The Haunted Forest is full of rich and charming Halloween atmosphere, but does it deliver on scares? In writer/director Keith Boynton’s The Haunted Forest, we follow Zach (Grayson Gwaze), a boarding school senior who takes a job at his cousin Mark’s (Cedric Gegel) haunted house as a scare actor. Having a love for horror, Zach feels right at home with his new coworkers. He even begins falling for the haunt’s makeup artist, Sarah (Kaitlyn Lunardi), who is fascinated by the legend that the haunted house is built on a mass grave of the massacred native Piscataway tribe.
After one of the haunted house workers is found dead and mysterious and deadly mishaps start occurring on site, paranoia spreads among the staff that either a competitor is trying to drive them out of business or a spiritual reckoning is upon them.
“…Zach takes a job at his cousin’s haunted house as a scare actor…”
The film opens with a strong and nostalgic nod to classic slasher films. It draws the viewer immediately into what you suspect to be a major plot point in the story. The scene abruptly ends, however, and it is revealed that it is simply a story entirely in the mind of our protagonist, Zach. He is drawing what looks like a horror comic book.
These jump scare scenes happen throughout the film and play out like the stereotypical “dream” scare seen in most horror movies where something scary occurs to the protagonist but then it turns out to only be a dream. It’s a shame because these scenes are the most exciting moments in the film, and yet they have nothing to do with the story. You may even think, well Zach being an artist and drawing these elaborate horror scenes by hand must pay off in the end somehow, but they don’t.
"…Artistic scenes of horror well executed"
