As a World Premiere at Frightfest 26, the UK-based international horror, fantasy, and thriller film festival held in London’s Leicester Square, Keith Boynton’s The Haunted Forest (2025) is a whodunnit thriller wrapped in Halloween garb, providing a narrative confident in its characterizations and less dependent on scares.
Zach (Grayson Gwaze) is a high school senior and horror buff who can hardly concentrate on his studies because his cousin Mark (Cedric Gegel) has invited him to work as a scare actor at his Maryland theme-park Markoff’s Haunted Forest for the few weekends leading up to Halloween. Zach, who spends most of his time in class drawing storyboards for his nightmarish fantasies (fashioned after such tropes as the teenage couple killed in Lover’s Lane by a hooded psychopath) offers a solid credible performance as a genre enthusiast who comes to question his love for gore when a fellow employee is found dead.
Major marks go to Cedric Gegel whose performance as Mark is the emotional anchor of the film. In order for genre films to work and not capsize into broad comedy, characters have to be believable and Mark’s affable personality is convincing and sympathetic, lending credence to the script. There’s not a false note in his portrayal of an owner of a theme park beset by murder and violent sabotage. Shout-outs as well to Zach’s love interest Sarah (Kaitlyn Lunardi), his infatuated study partner Carly (Meghan Reed), and—in a brief winning cameo—brocaster “Stinky Steve” (Tristen Raughton) who the camera just loves.
I remember when I was in grade school the haunted houses put on by teachers and parents where we were blindfolded and led into a room where our hands were put into bowls of wet grapes that we were told were eyeballs. Our imaginations took over and fed our desire to be frightened. The Haunted Forest amps up that love of fear—giving and receiving—even as it questions the compulsion and explores the theme of murderous reparations for culpability in the genocide inflicted on Native Americans; the true ghosts of Markoff’s Haunted Forest.
Further high marks to the overall look of The Haunted Forest, crisply lit and shot by cinematographer Aitor Mendilibar. Nothing annoys me more than night scenes that are so dark and murky that you can’t see what’s happening. The Haunted Forest immerses you in a scary theme park with all the jump scares that you wish were coming to your town on Halloween.
