***SPOILER ALERT*** Mind blowing movie in that by watching it you feel as if your tripping out on acid like those watching, and at the same time getting high, the many drug culture film-like "Easy Rider" & "The Last Movie"-of the late 1960's and early 70's.
The movie "Haunted Forest" has to do with this 120 year old Indian curse involving the beautiful Indian maiden Satinka. It was Satinka who together with her boyfriend- The tribes Medicine Man's son- who were attacked by a bunch of white settlers and left to die when they, in clearing the land for grazing for their cattle, set the woods on fire. Unknown to everyone at the time Satinka survived by hiding in a tree trunk. She also sold her soul to the devil, or the "Tree", that made her a permanent part, or fixture, of the forest.
We soon find out that the forest has its secrets very early in the movie in it swallowing up victim #1 when he got too close to the evil "Tree". With victim #1's camera being the only thing found the film, after it was developed, shows this strange and spooky looking "Tree" that the victim, among other things, photographed! That "Tree" looks exactly like the drawing that Sean's full Native American Indian grandfather had illustrated in his journal that he left to Sean after his death! It's when Sean together with his two friends Jason & Flip take a trip inside the forest to find if the "Tree" is real or not is when things start to get a bit weird and disturbing! In that we in the audience, as well as Sean & Co, start to lose our grip on reality as well as time & space!
The vengeful "Tree" has been sucking up anyone who entered the forest over the last 100 years and, after planting them deep in the earth, have them replace the trees that were destroyed in the forest fire that was set by the white settlers.
We also have two girl campers Jennifer & Kiyomi who also end up getting lost in the forest and later, at lest in Kiyomi case, becoming victims of the killer "Tree". The most unusual member of the cast is the crazed and fanatical Roy who's out to find the "Tree" and thus, by chopping it into firewood, free his soul that it had robbed him of. It seems as if Roy has been running around in the forest, looking for the "Tree", for over 100 years since he's a dead ringer for one of the settlers who set the forest on fire!
***SPOILER ALERT**** It soon becomes evident that Sean has a far closer relationship with the "Tree" and the person whom it represents, Satinka, then he ever thought possible. It's for that reason alone that he was drawn into the haunted forest to fulfill a promise made some 100 years ago by Sitinka herself! A promise that Sean was soon to realize had to be kept because he was the person, who at the time it was made, more then willingly went along with it!
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