825 Forest Road is a frustrating film. On the one hand, it knows that fear is best expressed as a lurking dread rather than cheap jump scares. On the other hand, it’s incredibly poorly written full of “What?!” moments where people do or say things that do not compute.

It’s about a family who doesn’t do their due diligence before buying a house in a small town. Probably should have brought in your own inspectors to check the roof maybe? And if there were deaths in the house? Or talked to any potential neighbors about anything? Because it’s an open secret everyone in town knows… there’s a ghost and she’s angry.

Hey, this flick gets its grim tone right… and knows that a jump scare isn’t the best scare. There are haunted presences in backgrounds of scenes that are not accompanied by dramatic stings. We’re just expected to spot it… or not. That’s cool. And the idea of a town full of people who know there’s a haunt and sometimes you have to evacuate a location instead of dealing with the spookies is pretty neat.

Though it begs the question why nobody stepped up to warm the nice family before they bought the house. Which leads to a weird number of conversations where townsfolk are talking around the ghost and our main characters aren’t just saying “What are you even talking about?” There’s whole conversations where two people seem to be talking about different tings. Or scenes where someone shows up and the first question isn’t “Who let you in?”

It’s so common a problem, no amount of lurking horror can get around it. It’s amateur hour in the writer’s room and it damn well nearly crashes the film. Plus there’s an unsatisfying ending.

But for having the gravitas to create a mood, I’m not gonna bury the film. Maybe next time the writer/director will spend more time on the script, getting it right… or logical… or inserting common sense.

Score: 74