Grave Halloween (also known as The Suicide Forest and released in some markets as Deathly Halloween) is a 2013 Canadian TV horror film. An original production by CineTel Films for Syfy, it was directed by Steven R. Monroe and written by Ryan W. Smith and Sheldon Wilson. The film is set in Japan, but it was filmed in Canada.
Plot
On October 31, a Japanese-born American student at a Japanese university, Maiko (Kaitlyn Leeb), risks her life to save the spirit of her dead mother. She travels into Aokigahara Forest to find her birth mother, who has recently committed suicide. Her friends Kyle, Terry, and Amber travel with her, in hopes of producing a documentary for a class project.
Cast
Kaitlyn Leeb as Maiko
Isabelle Beech as Young Maiko
Cassi Thomson as Amber
Graham Wardle as Kyle
Dejan Loyola as Terry
Jeffrey Ballard as Craig
Hiro Kanagawa as Jin
Jesse Wheeler as Brody
Tom Stevens as Skylar
Kevan Ohtsji as Policeman
Hyuma Frankowski as Junior Policeman
Maiko Miyauchi as Maiko's Mother
Luna Kurokawa as Maiko's Sister
Yukari Komatsu as Bracelet Woman
Reception
Dave Wain, writing for British horror magazine Scream, gave Grave Halloween 1.5 stars out of five, calling the film "a real let-down". Guy Adams, reviewing the film for the British Fantasy Society, said the film was "nothing special but, in an increasingly dense forest of grotty cinematic deadwood, there is enough life in it to be worth your time".