The Forest Hills is a pulverizing experience.  The audience is constantly led astray by too many dead ends in the story.  But on the other hand, Shelley Duvall.  Movie goers are senselessly deafened by an ungainly and painful lead performance by Chiko Mendez.  But then again, Shelley Duvall.  Starlets from classic horror movies appear in extended cameos to bait movie buffs along, but their performances are flat.  But also, Shelley Duvall.

The late, legendary actress Shelley Duvall came out of a 20-year retirement to co-star in Scott Goldberg’s The Forest Hills, and the production is honoured to have her presence.  In fact, the production is so proud, they want to remind the viewer of Duvall’s inclusion as often as possible.  While it’s a pleasure to see Duvall in her final on-screen role, her character is absolutely unflattering and our elation fades fast.  Duvall plays the Mama to Mendez’s Rico.  She is ill-tempered and often succumbs to her poor health.  When she’s not hacking up a lung, she’s tearing a strip off of Rico.  Rico retaliates by slugging more swears at his mom.  Duvall then leaves the movie, making intermittent appearances throughout the rest of the film, and the audience is stuck with Rico as he faces off against his visions and paranoia in the Catskill mountains.

The Forest Hills is an unsatisfying effort that often feels unfinished.  Rico’s mind is such a mess and writer/director Goldberg, unfortunately, wants to give viewers a first-hand perspective.  The filmmaker is aiming to make a psychological thriller, but he fails because The Forest Hills isn’t grounded at all.  Goldberg pitches a flurry of ideas that could help the audience examine Rico, including suggestions of: trauma, debilitating mental health, and dangerous instincts that end in bloody massacres. However, when Mendez’s performance is strictly made up of wailing, bellowing, incessant variations of a specific F-word and visions of a werewolf stalking him, it’s hard to take any of this seriously or pay attention to the film’s randomly edited narrative.

But when in doubt, Shelley Duvall is used as a protective shield for the film.  And occasionally, I felt as though I was being guilted into forgiving the film’s faults because of Duvall’s contributions.  I’m willing to believe this is a blunder in miscommunication from an otherwise clumsy filmmaker but, nevertheless, this makes The Forest Hills into a very awkward and uncomfortable project.

The Forest Hills is now screening at select Cineplex theatres, as part of this year’s Halloween programming.

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Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie