The Forest (PG-13)

My Rating: 60%

The Rotten Tomatoes: 12%

Audience Rating: 30%

To be honest, I probably should have learned my lesson of watching PG-13 rated horror movies after the absolutely horrid review I gave The Visit. Wow, that movie was unbelievably bad. But actually this one... was alright. I came into the movie with extremely low expectations, because I saw the review that The Rotten Tomatoes gave it, and I just thought: If this review is even worse than the review for The Visit, this movie has to be absolutely terrible. I almost didn't go. Of course though, I was dragged by one of my friends who is a horror fanatic, and I ended up going to see it with her. We both had very low expectations, and we were both very surprised with the result. This movie wasn't half bad, even though The Rotten Tomatoes said it was terrible, and also considering the fact that this was a January release. Believe me, all January release horror movies are absolutely terrible. But I guess that isn't true for all of them, because this one was... pretty okay.

I will give a quick spoiler-free summary of the movie: When Sara's twin sister who is visiting a forest in Japan disappears, she becomes determined to travel to the forest in Japan to find her. The forest where her twin became lost in is called the Aokigahara Forest, and just in case you're curious, yes, it is a real place that people have nicknamed, "the suicide forest." Anyways, Sara enters the forest with the help of a guide named Aiden, who continuously warned her to "stay on the path." Her investigation in the forest shows her a dark world where angry and tormented souls of the dead prey on those who dare to explore the forest.

Photo courtesy of ibtimes.com

One thing I really liked about this movie was there was a twist ending, which was awesome. Other then the ending though, you could kinda expect what was going to happen next. A character would say a classic horror movie line, and then something totally expected would happen next. But once again, quite impressive for being a January release movie. One thing I should mention to those planning on seeing it. If you read my review of The Visit, you know I disliked that movie for so many reasons, but the main reason was because it wasn't scary, and that was extremely disappointing. That movie was my first PG-13 rated horror movie, and I just got the impression that they were all like that. Well... I was definitely wrong. This movie was scary. I will even go to the lengths of saying that it was REALLY scary at some points. Which for me, was awesome. If you don't like that kind of stuff though and get scared easily... DON'T watch this movie. But if you're like me, and just want a good scare without feeling it's overdone... this movie is definitely for you. I know the reviews may look bad, but I gave it a chance, and it turned out to be worth the risk.

A Letter to the Critics

Dear Critics at The Rotten Tomatoes,

I know people normally say that they want a job where they can just watch movies all day while giving opinions about it, but I've realized while writing this blog that it's definitely more than that. At times, well actually most of the time, it's a lot harder than people actually think it is. But also at the same time, it isn't rocket science. You know that. I know that. It's still fairly challenging nonetheless.

The thing is, when it's your job, you don't get to decide what you want or don't want to watch. I'm sure not all of you have to watch everything, but you all mainly do the majority. And that means not only to you get to watch and critique the movies you really want to see and look very good, but you also have to sit through and critique all the movies that look terrible, and that probably no one will see. But this is what you're here for. Heck I could even say that this is what I'm here for, on my blog. We help the people decide. Since the internet is always at everyone's fingertips, it's unbelievably easy just to look up a movie that looks interesting to you and check the reviews. And if they're bad... well, it's very unlikely that they're going to see that movie!

Photo courtesy of vimeo.com

I know it also must be hard when there is a lot of criticism thrown at you when you guys give a review that isn't popular to the masses. People do constantly make jokes relating to the critics, saying things like, "if they hate it, it must be a great movie." Look, I'm not going to lie. People have very different opinions. Even though I respect you guys very much for the things you do, that doesn't mean I'm going to agree with you all the time. For example, you gave a fairly good review to a movie called The Visit. I thought that movie was one of the worst films I've ever seen in my life, but obviously most of you did not feel this way.

But of course, I'm an amateur when it comes to critiquing movies, as it says right in my blog name. That means I'm going to have my own opinion, and of course, it's only the opinion of a fifteen year-old girl, which honestly isn't saying much. I highly doubt a grown man will have the same opinion of a movie as me. But I've learned that doesn't really matter. I like reading reviews because I like knowing the opinions of other people. I want to know what they think. I decided to review movies because I wanted people to know what I think, even though I'm just a teenage girl. That might make my reviews interesting for people, because they want to see it in my point of view.

We like to know what others think. Looking at your reviews for movies is a fun thing to do, and occasionally we will even have the same opinion at times, which makes it very fun. I hope you all love what you're doing, and I also hope you don't let negativity from others put a damper on what you do. Because I, for one, think it's pretty cool.

From,
Juliana (A Critic In Training)