My quick rating – 3.7/10. There must be something in the water that makes teenagers think the middle-of-nowhere make-out spot is the place for safe smooching. The Haunted Forest begins by gently reminding us that it is never the case. The scene is so tame it feels like a public service announcement sponsored by “Bad Decisions Anonymous.” If you are waiting for someone to be slaughtered, move along.
We follow Zach, played by Grayson Gwaze, a high school senior who lands his first job as a scare actor at Markoff’s Haunted Forest. He quickly befriends the ragtag crew of year-round haunt employees, all of whom appear to be more interested in brooding than actually frightening anyone. When one of them dies tragically on the grounds, Zach begins to question his own obsession with death and the macabre, which sounds like the beginning of a horror movie, but for the most part just feels like a very low-energy coming-of-age story hiding behind a horror mask.
And when I say slow, I mean day-in, day-out, punch-the-clock slow. We spend an alarming amount of time watching people “work” at what appears to be a haunted attraction open 365 days a year for absolutely no reason. The dialogue doesn’t help. It’s stiff, cue-card-reading stiff. Like everyone is terrified of missing their line more than being murdered.
A couple of accidents shake things up, including the baffling decision to give mock chainsaws actual chains, resulting in an “oops, we cut his arm” moment. Not a horror movie maiming. Not a shocking severed limb. Just a workplace safety violation waiting to happen. OSHA would’ve been the real villain here.
The opening of the haunted forest is briefly in question…for roughly three minutes of screen time. Then, crisis averted, they reopen for Halloween, which at least justifies the existence of this place. Small victories.
The humor? Flat. The horror? Practically PG. Most of the early “kills” are suggested, like the movie is politely asking you to imagine something scarier than it’s willing to show. Later on, a few on-screen kills finally happen, but by then I had been waiting so long for the movie to start that I half expected an intermission.
The twist isn’t a twist. It’s more of a gentle narrative shrug. The writing feels lazy, especially when the marketing leans so heavily into the horror angle. Honestly, this plays like a movie trailer that oversold the product. Scary is the one thing this film never manages to be, no matter how many times it insists otherwise.
That said, the production values are solid. The sets look good. The atmosphere is there. And Meghan Reed as Carly is easily the most interesting character in the entire film. Every time she was on screen, I perked up, hoping the story would follow her somewhere more compelling.
Instead, The Haunted Forest is far more invested in its coming-of-age identity crisis than delivering actual chills. If you go in expecting introspection with a side of light slasher seasoning, you might get something out of it. If you’re expecting a genuinely scary experience? This forest doesn’t have much buzz.
