Black Forest (2012)

Number Rolled: 98

Movie Name/Year: Black Forest (2012)

Tagline: None

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 85 minutes

Rating: NR

Production Companies: Syfy, UFO International Productions

Producer: Jeffery Beach, John Cappilla, Cherise Honey, Phillip J. Roth

Director: Patrice Dinhut

Writer: Frank H. Woodward

Actors: Tinsel Korey, Dhaffer L’Abidine, Andy Clemence, Oliver James, Lally Percy, Sapphire Elia, Howard Charles, Ben Cross, Tobias Hewitt, Jesse Steele, Sarah Brown, Mike Straub, Velizar Binev, Evelina Popova

Blurb from Netflix: When tourists visit a European village and agree to observe a pagan ritual in the forest, they become trapped in an alternate fairy tale dimension.

Selina’s Point of View:

This is not the first film that has used the idea of people being trapped in fairy tale dimensions. Hell, TV shows even tend to pull off this recipe with some amount of success. I remember fondly the fairy tale episode of Charmed (1998-2006).

Normally, it’s difficult to fail the fairy tale recipe. Everyone knows all the stories, they see them as nostalgic. On top of that, even if people don’t love fairy tales, there’s still usually some warm and fuzzy feelings toward them. Due to that ingrained interest in those tales, it’s very difficult to screw the recipe up.

Black Forest managed to do just that.

I didn’t care about the characters, the actors barely seemed to be attempting to try to make anything believable and even the story was so lackluster that it was almost difficult to place the references as they were supposed to be.

There was nothing that saved this film for me. I simply did not enjoy it.

Cat’s Point of View:

I love a good fairy tale. Stories that give them a new spin or shine a different light on them appeal to me as well. The ones that shine the proverbial light into the darker aspects of fairies and their kin tend to appeal the most. The premise of this movie attempted to promise something like that. Unfortunately, I don’t think it delivered.

While I had mixed sentiments regarding the movie The Hallow (2015), which we recently reviewed; I feel it was more successful in accomplishing the goal of showing that things of the fairy world do go bump in the night.

Black Forest was a made-for-TV movie from the SYFY channel. Normally, I take this sort of movie with an extra grain of salt.  I expect these movies to be lacking in some areas, while hoping to find that diamond in the rough. This one was just rough.

It feels like this film just fell into the pitfall of taking itself too seriously. It wasn’t over-the-top enough to be one of those comedic gems like Sharknado (2013); and it wasn’t delivered with enough finesse to pull off an earnest attempt at suspending disbelief.

Some of the interactions between cast members just felt awkward, and it doesn’t seem like it was intentional. Most of it could be chalked up to the movie bearing the weight of a convergence of an inexperienced director and a fantasy horror script written by someone who is known for an impressive body of work in documentaries.

Giving credit where it is due, however, I think the effects for this movie were better than expected. The amount of blood and gore was also surprisingly minimal.

All in all, I wasn’t bored out of my mind – just a bit disappointed. My recommendation? If you’re looking for a horror-lite movie with training wheels to see if it might give your kids nightmares, maybe this one’s for you. Other than that, I would encourage seeking out something better for your time.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 27%

Netflix’s Prediction for Selina – 2.5/5

Selina’s Trust-the-Dice Score – 1/5

Netflix’s Prediction for Cat – 2/5

Cat’s Trust-the-Dice Score – 2/5

The Random Rating: PG-13

P.S. Three movies of the same name came out between 2010 and 2012. Because of that, the above image is most likely for the wrong Black Forest. The trailer below is the best that could be found, it's a trailer for two movies at once and not all the scenes represent the film we watched for this blog installment. If you know of a better image or trailer, please let us know in the comments below.

Update: The movie poster image for Black Forest has been fixed. 

Movie Trailer: