825 Forest Road Review: Flavorless Horror

Stephen Cognetti, the mind behind the Hell House franchise, is back with a new film. 825 Forest Road is his newest horror film, and this time, Stephen has opted not to direct in first-person like his previous films. He adopts the traditional third-person point of view here and tells the movie in non-chronological order.

While some ideas worked here, 825 Forest Road is a miss from the veteran director. It’s a puzzling horror film devoid of tension and interesting characters. While Stephen sets the characters and narrative up for success, those aspects unfortunately start to waver and ultimately dissipates completely by the time the credits roll. It’s a horror film with interesting ideas scarcely utilized throughout its runtime. This 825 Forest Road review will be spoiler-free.

825 Forest Road is streaming now on Shudder. 

See also: 5 Biggest Horror Movies Releasing In April 2025

Story – A Missing Road

825 Forest Road follows Chuck (Joe Falcone), his wife Maria (Elizabeth Vermilyea), and his sister Isabelle (Kathryn Miller) adapting to their new life in Ashland Falls. Soon after, however, they begin to notice some strange occurrences, something that the townspeople all seem to acknowledge and know about. It’s something that is so blatantly understood and known that you can’t help but wonder why these three haven’t heard about it before moving in. There was even a suicide in the house, and they somehow didn’t know about it. Sure.

A new start

But fine, we get the gist. It’s a creepy house with potentially sinister things in store for the characters right? Sort of. I was genuinely surprised that the director behind Hell House LLC had so few scares for us here, and out of the few that are, I only found half of those successful in invoking fear. Part of this is in large part due to how the film was told.

Chapters

825 Forest Road is broken up into chapters, with each of the characters getting their own. This method of storytelling is a double-edged sword here. We learn a tiny bit more about each character and their perspective on the events that occur throughout the film. I thought this worked in some cases. There were a few scenes where I remember saying, “Oh, that’s why that happened.” But looking back at it, it was often for trivial pieces of information that didn’t advance the plot. This method of storytelling sort of turns the movie into a mystery. We typically see a character in a different place or state of mind and don’t understand how they got there until we see their POV. It’s a useful tool to surprise the audience, but unfortunately, there just wasn’t anything worthy here.

These pile of books are creepier than one would think

You can tell there wasn’t a whole lot of content as well, so some things just feel like filler. Chuck and Maria for example, have a conversation about the house in Chuck’s chapter. In Maria’s chapter, the conversation goes on a bit longer. It doesn’t add anything of value and could have easily been included in Chuck’s POV. It was just removed to make it seem like Maria had more interesting things to say.

The Scares

The same thing goes for the scares. Because the story keeps essentially repeating, the buildup for the scares keeps repeating. In most horror movies, the scares build over time until the climax. In this film, the tension is continuously being reset. This could have potentially been remedied if new and interesting scares were introduced through new perspectives, but this only rarely happens. Scenes don’t linger too long throughout the film. Scares come and go without any buildup of tension. Without that tension, the scares introduced in this film feel more random than anything else. It feels disjointed from the rest of the movie. 825 Forest Road fumbles hard here.

The set-up isn’t new but executed well enough to create momentary tension

Characters and Performances – Undercooked

Another reason 825 Forest Road fails is due in large part to the characters. They each start off with interesting dilemmas, but they’re never explored. Not one of these characters goes on any form of an arc. They only announce they have an issue and forget about it. Chuck and his sister, for example, have a strange relationship. Chuck left their house while his sister was still young, essentially leaving her and their mom. He went so far as not to even tell his wife he has a sister. Bizarre, right? What happened there? What was his motivation? Who knows! 825 Forest Road never delves deeper into this or tries to amend their broken bond. Funny enough, when things start to go down in their house, Chuck tells Isabelle she has to find a new place to live as he and Maria are moving out, essentially abandoning her again. 

I wish the conflict between them was further explored

Another example is Isabelle’s depression and the sense of guilt she feels for the death of their mother. This is never delved deeper into. Characters such as Chuck are also inconsistent. He attends meetings with some townfolk that essentially just gossip about the dark history of the town. The funny thing is that Chuck doesn’t seem to think these people are weird or anything. He seems to fit right in. It’s a nice change and different from other horror films where characters are in denial for a good majority of the film. That being said, what doesn’t make sense is that later on, when his wife tells him some weird and spooky thing happened in the house…it doesn’t seem as though he believes her. Why?

Delivery

As far as performances, they all ranged from poor to serviceable. The actors worked with the content they had, but man, some of the dialogue was spoken in such a monotone voice. Each character had this voice at certain parts of the film where it felt as though they were literally reading the script for the first time. It sort of made them all blend together. This isn’t for every scene, of course, but it was something that stood out to me. Dialogue was spoken without emotion. Everything these actors did felt very safe and, again, plain. There is nothing new, exciting, or even interesting done here.

Pacing and Editing – Groundhog Day

As mentioned previously, the film is broken up into chapters. Each character has their own and the film primarily follows them and their perspective on their experience with the house. But because we are constantly backtracking on events that we have partially seen before, the film’s pacing suffers as a result. At the end of Chuck’s chapter, for example, we see something incredibly frightening…and then it just cuts. We immediately head into Maria’s chapter, and the story essentially resets back to their first arrival at the house. The tension dissipates, and the film feels longer for it. 

I hate how there was no payoff during this scene

825 Forest Road often cuts before finishing a thought in hopes it can lure the audience member into thinking there is more. Sadly, these cuts are usually abrupt, and when the scenes attempt to stitch themselves back together, more often than not, they feel inharmonious.

Editing is also an excellent tool to create more effective scares. This is one aspect of the film I found to be rather effective. With the few scares the film does have, it is usually due to something creepy moving at an aggressively jittery pace. There was actually one scene that was shot in the found-footage style, and of course, this was the most tension-filled scene throughout the film. I could feel Stephen’s itch to return to his found-footage roots.

Cinematography and Sound – Ashland Falls

825 Forest Road is mostly shot beautifully, and I enjoyed the brief moments that the film took place outside the house. I couldn’t help but want more, though. There is an interesting area that the characters go to later on where the scenes are basked in shadows, but unfortunately, we don’t spend a lot of time there. When it came to the house, however, the lighting and the way the scenes were shot remained stagnant throughout. You would see some typical camera placements where when a character moves, you can see a presence behind them. It has been done to death in this movie, though, and I wish there were more ideas here.

I liked how certain scenes such as this were shot, but they are few and far between

Sound was one of the aspects of the film that worked well. For the couple of scares that did work, 825 Forest Road was able to use sound to bolster the impact of those frightening scenes. There is nothing innovative here, but sound was used to service the story. In other areas of the film, the sound provided an uncomfortable atmosphere. Everything in the town and story had this aura about it that made you question what was happening and what the main character was behind on knowing. 

Are you planning to see this movie? Have you already seen it? Do you agree with this review for 825 Forest Road? Let us know!