Macabre…ish Horror Review: The Forest Hills

The Forest Hills, 2023/ 1 hr 22 min.

This film is about mental illness. Not a descent into madness, it’s about a daily struggle with illness and a terrible spiral.

Rico (Chiko Mendez) is losing everything, his support system and his job and he’s retreated into his sister’s farmhouse in the woods. He’s paranoid and terrified and spends his time stockpiling weapons. When friends show up to check in on him, they are in danger because of his current mental state he may not even recognize them as friends and it costs some of them their lives.

At some point, Rico comes to believe there are werewolves around and that he himself is turning into one. His friends desperately try to get him help and back an his medication and for a time, it seems to work. But meanwhile, Rico still prepares because he’s still living in a state of terror. He sees a beast in his dreams and he is certain that confronting it, in real life, is the only way to stop it. But is it real?

In a moment of clarity he calls another friend, Billy (Edward Furlong) who arrives to comfort his friend. Rico is convinced he’s going crazy, all he can think about is the werewolf.

Once, Rico was institutionalized because he attempted to kidnap some kids and the police found them in the woods. Rico was on all fours acting like a wolf and the kids were just there, terrified. But Rico claims he has no memory of that. Whatever happened that day, is happening again but worse. Possibly because of a new head trauma.

His sister got him in a trauma support group, hoping that would help. It didn’t but he met Billy there. And they’ve been friends ever since.

One evening Billy returns to the farmhouse to visit Rico and finds a dead woman in the bath tub. Billy agrees to help Rico bury the body but after Rico tries to give up before they even get the body out of the house, they have an argument and Rico stabs him.

Afterwards, Rico is fully on a spree, he returns to his old job and stabs his boss (Dee Wallace). The walls are closing in and his response to any kind of confrontation, is violence and no one is immune.

By the end, Rico’s struggles are clear. His illness, the betrayals, secrets and lies in his life and some of the most tragic were kept by his mother (Shelly Duvall) and it all culminated in a massive tragedy and cost a lot of people their lives.

If you watched the movie and want more, I had a conversation with the director of The Forest Hills director, Scott Goldberg on my podcast, Macabre…ish Cults, Classics & Horrors. It is wherever you get your podcasts or you can click here!