The Forest (1980 - 2/Code Red/BCI DVD/Slasher Film)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: C     Film: C-

 

 

Don Jones’s The Forest was made in 1980 and finally issued in 1982, about a serial killer named “Daddy” (call Dr. Freud) and a screwy script that never adds up, but makes for one of the weirder and dumber entries into the slasher B-movie cycle of the time.  To its advantage, it is not torture porn, has a good look to it and comes from an ambitious, sincere effort to do something creepy and distinctively different.  It also seems quaint and from another time, despite still officially being an R-rated film.  It is not the hard R you might expect, but is still eventually about cannibalism.  However, even from its time, it is not the best film to deal with the subject, but fans of the genre will enjoy the look of it.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is on the weak side, as this surviving print looks like 16mm, but may be a poor, surviving 35mm print in bad shape, depending on the lab.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono shows its age and obviously, the recording was made under cheapo circumstances with very limited range in both the music and dialogue.  Extras include trailers for this and seven other Code Red DVD releases, stills, cast/crew on camera interviews and two audio commentary tracks, one with Don Jones and Director of Photography Stuart Asbjornsen, the other Jones and actor Gary Kent aka “Michael Brody”.

 

Jones said he lost this house over this, which is a real independent production for sure, but that takes guts.  Now, he has a film decades later to still show for it that some might just enjoy as a curio at least.  As for the idea this is a psychological thriller when it is more occupied with being supernatural and gory to the extent it is, that never adds up either.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo