Most of the forests that I have been in growing up were places that were just off the beaten path or part of a summer camp. I can remember going to Boy Scout Camp and going on a nature hike and having to perform first aid on a kid that fell. But there are some forests that are out there that seem sinister. Some where people flock to as they cannot handle the stress of daily lives or just want to end it all. This is the backdrop of the blu ray release of the Forest of Lost Souls released by Wild Eye Releasing.
The first thing you notice about this film is that it is shot completely in black and white. This highlights the location and the actors throughout the film and it looks completely gorgeous. You actually get the sense of where you belong and it just adds to the atmosphere of the film. The Forest of Lost Souls takes place in a dense forest in Portugal where people go to commit suicide (just like the Suicide Forest in Japan). Ricardo has come to the forest to end his life as he feels that he has failed himself as a father. His eldest daughter, Irene took her own life in a romantic pact that had gone awry. As he is in this dense forest he meets up with another young woman by the name of Carolina. She is in the forest as she is obsessed with all matter of the macabre and she wants to know what lies beyond death. As the two meet each other they decide to put off killing themselves for now and they start to walk around the forest to see what they find. This starts off a series of events and I will not spoil it for you. All I’ll say is that you need to watch this film.
There are also a few additional features crammed into this blu-ray release including trailers as well as deleted scenes. There is a commentary track on this film as they go into why they took the paths they took in order to make a disturbingly haunted piece of cinema. This is one of Wild Eye Releasing’s first blu-rays and I have to say if they go ahead and keep up this level of commitment to these types of releases there’s no telling where they can go from here.
So if you want to experience a beautifully shot black and white piece of foreign horror cinema look no further than the Forest of Lost Souls. For more information on this and other great titles head over to www.wildeyereleasing.com and get ready to explore the Forest of Lost Souls.
