ThiefHott Too much of everything

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

nikka-40227 Really beautiful idea, black and white is cool, gives a sense of tension.. The plot work, I think has been just done in a very clumsy way

jdesando "La tristesse durera toujours." (The sadness will live forever) Van GoghThe woods of The Forest of Lost Souls is a mythical place where many have gone to be alone in the moments before suicide ends all. Writer-director Jose Pedro Lopes's debut horror film is an excellent, intense, brief narrative about an outsider and a family, the former enigmatic but powerful and the latter clearly dysfunctional, with one suicide and one on the way.The forest is emblematic of the lost souls who are alone and on an entangled path to the end. Outsider Carolina (Daniela Love) meets a father, Ricardo (Jorge Mota), who is entering the grey and forbidding forest after the suicide of one daughter. Carolina, ostensibly on the same path, engages Ricardo in debate about the act and helps him prepare for it.Like the forest trails, no trip for the characters is straight, and as the rest of Ricardo's family enters the story, motivations and guilt are not easily understood. To say more would be to spoil the almost poetic minimalism of the plot and dialogue-"taut" would be the standard critical word for this commanding plot.Little over an hour, The Forest of Lost Souls is a new kind of horror film that eschews jump starts and cheap thrills, with only a modicum of blood for reality's sake. It is all about how off balance we can be, especially those "souls" who contemplate suicide. It provides few answers but thrills that satisfy the mind. Because the act is ultimately unknowable, even with a proper note to accompany it, Lopes does not clarify all of the occurrences. What he does do is to make us sympathetic to the mystery of self destruction and wary of family entanglements that can lead to who knows where. Perhaps Van Gogh had it right: "Sadness" is the instigator and the legacy.

Malcolm Johnson If you are looking for a fast paced gore fest...don't watch this one. Just move along. Nothing for you to see here. :::grin::: This film takes it's time to tell a story and gives you visually stunning images to go along with it's deep, philosophical discussions as things build and build. This is the first feature film for writer/director José Pedro Lopes and it's a fantastic effort bringing in three awards to date from the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, Fant, Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival, and Triple Six Horror Film Festival and the awards are well deserved.It tells it's story and lets you figure things out. And, it gives you everything you need to do so. As I said, the film is shot beautifully. The black and white is perfect for the subject matter. It plays off like a modern day Bergman film - moody and dark and full of things lurking in the corners. There's a richness to the visuals that I found to be very pleasing. The cinematography was stunning.The film is a foreign language film...unless you're from Portugal, of course. However, the film isn't heavy on dialogue, so those who fear subtitles need not be too scared. It's a drama with horrific moments that hits every point it makes an effort to hit. The acting is fantastic and all the characters seem real and well rounded. I highly recommend this...I'm going to say it again... "thinking person's horror film". I believe film lovers, horror lovers, and mystery lovers will enjoy this immensely. Well worth a viddy!

GL84 Meeting in a strange forest, a disparate couple comes to a sacred spot in the forest looking to end their lives in a location chosen for the same feat only for their troubles to start once she takes matters into her own hands and forces far more pain and suffering on him than he expected.For the most part, this was an exceptionally engaging and enjoyable effort. One of the film's better qualities is the fact that there's a rather profound and chilling nature of the material present throughout here. Being filmed in black-and-white gives this a far more evocative and poignant feel to coincide with the subject matter, for this one is so deeply rooted in Catholic guilt that the two are blended together in absolutely stellar quantities where they grow closer together due to his past moves this along nicely. From the guilt he experiences over failing his family and not preventing his daughters' death to the general callousness regarded for life is allowed to come together in the way they show this being filmed as there's very few wasted shots or potential throughout here with everything intertwined throughout here. The woods are haunting and disturbing, the desolate nature is truly felt and the entire segment has a realistic tone that is quite engaging as it's a brief section of the film that doesn't feel anywhere near as long as it does which makes it stand out extremely well. While nowhere near as potent, the film's second half is a strikingly fun and enjoyable stalker effort with the grieving family completely unaware of the actions that have taken place in the forest. This stellar home-invasion effort features some absolutely fun moments, from the initial scenes featuring them being followed home that is quite creepy, her early prowling around the house which gives this a rather eerie feel to the actual attack on the family members themselves that hold this section together, there are some rather interesting and enjoyable ideas throughout here. This is perhaps the kind of strangely art- house take on the setup which is unique and gives this a different enough take on the style by itself which gives this the kind of appeal anyway.While these here work for the film, it does have a rather problematic feature about it. The film's main problem is that there's quite a differing tone present throughout here that doesn't really do this much favors. Going from the first half which is a solid and introspective take on the nature of suicidal guilt and what's going through a person's mind, this naturalistic take vanishes in the second half which just screams to belong in a different movie. It's all way too scattershot and varied in what's going on and doesn't make any sense what's going on which is a far cry from what happened previously, never offers up anything about what's going on and just makes for a baffling series of actions that don't connect at all to what happened since the entire sequence feels so different from what came previously. It's the main topic holding this one down.Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence and intense themes of suicide.