The Forest

A young American (Natalie Dormer) makes an emergency trip to Japan when she learns that her twin sister has disappeared into a mysterious forest at the foot of Mt. Fuji where people reportedly go to commit suicide—and sometimes to even worse fates. People who go to the movies to see this kind of malarkey may not notice it, but Dormer gives a nicely layered double performance as both twins—at least for the first hour or so, before the cheap scares and nonsense take over—she so clearly distinguishes between the sisters that giving them different hair colors was hardly necessary. Otherwise, however, the movie is pretty much a dead loss. The script by Nick Antosca, Sarah Cornwell and Ben Ketai is muddled with red herrings about irrelevant points, and Jason Zada’s fumbling direction clears up nothing. J.L.