Kang Min (Woo-seong Kam) wakes up in a forest and doesn't really know what is going on. He makes his way through and manages to find a house that is out in the woods. Inside the house he finds a very bloody man who has been stabbed many times. The man is dead now, so he explores further in and discovers a woman. He seems to know the woman, we find out later she is his girlfriend. She is still alive, but barely. She mumbles something about spiders before she passes away. Then Kang hears something in the house. He sees someone take off running out of the house, so he gives chase. This other person manages to lose Kang in the woods, and then manages to knock him out. When Kang comes to, he somehow manages to find a road, only to get hit by a passing car. He wakes up in the hospital not remembering much except for the above, and has the need to get back to Spider forest. With the help of his friend who is in the police department, will they be able to figure out what happened to Kang?
Writer/director Il-gon Song manages to weave a story that is often compared to those by David Lynch. Like a Lynch film, Spider Forest can be rather confusing at times. Basically the whole of Spider Forest is a flashback as Kang starts to put memories together about how he got to the forest before discovering the bodies. There are even flashbacks within the flashback as a story is told at times. While I feel I have the basics of what happened in this movie down, I still am a little confused over some of the plot. There is some nice lore that is dropped on the forest about how it got the name of Spider forest. There does seem to be a lot of spiders in this forest, which is probably why it got that name, but the lore is more fun. According to the lore, those that have died forgotten become a spider in the forest until someone remembers them. Kind of cool I thought, but the film never really does anything with it. The lore happens to be something Kang was researching so it comes part of the story. It does come into play towards the end at least, but felt it was too little too late.
There is much as far as special effects go for Spider Forest. About the only thing we get to see is blood flying around when we see the one guy killed. I thought the acting was fine, but what interested me more didn't have to do with the acting. Part of the reason why Spider Forest ends up being so long is because in gets into Kang's past a lot. It goes as far back as his wife being killed. Does it have anything to do with the story of the forest? Not really, but it was still nice to get background information for the lead character. One was where his wife realizes that she is dead after talking to Kang. It was a very good little story there. Some of the other actors you can find are Jung Suh, Kyeong-heon Kang, Hyeong-seong Jang and Byung-ho Son.
I was a little disappoint with Spider Forest. It is always hinting at something that could possibly be supernatural, but it never really crosses over into that. The only twist has to do with a ghost, but that was pretty easy to see coming. Spider Forest is more of a murder mystery than anything else. After watching it I was surprised that it found its way into the horror section. That isn't the reason for my low rating though. I didn't find Spider Forest to be a bad film, but I didn't really care for it that much. The story was okay, but was drawn out a bit too much. There is a story about the house in the woods that turns out to be false, so it made me wonder what the whole point of it even was. Some people say that Spider Forest is a movie you will either like or hate. I may not have hated it, but I didn't like it either.
2 out of 5 Not scared of spiders, but hate it when I find one on me that I didn't know about
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