THE FOREST (15) 93 mins. Starrings Natalie Dormer, Taylor Kinney, Eoin Macken and Yukiyoshi Ozawa.

IF you go down to the woods today, you might be more bored than scared.

Jason Zada's formulaic horror might be dismissed as exploitative and tasteless for conjuring supernatural scares in Aokigahara Forest, a notorious real-life hotspot for Japanese suicides at the northwest base of Mount Fuji.

But that would credit The Forest with more intelligence, guile and intent than are on display in a ham-fisted and plodding script penned by Nick Antosca, Sarah Cornwell and Ben Ketai.

Police in Japan telephone Sara Price (Dormer) in America to inform her that identical twin Jess (Dormer again with different hair colouring) is lost, presumed deceased, in the dense sprawl of Aokigahara.

Dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her, Sara is initially waylaid by a woman called Mayumi (Noriko Sakura), who stores the bodies of the suicides in her eerie basement.

Thankfully, Jess isn't one of the sheeted corpses and Sara makes her way to a roadside hotel, where she befriends a reporter called Aiden (Taylor Kinney).

He offers to help search for the missing sibling in the company of professional guide Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawa), in exchange for using Sara's turmoil as the basis for an article.

"I think you should not go... because you are sad," Michi sombrely informs Sara.

She ignores his dire warnings and strays almost immediately from the path to chase a phantom-like schoolgirl called Hoshiko (Rina Takasaki), who may or may not be a product of Sara's febrile imagination.

The Forest is a deathly bore, which quickens our pulse only when it appears Sara might suffer a premature and grisly demise.