Black Forest is a 2012 Syfy fantasy/horror film. The story, set in Germany, revolves around a group of strangers who sign up for a tour of of a 'black forest' where the Grimm fairy tales were supposedly written. The tour includes something of a mystical seance intended to communicate with fairies. The ritual ends up transporting the group to a parallel universe, where the Grimm characters are alive... and angry.
This film provides examples of:
- The Ageless / Age Without Youth - A mix. While in the parallel world, people will not age. However, the length of time they stay in this world is reflected in the world they came from. If a person stays for longer than their natural lifespan in the parallel world, they cannot return to their homes, for they will simply age past death and drop dead. This fact is reflected in the mirrors, which characters can look into to see how old they REALLY are. Note that, though time passes much faster in the real world than the parallel one (see Time Dilation below), the aging process treats the time spent in the parallel world as natural time. Two weeks spent in the parallel world ages you two weeks in the real world, regardless of how much faster time is actually going in the real world.
- Anyone Can Die
- Attack of the Killer Whatever
- Ax-Crazy - Cazmar, especially when we learn that he was the Hansel and Gretel witch all along.
- Blessed with Suck - Karin stayed alive by making a pact to lure newcomers to their doom in exchange for her own eternal survival.
- B-Movie
- Children Are Innocent
- Cursed with Awesome - Saxon ends up making the same pact as Karin to escape death... but then breaks the pact immediately. The last scene of the movie depicts him talking to some newcomers, then grabbing some weapons to fend off the next monstrous creature. And he seems to be enjoying the hell out of it.
- Darker and Edgier - The hatred of the few Grimm characters that are still alive has warped them heavily.
- Decoy Protagonist - Nearly every member of the group seemingly becomes the main protagonist at some point.
- Fairy Tale - Many are included in this story, but interestingly, the quest of the main characters in this magical world, itself, becomes something straight out of Grimm's Fairy Tales.
- Heroic Sacrifice - Saxon stays behind to fend off the forest creatures while the rest of the survivors escape.
- New Technology Is Evil - An interesting version. The Grimm creatures turned on humans because our modern religions and lifestyles made us stop believing in them. Our belief gave them power, and with so few people believing, they have been reduced to living in their parallel universe, having to abduct new people to keep their little world alive.
- The Mirror Shows Your True Self: Karin, and later, we are to assume, Saxon.
- Time Dilation - Time in the real world actually passes much faster than in the parallel world. When the survivors emerge from the parallel world, years have gone by, rather than the days they experienced.
- Too Dumb to Live: Several characters get this award including the babysitter who decides to go to sleep in a strange place without telling the others. The grand prize winner is Walter whose disbelieve stretches credibility, insist on going into the forest alone, and finally after entering a wicked looking cottage in the day time turns his back on the creepy old woman who lives there getting whacked with a fire poker and becoming dinner in the end.
- What Happened to the Mouse? - There are many characters from many fairy tales in the film, but their counterparts are notably absent. The Big Bad Wolf lacks Little Red Riding Hood, the Ginger Bread House witch lacks Hansel and Gretel, and so on. One has to wonder what happened to them.
- Perhaps they simply faded out of existence due to lack of belief.
- Worse, perhaps the other characters killed them, if they opposed the growing hostility towards humans.
