The Forest (2016) Natalie Dorner & Taylor Kinney

Cast

Natalie Dormer as Sara  and Jess Price

Taylor Kinney as Aiden

Eoin Macken as Rob

Stephanie Vogt as Valerie

Yukiyoshi Ozawa as Michi

Rina Takasaki as Hoshiko

Noriko Sakura as Mayumi

Yûho Yamashita as Sakura

James Owen as Peter

The Forest is a 2016 American supernatural horror film directed by Jason Zada and written by Ben Ketai, Nick Antosca, and Sarah Cornwell. It stars Natalie Dormer and Taylor Kinney. The film was released on January 8, 2016 in the United States by Gramercy Pictures.

Plot

he majority of the story is set in and around the Aokigahara Forest, a forest at the northwest base of Mount Fuji in Japan known as a popular destination for the suicidal.

Sara Price (Natalie Dormer), an American woman, receives a phone call from the Japanese police telling her that they think her troubled twin sister Jess is dead, as she was seen going into Aokigahara forest. Despite the concerns of her fiancé, Rob (Eoin Macken), she journeys to Japan and arrives at the hotel where her sister was staying.

At her hotel, Sara meets a reporter named Aiden (Taylor Kinney). They drink together, and she tells him of her parents' death in a drunk driving accident, which her sister witnessed, but Sara did not. Aiden invites her to go into the forest with him and a park guide, Michi, so she can look for her sister.

As the three enter Aokigahara, Michi tells Sara that Jess has most likely killed herself. Deep in the woods, the group discovers a yellow tent that Sara recognizes as Jess's. With nightfall approaching, Michi suggests they leave a note for Jess and leave. Sara refuses, and Aiden volunteers to stay with her through the night.

That night, Sara hears rustling in the bushes and, believing it may be Jess, rushes into the woods after them. Sara finds a Japanese girl, Hochiko, who claims to know Jess. The girl warns Sara not to trust Aiden and flees at the sound of his voice. Sara attempts to chase after her but falls and loses her.

The next day, Aiden and Sara become lost and begin to walk around the forest. As they walk, Sara's suspicions are raised and she demands Aiden to give her his phone and finds a picture of Jess on it. Aiden denies any involvement with Jess, but Sara runs into the forest alone. While running she begins to hear voices telling her to turn around. She appears to be unfazed by this until she hears the voice directly behind her. She turns around to see a hanging body and continues to run away. She then falls into an underground cave and goes unconscious, later she wakes up and discovers that she is in the cave with Hochiko, who turns out to be a yūrei. Hochiko then turns into what appears to be a "demonic figure". Sara then runs the opposite way towards what appears to be Aiden. Aiden finds her and helps her out of the cave and, with some convincing, they continue to walk together.

Aiden brings Sara to an old ranger station he'd discovered while looking for her. Inside, Sara hears her sister's voice coming from the basement and finds a note which implies that Aiden is holding Jess captive in the basement. Convinced that he is a threat, Sara attacks and kills a horrified Aiden with a small kitchen knife. As he dies, Sara realizes that Aiden was telling the truth and that the picture on his phone, the voice at the basement door and the note had all been hallucinations.

In the basement of the ranger station, Sara sees a vision of the night her parents died from Jess's point of view. It was actually a murder-suicide initiated by her father. The ghost of her father suddenly appears and lunges toward her, grabbing her wrist. She cuts his fingers away from her wrist and escapes the station. Running into the forest, she sees Jess running toward the lights of the search party. Sara calls to her sister, who is unable to hear her. She realizes that her escape from the ranger station was another hallucination. When she cut at her father's fingers she was actually cutting deep into her own wrists, and is now dying from blood loss in the basement. As she succumbs to her wounds, a yūrei pulls Sara into the forest floor. Her very much alive sister is rescued by the search party and explains that the feeling of her sister is gone and it is assumed that Jess knows Sara is dead. As the search party leaves Michi is seen staring at a figure and realizes, too late, that it's Sara's spirit.

Jeffrey Hunter (1926 - 1969)

 

Jeffrey Hunter was born Henry Herman McKinnies, Jr. in New Orleans, the only child of a Louisiana sales engineer and his wife. The family moved to Milwaukee in 1930, and young "Hank," as he was known, was reared in Wisconsin.

While still in high school, Hunter acted on Milwaukee radio station WTMJ; this led to summer stock work and then to Chicago theater activity.

Hunter served in the U.S. Navy at Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois 1945-1946. He then attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where he received a bachelor’s degree from the School of Speech. He continued his stage appearances and was featured in the 1949 film version of Julius Caesar, which starred Charlton Heston.

Attending UCLA on a scholarship, Hunter was spotted by Hollywood talent scouts while appearing in a school production of "All My Sons" in May of 1950. He made a screen test at Paramount, but was hired by 20th Century Fox where he made his first "mainstream" film appearance in Fox's Fourteen Hours, a film which also served as the debut for Grace Kelly.

Over the next two decades, Jeffrey Hunter would show his versatility as an actor by starring or co-starring in a wide variety of movies – dramas, comedies, westerns, science fiction and war films. He often played the handsome decent, wholesome suitor or husband in domestic contemporary dramas and comedies of the period.

Hunter was married to actress Barbara Rush on December 1, 1950. They had one child, a son, Christopher. Although they were divorced on March 29, 1955, Rush would remember him fondly and said she considered him to be the handsomest man she ever met.

His movie career gained momentum after he co-starred with John Wayne in the John Ford western classic The Searchers (1956). Hunter, who often displayed a wry sense of humor, is quoted as saying in an interview, "I was told I had arrived when, during the filming of The Searchers, they gave me almost as much ammunition as they gave John Wayne."

On July 7, 1957, Hunter married Joan "Dusty" Bartlett, a former model. They had two sons - Todd and Scott. He also adopted Steele, Dusty’s son from a previous marriage. This marriage ended in divorce in 1967.

In 1961, Hunter was cast in the difficult and challenging role of Jesus Christ in King of Kings. His reverent performance earned Hunter considerable praise. According to director Nicholas Ray's biography, the script was approved by the Vatican before filming was begun.

In 1963, Hunter signed a two-year contract with Warner Brothers. At Warners, he starred in the western TV series "Temple Houston". Nearly 30 episodes of the hour-long series were filmed before the series was canceled in 1964. Hunter’s 1963 film The Man From Galveston was originally the pilot episode of this television series.

Hunter was cast as Captain Christopher Pike of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" television pilot, "The Cage," in 1964, but turned down the option to make an unprecedented second pilot and continue the role in the series. Footage from "The Cage" was later incorporated into a two-part episode in "Star Trek’s" first season.

During the next several years, he acted in several films in Europe and Asia.

After a whirlwind courtship, Hunter married actress Emily McLaughlin in February 1969. She is best known for her role as Nurse Jessie Brewer on the ABC soap opera "General Hospital" from 1963 until her death in 1990.

In 1969, while filming ¡Viva America! in Spain, Jeffrey Hunter was accidentally injured in an explosion on the set. Soon afterward he began complaining of dizziness and headaches. Shortly afterward, on May 27th, 1969, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and several blows to the head, and died during surgery to repair the skull fracture; the precise circumstances that caused his death have been the subject of debate since that time. Jeffrey Hunter was 42 years of age.