Stephen Cognetti has repeatedly proven that he understands how to craft onscreen tension. He’s done so effectively via the Hell House LLC franchise. He got the first movie in the series made with little more than talent, ingenuity, and a camera. Knowing his track record, I have plenty of faith in Cognetti as a filmmaker. However, it seems like he’s out of his element with his latest feature, 825 Forest Road.
The scrappy filmmaker rose to prominence working within the found footage genre. 825 Forest Road marks his move out of the filmmaking style that put him on our radar and it seems he experienced some growing pains in the process. While 825 Forest Road isn’t an awful movie, it lacks some of the components that make the Hell House films so watchable.
825 Forest Road follows the trio Chuck (Joe Falcone), Maria (Elizabeth Vermilyea), and Isabelle (Kathryn Miller). Maria and Chuck are married. Chuck is a music professor at a nearby university. Maria hosts live-stream vlogs about sewing. Isabelle, Chuck’s younger sister, is about to begin her college career when she’s involved in a car crash that kills their mother. Maria and Chuck buy a new home in the suburbs and invite Isabelle to live with them to recover from the ordeal. The town to which they relocate has a dark history. Some even say it’s haunted.
I had a challenging time writing that plot synopsis. I’ve written hundreds of them over the course of my career. I don’t find the process difficult. But 825 Forest Road doesn’t have much narrative flow. The film goes in so many different directions, introducing tertiary characters and story elements that serve little to no purpose. And the core characters that we spend most of the film with have unduly complicated arcs that never pay dividends.
825 Forest Road features a peculiar narrative structure.
The feature is split into four chapters, with each of the three leads getting their own chapter. We effectively sit through the first act three different times from three different perspectives. Providing different vantage points is an effective narrative tactic. However, presenting each separately and then repeating the process is tedious and leaves the narrative feeling disjointed. Conjoining their collective story into a single entity that weaves in various perspectives as necessary would have been more efficient.
I could have gotten past the unorthodox approach to the narrative if the film offered at least one truly compelling quality. Sadly, I couldn’t find even one piece of this film that really shines. The acting is serviceable but still challenging; the script is rough; and the storyline often discards characters and plot points after they are no longer useful. Case in point: We learn about paranormal activity at the local library and find out that someone once hung himself there, using a stack of books as a step stool. Now, his ghost haunts the library at random. Cool, so what does that lead to? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That piece, along with other plot points and narrative devices, just ends without coming full circle.
In another abandoned narrative element, a secret group of like-minded townspeople meet to discuss the haunted hijinks going on in the area. Yet after one meeting, the group members just stop being a part of the storyline. It feels a lot like Cognetti introduces elements to the plot and then forgets to tie it all together.
In addition to lacking cohesion, 825 Forest Road is also absent any ambiance. The film has none of the atmosphere or excitement that we see in the Hell House LLC films. Many of the scares fell flat for me. The mysterious entity at the core of the town’s haunting situation just sort of shows up in the frame without any buildup, making the specter feel haphazard and incidental.
All things considered:
I think Cognetti had some difficulty breaking out of the found footage sub-genre. He’s a talented filmmaker, and I still have faith in him. However, 825 Forest Road misses the mark. If you’re eager to make up your own mind, the film is streaming now on Shudder.
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