MMFF 2017 | Haunted Forest

A small provincial village is rocked by a spate of bizarre deaths. The deaths seem to be connected to a huge tree in a nearby forest. While Detective Aris (Raymart Santiago) investigates, his daughter Nica (Jane Oineza) is haunted by a supernatural presence.

Haunted Forest is Regal Horror at its most by the numbers: a serviceable premise populated by a couple of established actors and a good number of teen actors to bring in the fans and the stans. It's likely to please fans of Oineza, Maris Racal and Jameson Blake.

Production-wise, the film doesn't feel perfunctory in any way; the visual effects are nice for the most part (barring a fiery VFX shot near the end) , and the sound design and mixing is impeccable. The antagonist of the film lures its victims by sound, and sometimes it can really feel like someone is calling you from behind. The actors give okay performances, with a minor role from Jerald Napoles being the most intriguing.

While the production doesn't feel slipshod, the same cannot be said about the writing. Haunted Forest is filled with plot threads that go absolutely nowhere. It starts out as a police procedural that quickly loses steam. Additionally, the story doesn't follow up on the investigation, making Aris look like the dumbest detective in the Philippines. It tries to establish a relationship between Aris and his daughter, but it doesn't form into a cohesive whole, rendering a major plot point during the third act kind of impotent. A very important character (Dido dela Paz) is shoehorned in at the last minute, his motivations explained by exactly one line of dialogue. And there are also multiple logical inconsistencies. How can a civilian release a locked-up inmate from a prison in under five minutes?  Did he steal the keys from the police? If so, the movie doesn't show us this. Why didn't the police pursue leads when they find a kidnap victim that seems to be directly related  to the supernatural murders? Are the police really that incompetent?

If you're used to the genre (or even just the countless Regal Shockers that have graced our cinemas and TVs), there's very little in Haunted Forest that's scary. There are a bunch of jump scares but they are all telegraphed and you can see them from a mile away. If you're a fan of the actors present in the film however, none of that will probably matter.