Fear the Forest

Director - Matthew Bora (Twin Brides)
Starring - Kevin F. Barrett (Forest of Eden), Matthew Bora, and Alev Dinc
Release Date - 2009
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "The legend lives..."
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

    

When it comes to horror films the monster is usually the star or, at least, the focal point. The monster is what makes or breaks the film.  Films like The Giant Claw and any SyFy original fail to give the viewer a beast that is worth looking at.  That brings me to films regarding bigfoot, or Sasquatch for you smart asses out there.  Most of the monster movies using this cryptozoological beast as the main focus tend to suck.  Sure, we have The Legend of Boggy Creek and a few others but the hundreds more that we have suck ass in a very bad way.  They tend to give us horrible stories with just a few moments to look at the beast and when we finally see the thing it looks extremely shitty like all the fake ass videos we have seen online.  Sometime ago MVD sent me the film Fear the Forest to review and the second I discovered it was a film about bigfoot I put it on the shelf until I was in the mood for it.  Sadly, I was not in the mood for a bad bigfoot flick but I felt bad for not reviewing it and gave it a go.
     The story for this one is hard as fuck to follow.  The best I can figure is that a group of college students, a hunting party, Native Americans, another hunting party, and anyone else that fucking feels like it, ventures out into the woods where there is a beast that lurks behind every tree.  However, hunters shoot the beast and the film goes on for the only reason... to waste your time.




      This movie raised one question and it is one that I just can't stop asking myself.  Why can't anyone make a good bigfoot flick?  I mean, the story is already there for you but directors and film crews just throw it out the window and try to make something different and fresh only to fail miserably. The same can be said about Fear the Forest.  In fact, this film just failed on every angle.  The acting in this one is horrible.  No fucks were given when casting for this film and once cast no fucks were given on how they acted in front of the camera.  No one cared about their roles and it showed in every scene.  The story for this one is horribly written and executed.  It feels like the film has several stories going at once and they just come together to make a shit soup on film.  I have no idea what is going on and I feel like everyone that watches feels the same.  Finally, the special effects and on screen kills are shit.  The beast itself looks good but it is not suited for a serious horror film.  I could see it fitting in with something with Sid and Marty Krofft attached to it.  It was child like, which is something I did enjoy, but in a serious film with blood and guts it just did not fit the role.  It looked big and stupid.  The few on screen kills we get are cheap and ineffective.  Overall, Fear the Forest is a poor excuse for a monster movie and an abomination as a film.