PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Haunted attractions are my thing. I have been a scare actor for 6 years, and the movie hit a nostalgic spot. There aren’t really too many movies centered around the job I love, such as The Houses October Built or Haunt. They dare you to come witness the sights and sounds of horror. Since I was a kid, I have loved haunted attractions. Hayrides, haunted woods, and clowns with chainsaws with no chains begging you to come visit. I say “not many,” but The Haunted Forest is ready to join the ranks.
Let’s get into the review.
Synopsis
The Haunted Forest stars Grayson Gwaze as Zach, a high school senior who lands his first job was a scare actor at Markoff’s Haunted Forest. He makes friends with the band of misfits who operate the Halloween attraction, but after one of them dies tragically on the grounds he begins to question his fascination with death and the macabre.
The Rundown
The Haunted Forest is a step above most films with this plot. The Haunted Forest is very close to my top five movies of 2026 at the moment. Just a good old horror movie that we can enjoy. You can figure out the plot without having to have a detective find the reason.
I can assure you, the synopsis sounds kind of boring; however, with this film, you receive a good amount of nostalgia and also some cool death scenes. The movie kind of throws itself into chaos, pulling no punches for the modern terrifying feeling in the dark. As a haunter myself, you know, sometimes there are people a little “off” sometimes, however its just a well-known fact when you hire a bunch of young kids to scare the pants off people. I can totally relate, we live for the scare.
The film delves into everything you would see at today’s haunted attractions, without the deaths and all, of course. There is always one big alcohol fueled party on the grounds where roaming monsters scare you enough to drop the beer in your hand.
The Haunted Forest also brought into play the underworld of haunts. You would hit on a fall night, it’s like ringing in Halloween, until people start dying after falling in love and getting all googly-eyed, a teenage love story. The film doesn’t play too much on their relationship, it focuses on things that go bump in the night, only this time the haunt is real, and there’s no escape. I honestly haven’t seen a whole lot of films with this premise, even though the story was the same, it was just done better.
In The End
In the end, I can say I enjoyed The Haunted Forest because to me it came naturally, and I am taken back to the real reason we do this, for the entertainment, and for the scare. I wish there were a lot of movies that thrilled me on the subject. There just doesn’t seem to be any thrill, so The Haunted Forest was a way to keep me in touch with the genre.
