The Forest (1982) **1/2

The Forest (1982) is full of hilarity, perhaps for all the wrong reasons. It doesn't deliver much of anything in the way of what you'd expect from a horror film that has aspects of the slasher, supernatural, and cannibal genres. It's plodding and filled with poor acting, terribly inept backpackers, a not-so-scary villain, and two annoying children whom you don't even have the pleasure of seeing meet their demise because they're already ghosts. But it does contain a wonderfully abrasive synthesizer score, a sweet soft rock soundtrack, and a fight that provides lots of laughs—featuring an escalating array of objects such as a knife, a gas container, a wooden chair, a giant hand saw, a tree branch, a pitchfork, a rusty old bicycle, and a circular saw. The Forest is great fun with an audience with low expectations (love that poster too).