest of the haunted house attraction?
Why do people not only go to get scared but also find themselves wanting to be the ones to do the frightening? To surround themselves with an atmosphere oozing dread and death?
Questions like these on morbid curiosity, and the intimacy of decay are presented to our protagonist Zach, who hops onto his cousin’s local scare attraction as a scare actor for the Halloween season, in between the demands of boarding school life.
In the day, Zach is prepped up for discussions on bioorganisms and literary analysis, but at night, the eyeliner, nail polish, and longing for the macabre make him ample at his side hobby, until he gets much closer to death than he desires.
It’s all going well for Zach and the movie overall that presents an interesting case of the horror underneath the horror, the legacy of violent histories, business, class, and discrimination. The dimensions can allow one relief through the pretty rough production edges.
Zach in “The Haunted Forest” | Photo via Sane Lake Pictures
So I find it perplexing that the threads we are to follow lead to such an absurd slog by the latter half, where all the choppy elements struggle to wrap themselves up, and the film just seems to want to ride on its camp to justify itself.
The charm is slaughtered in some sweeping blows towards the end, and those curious moments are replaced by a zany attempt at satire and sincerity and it all just feels so corny. Which is such a shame. I do want to give some credit where it’s due; the cinematography is good, and the actors, at times, are giving the goods, particularly Grayson Gwaze and Cedric Gegel. There is some heart that one can spot. And I love the feeling of Halloween as much as the next guy.
If it had only taken the points on the darkness underneath the makeup with a steadier hand, it could’ve been a quirky coming-of-age story wrapped up in the search for “spirit” amongst the morbid and commodified.
Towards the end, our protagonist straight-up accuses another of having “lost the plot”; he couldn’t have said it better himself.
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