REVIEW: ‘Forest of the Lost Souls’ is tale of sadness
Photo: The Forest of the Lost Souls stars Daniela Love as Carolina. Photo courtesy of Wild Eye Releasing / Provided with permission.
José Pedro Lopes’ feature-length debut is The Forest of the Lost Souls, an unusual horror film that deals with heavy, dark themes. The Portuguese-language film, which recently opened in the United States, is difficult to fully appreciate because of its odd pacing and truly unexpected twists; however, there’s a certain foreboding atmosphere that permeates these sad environs, and audiences who stick it out for the relatively short duration may find the characters interesting enough and the plot wholly unique.
Ricardo (Jorge Mota) meets Carolina (Daniela Love) in a forest with a dubious reputation: It’s a place people often visit to die by suicide. At first, it seems that Lopes has these two characters meet to perhaps find solace in each other and maybe turn their predicament around.
That’s not the case.
It becomes clear — and is quite evident by the film’s poster — that one of these two people has an ulterior motive. When that motive is brought to bear, the movie shifts into an eerie episode of stalking, senseless violence and unanswered questions.
The actions become so difficult to comprehend — with no explanation — that the The Forest of the Lost Souls loses some of its strength and starts to drift from the viewers’ mind. Its short running time, lasting a little over one hour, doesn’t help either. They remain mere constructs with little backstory and few scenes of human emotion; motivation is largely lacking from the picture. This works for a bit because Lopes’ film thrives on keeping its content at a distance and thus unsettling, but ultimately it begs the question of what is the purpose of unleashing this unusual story on the audience.
The strength of the film can be found in Lopes’ lensing. The black-and-white imagery and many of the creative shots he captures elevate the material and always reenforce that feeling of unease and dread. He is able to depict the melancholy of his script with vivid tableau symbolism.
Lopes is a director to watch moving forward, either in the horror genre or any genre. There’s enough skill in The Forest of the Lost Souls to appreciate his efforts, even if the entire experience of watching the movie doesn’t say much about the topic or the characters on screen.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Forest of the Lost Souls (2018), written and directed by José Pedro Lopes, stars Jorge Mita and Daniela Love. Running time: 71 minutes. In Portuguese with English subtitles. Rating: 
