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| 5 | %% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks! |
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| 11 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1637250683075734900 |
| 12 | %% Previous thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1376066822092892000 |
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| 15 | [[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/snow_white_forest.png]]]] |
| 16 | %% |
| 17 | ->''"Beware, beware, the Forest of Sin\ |
| 18 | None come out, though many go in."'' |
| 19 | -->-- ''[[Creator/RoaldDahl The Minpins]]'' |
| 20 | |
| 21 | In horror/thriller/fantasy movies or literature, holidays, outings, or travels in woodsy locations never seem to bode all that well. This trope is OlderThanDirt, with the wilderness being viewed as dangerous for much of human history. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | When people go deep into the woods, horrible things ensue. They are inhabited by [[HillbillyHorrors inbred hillbillies]], {{barbarian tribe}}s, [[AxCrazy psychopathic]] [[SerialKiller killers]], [[TheFairFolk wicked fairy folk]], [[OurMonstersAreDifferent monsters]], and [[NatureIsNotNice dangerous animals of every sort]]. [[TheDarknessGazesBack Malevolent eyes gaze from every shadow]]. Perhaps even the [[WhenTreesAttack trees themselves attack them]]. The woods could be cursed. There are strange noises in both the day [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight and the night]]. [[SinisterDeerSkull Deer skulls litter the ground]]. People disappear. People go insane. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[DownerEnding Rarely do horror and thriller movies of this flavor end happily]]; often everyone ends up dead, although there may be a FinalGirl. This has almost gotten to the point at which such movies almost have {{Foregone Conclusion}}s. Other genres like the {{Rescue}} series are more hopeful, with the rescue team racing against time to find the person. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | A SubTrope of DeadlyRoadTrip. The darker equivalent of the HorribleCampingTrip. For a doomed wilderness expedition, see RiverOfInsanity. Can overlap with WildWilderness, but with much darker overtones. See also EnchantedForest, for when forests are portrayed as enchanted, mysterious, and full of strange things, which may or may not overlap with this trope. For other wooded environs depicted as dangerous and hostile places, see HungryJungle and SwampsAreEvil. Closely related to NatureIsNotNice, where the wilderness, in general, is inhospitable for human beings. See also TheLostWoods for forest-based video game settings. |
| 28 | ---- |
| 29 | !!Examples: |
| 30 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 31 | |
| 32 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 33 | * ''Manga/AlienNine'' features the Forest of Spaceships, a wooded area where aliens of all colors and danger levels reside. None of them are truly sapient enough to communicate with and ''all'' of them are deadly to humans. The protagonists' advisor, Megumi Hisakawa, only intended on bringing them there once they've built up enough mental and physical resistance to the aliens they face on a daily basis, but the back half of Volume 2 is devoted to them having to go there anyway once Yuri Otani [[NoodleIncident somehow]] got in by herself. |
| 34 | * ''Manga/BeautyAndTheBeastOfParadiseLost'': When Belle was a kid, she insisted on going to the forest, dismissing the rumors about a beast that kidnapped beautiful young women to steal their faces. Her mother, who was with her, was kidnapped by the monster, and Belle spent the next five years blaming herself for that, but it could have happened even if they hadn't visited the forest, because the monster also attacked the villages. |
| 35 | [[/folder]] |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 38 | * ''ComicBook/Robin1993'': When Tim Drake takes a road trip into the Ozarks to follow a gun runner to his source he stumbles across an EldritchAbomination that twists people's memories in order to pass as human. When their disguise is broken they kill everyone in their path until they've bound a new person to form a new one, wiping their mind and making them rely on her. The thing has left a number of weird societies in its wake including a bunch of mentally scared former cannibals and a group of "pacifists" who regularly meet to try and kill the mute child she's bound herself to that recovers from any harm so long as he's close enough. |
| 39 | * ''ComicBook/SoulsearchersAndCompany'': In issue #5, the woods outside of Mystic Grove are magically transformed into fairy tale forest, with all of the attendant threats: including the cannibalistic witch from "Literature/HanselAndGretel". |
| 40 | * ''ComicBook/SupermanSupergirlMaelstrom'': [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} Kal-El]] takes [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} his cousin]] on a camping trip in an alien jungle, assuring it is not dangerous...despite of being full of hostile humanoids, ferocious giant predators, weird monsters and poisonous flora. |
| 41 | * ''ComicBook/ThroughTheWoods'': In keeping with traditional tales and horror stories, going into the woods is a bad idea. Fittingly, the comic cover features a forest with a [[BadMoonRising red moon]], the trees' branches looking like CreepyLongFingers. |
| 42 | ** "Our Neighbor's House": The girls' father leaves for the woods to go hunting, instructing that they leave for their neighbor's house if he doesn't come back in three days. [[spoiler:Sure enough, he doesn't return, having died of the extreme cold]]. Later, [[spoiler:after losing her sisters]], Beth travels through the woods alone to her neighbor's house. [[spoiler:Instead of the neighbor as she expected, she meets the man with the wide-brimmed hat, heavily implying that both Beth and the neighbor are dead]]. |
| 43 | ** "The Nesting Place": Bell is explicitly warned against the woods near the house of Clarence and Rebecca. [[spoiler:She ignores the warnings and ends up discovering a cave pool where "Rebecca" has become a host for a monster that kills and inhabits people's bodies, and has been looking for other victims for her children to inhabit]]. |
| 44 | ** "His Face All Red" makes frequent mention of strange things coming from the woods. Nobody bats an eye at the thought of a monster coming out of the woods to attack their livestock, and later it seems that [[spoiler:a {{Doppelganger}} of the murdered older brother comes out of the woods and begins trying to take the brother's place.]] |
| 45 | ** "A Lady's Hands Are Cold": Much of the story takes place in an extravagant mansion that is isolated by the surrounding forest. However, the trope is reversed: [[spoiler:The danger takes place inside the mansion itself, which is haunted. At the end, in trying to evade her husband's first wife, now a vengeful corpse hellbent on having the husband all to herself, the second wife flees the mansion and into the surrounding woods where she is safe, though understandably traumatized. The husband, meanwhile, returns home from a hunting trip in the woods to find the first wife he killed waiting for him, and he is gruesomely murdered]]. |
| 46 | ** "In Conclusion": The young girl confidently ignores the dangers of the woods and makes it to her mother's house without incident. She goes to bed confident that she can avoid whatever's out there... only for a shadowy wolf standing right outside her window to point out that even if she made it this time she still has to travel through the woods again and again, and while she has to be lucky every time, he only has to be lucky ''once''. Actually seeing just how dangerous the woods can be seems to deeply traumatize and terrify her. |
| 47 | * ''ComicBook/WendigoWood'': The titular forest is said to be home to the {{Wendigo}}. It's home to [=LOADS=] of them. |
| 48 | [[/folder]] |
| 49 | |
| 50 | [[folder:Fairy Tales]] |
| 51 | * Many stories feature a WickedStepmother and/or AbusiveParents sending their children specifically to the woods to die, whether of starvation or in hopes they'll be eaten. However, in some tales the woods [[SubvertedTrope actually hide more benevolent/neutral creatures who help the protagonists]]. |
| 52 | * "Babes in the Wood": A wicked relative leaves the children to die in the woods so that said relative can inherit the children's estate. In the original, the children die and the birds come and cover them with leaves. After the appeal of this light tragedy wore off, there were many subverted versions made where the children survive somehow. |
| 53 | * "Literature/TheCatOnTheDovrefell": The woodlands on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovrefjell Dovrefjell]] are full of dangerous and obliviously evil trolls. |
| 54 | * "[[https://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/the_drummer The Drummer]]", one of the versions of "Literature/TheSwanMaiden" tale: The woods surrounding the glass mountain are home to dangerous man-eating giants. |
| 55 | * "Literature/HanselAndGretel": A people-eating witch waits in the woods. |
| 56 | * "Literature/HansTheHedgehog": Applies to the two kings, who get lost there on the way home and have to ask for Hans' help to get out. |
| 57 | * "Literature/LittleOtik": The forest surrounding the main characters' village is home to hungry, man-eating wood monsters. |
| 58 | * "Literature/LittleRedRidingHood": A people-eating wolf waits in the woods. |
| 59 | * "Literature/{{Morozko}}": The old woman sends her stepdaughter in the woods to die. However, the woodlands are home to Father Frost, who is willing to be benevolent and helpful... as long as you are not a rude disrespectful ass, so incurring its wrath. |
| 60 | * "Literature/TheThreeFlowers": Three huntsmen go into a huge forest where their sister has been hidden away by a witch. They run into strange creatures, one of which is stalking her sister, and become turned into beasts when her sister plucks three enchanted blossoms. |
| 61 | * "Literature/TheThreeLittleMenInTheWood": The main character does not want to go into the woods near her house because she would freeze to death. Said woodlands are also inhabited by dangerous magical beings. |
| 62 | * "Literature/TheTurnipPrincess": The prince follows a bad pathway which takes him to a thick wood where he becomes hopelessly lost. Seeking shelter in a cave, he finds several cursed creatures, one of them unwilling to let him go. |
| 63 | [[/folder]] |
| 64 | |
| 65 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 66 | * ''Fanfic/AtTheEdgeOfLasglen'': The inhabitants of Lasg'len stay out of the forest at the edge of the village. Those who stray in tend to come back out with no memory of what went on inside, and there have been stories about the Elves that live there for centuries. As it turns out, the stories are totally true. |
| 67 | * ''Fanfic/LucysSecret'': Lucy's dream at the beginning features Edwin the vampire living in a Transylvanian forest. |
| 68 | * ''Fanfic/AMinorMiscalculation'': Satsuki is eventually forced to track down [[spoiler: the [[HumanoidAbomination berserk-form]] Ryuko]] in the middle of Aokigahara. The setting gives her great anxiety even before [[spoiler: Ryuko springs out and nearly kills her]]. |
| 69 | * ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'': In the Agatha & Sam Gaiden sidestory, the titular characters have to venture in the Drowning Woods at the base of Mt. Silver when Agatha's younger brother runs off on his own. Like the above example, it's also based on Aokigahara and infested with evil Ghost-types. |
| 70 | * ''Fanfic/{{Popped}}'': Rainbow Dash and Applejack venture into a dense forest in an effort to find a missing Pinkie Pie. [[spoiler:Things don't exactly end well for either of them.]] |
| 71 | * ''Roleplay/WeAreAllPokemonTrainers'': Tagg lives next door to an area known as the Sea of Trees, which happens to be based on Aokigahara, the forest infamous for being the second-most popular spot for suicides in the world. It's infested with Ghost types and the souls of those who have died in the forest. |
| 72 | [[/folder]] |
| 73 | |
| 74 | [[folder:Film -- Animation]] |
| 75 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad'': The Headless Horseman sequence from ''Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow'' segment. Discovering that Ichabod's weakness is superstition, Brom Bones decides to sing the tale of the legendary Headless Horseman to scare him. The horseman supposedly travels the dark, spooky woods on Halloween each year, searching for a living head to replace the one which he has lost. The only way to escape the ghost is to cross a covered bridge. On his ride home through the woods, he is pursued by the HeadlessHorseman. After being chased through the forest and nearly decapitated, Ichabod, remembering Brom's advice, rides across the covered bridge to stop the ghost's pursuit. But as he looks back to see his ghostly pursuer vanish, the horseman stops and throws a jack-o'-lantern at him. |
| 76 | * ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'': In one scene, Maurice accidentally takes the wrong turn in a forest, heading down an ominous-looking path rather than the brighter looking path. It's not long before his horse gets spooked and runs away, leaving him to be pursued by hungry wolves. Later, after leaving the Beast's castle when frightened and rushing into the woods, Belle encounters the same wolves who would've killed her had the Beast not shown up to save her. |
| 77 | * ''Animation/MavkaTheForestSong'': The villagers don't go in the forest Mavka and the other {{Nature Spirit}}s inhabit, for they believe them to be demons. They're not, but some like [[OurSirensAreDifferent Ondina]] can be very territorial and eager to defend the local nature out of bad past experiences with humans. |
| 78 | * ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'': The dark forest sequence can be considered a subversion, given how all of what Snow White thought were monstrous trees (due to PoorlyLitPareidolia) turn out to just be cute little woodland critters, though not before briefly appearing to be animal monsters. |
| 79 | [[/folder]] |
| 80 | |
| 81 | [[folder:Film -- Live-Action]] |
| 82 | * ''Film/{{Antichrist}}'': A couple retreats to a cabin in the woods after their baby falls out of the window while they are having sex. There, the wife goes AxCrazy, hits her husband in the testicles and attaches a millstone to his leg, and then cuts her clitoris off. He's forced to kill her and burn her corpse. Something to do with a fox, a deer, and a bird. Also a more subtle, disturbing, and creepy take on the trope, as it manifests as ''evil acorns'', forest animal stillbirths, and waking up with ticks all over your hand even ''before'' the genital mutilation. |
| 83 | * ''Film/BewareTheWoods'': Don't go into the Colorado woods where a [[EvilOldFolks murderous old lady]] resides. And especially don't go [[spoiler:if she thinks you look like her dead daughter]]. |
| 84 | * In ''Film/TheBlairWitchProject'', the evil in the woods of Burkittsville is never explicitly shown or explained, but it involves a dead child killer, the ghosts of the children he killed, and a witch or hairy creature that can mimic the voice of her victims. [[ApocalypticLog Things don't go well]] for a trio of film students who get lost in the woods. |
| 85 | * ''Film/TheBurning'': Cropsy's main killing spree starts when the campers go on an overnight canoe trip and are camping in the deep woods. |
| 86 | * ''Film/CabinFever'': The kids go on a trip to a cabin in the woods and contract a flesh-eating disease. |
| 87 | %%* ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'': The movie focuses on this trope and -- as its name points out -- the cabin in the woods. |
| 88 | * ''Film/CappsCrossing'': Specifically, don't go into a part of the woods called "Capps Crossing", even if you're lead there tracking a geocache. David will kill anyone he finds there. |
| 89 | * ''Film/AClassicHorrorStory'': A group of carpoolers are driving through the Southern Italian forest when they swerve to avoid a corpse in the road, crash into a tree, and find themselves in a field with a house, being harassed by MalevolentMaskedMen who want to sacrifice them all. [[spoiler:Or rather, don't go in the woods with Fabrizio, unless you want to die in his latest SnuffFilm.]] |
| 90 | * ''Film/{{Clawed}}'': In this movie, there's a local legend about Bear Claw Mountain being inhabited by a creature known as The Shadow Of Death, who kills anyone that traspasses on its habitat. Said legends are 100% completely true. |
| 91 | %%* ''Film/TheDeadLands'': The titular Dead Lands are described as a forbidden, scary place. |
| 92 | * ''Film/DeadNight'' takes place around a cabin inside the snowy Oregon woods wherein a HumanoidAbomination is plotting something sinister. Predictably, people die. |
| 93 | * ''Film/TheDecline'': A group of survivalists go to an isolated cabin in the forests of northern Quebec belonging to a survival instructor called Alain for a two-week training exercise. After one of them dies in an accident; Alain and an ally start hunting down the group who want to report the death to the authorities as they try to get out of the woods. Also, Alain has filled the area near his cabin with traps. |
| 94 | * ''Film/{{Deliverance}}'': Four yuppies go on a canoeing trip in the backwoods of Georgia and run afoul of the local hillbillies. One of them gets raped, another dies when going over a waterfall, and the three left alive have to defend themselves from a sniper up on a cliff. |
| 95 | * ''Film/Desolation2017'': Abby, her son Sam, and her friend Jen all go hiking in the woods to spread Abby's dead husband's ashes from the top of a mountain. After that, they get stalked by a [[TheVoiceless quiet]] hiker that Sam spotted across the lake from them earlier. |
| 96 | * ''Film/DogSoldiers'': A bunch of British marines on a training exercise in the forest get attacked by a pack of werewolves and are forced to hole up in a cottage, which turns out to be [[spoiler:owned by one of the werewolves themselves]]. |
| 97 | * ''Film/DontGoInTheWoods'', about a group of campers who venture into the woods and come face to face with a deranged killer. |
| 98 | * ''Film/EdenLake'' has a young couple go to the English countryside, where they're set upon by a deranged band of children and teenagers. [[spoiler:It turns out their parents in the nearby town are even more deranged]]. |
| 99 | * ''Film/EvilBreedTheLegendOfSamhain'': The first people killed by the CannibalClan are an American couple camping in the woods. Later the CrustyCaretaker Gary keeps telling the students to not go in the woods after dark, and to keep to the paths. [[spoiler:His concern seems a trifle misplaced as the cannibals have no issue with leaving the woods in search of victims.]] |
| 100 | * ''Film/TheEvilDead1981'', where a group of college students go to a cabin in the woods and accidentally unleash demons from a TomeOfEldritchLore. [[WhenTreesAttack Tree rape]], DemonicPossession, and (eventually) TimeTravel ensue. |
| 101 | * ''Film/TheFactsInTheCaseOfMisterHollow'': The woods of northern Ontario are where a SecretCircleOfSecrets[=/=]MysteryCult get up to the dirty business of worshiping ancient death-goddesses, and its heavily implied that HumanSacrifice is a part of that worship, as an OccultDetective examines a seemingly innocuous [[SpookyPhotographs photo]] of a group on a camping trip. |
| 102 | * ''Film/Feral2017'' is about six teenagers who go on a camping trip, and then have to hide with some guy in his house from some kind of vicious creature [[spoiler:who's really the man's infected son]]. |
| 103 | * ''Film/TheFieldGuideToEvil'': "Beware the Melonheads" is based on legends of a CannibalTribe of children with enlarged craniums supposed to dwell in the north woods of America. A family rents a cabin deep in the woods to relax and refresh their family ties. When the young son says he has met [[NotSoImaginaryFriend a strange boy in the woods]], the parents dismiss it as his imagination. And then the son goes missing... |
| 104 | * ''Film/TheFinalTerror'' is set in a forest where a killer with a messy hair chases campers. |
| 105 | * In ''Film/ForceOfNatureTheDry2'', five women take part in a corporate hiking retreat and only four come out on the other side. |
| 106 | * ''Film/TheForest1982'': Crazy cannibal hermit hunts people for food. There are also ghosts. |
| 107 | * ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'': Two-thirds of the installments, where generations of teenagers visit the infamous forestbound Camp Crystal Lake and/or its environs, and come up against the vengeful, hulking zombie of a drowned boy named Jason Voorhees (or [[MamaBear his equally vengeful mother]], or some [[LegacyCharacter random copycat killer]]). They're always being warned. They always ignore the warnings. They always lose the use of vital organs. |
| 108 | * ''Film/{{Grizzly}}'': A T-rex-sized bear makes life hell for the campers and rangers of the national park it decides to turn into its stomping ground. At one point, a female ranger who is supposed to be keeping watch for it decides to go off trail into the woods to soak her feet in a stream, which segues into her taking a waterfall shower in her skivvies. The bear appears and FanDisservice ensues. |
| 109 | * ''Film/GrizzlyRage'': Four college students drive into the woods and quickly get targeted by a vengeful mutated bear. |
| 110 | * ''Film/Halloween5TheRevengeOfMichaelMyers'': Michael Myers chases the protagonists into an eerie, foggy woodlands with a car. When he crashes the car, he gets out completely unscathed and proceeds to stalk the victims through the forest with a butcher knife. |
| 111 | * ''Film/HouseOfWax2005'': A bunch of teenagers, on a road trip to catch a football game, wind up in a seemingly deserted town in the middle of a forest, and fall prey to a pair of serial killers who turn all who come there into wax statues. |
| 112 | * ''Film/JustBeforeDawn'': A bunch of twenty-somethings camp out deep in the woods and meet death at the hands of [[spoiler:two killers]]. |
| 113 | * ''Film/LemonTreePassage'': Most of the action takes place in dense bush at night, when the protagonists go searching for their missing friends and become easy prey for the malevolent force looking to pick them off. |
| 114 | * ''Film/LesbianVampireKillers'': Two down-on-their-luck young men go to the forests of Britain for a holiday and end up holed up in a cottage under siege by {{Lesbian Vampire}}s. |
| 115 | * ''Film/LetterNeverSent'': Four geologists travel deep into the Siberian wilderness to hunt for diamonds, only to be caught in a harrowing struggle for survival after the forest catches fire. |
| 116 | * ''Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark'' hits this in the third act when the characters have to cross the ''[[TerrifyingTyrannosaur Tyrannosaurus]]'' and ''[[RaptorAttack Velociraptor]]'' territories to reach the old camp in the center of the island. Ironically, the moment the trope is played the most straight is when one of them leaves the group to go to the toilet and gets killed by a ZergRush of ''[[KillerRabbit Compsognathus]]''. |
| 117 | * ''Film/{{Madman}}'': Most of the "killer prowling for his prey" scenes happen in the forest surrounding the camp where the main cast work as counselors. |
| 118 | * ''Film/MothersDay'': A trio of women go on a camping trip, only to be abducted by a family of psychopaths. |
| 119 | * ''Film/MyLittleSister'': The woods in which Tom and Sheila are camping with their friends are the stomping grounds of a man known as "Little Sister". If he catches people in his woods, he takes them to his home to torture them, cut off their faces to find a new face for his father...'s dead body, and also kill them. |
| 120 | * ''Film/NightOfTheDemon'': Holden breaks into Karswell's estate house late at night looking for crucial information and is found out. Karwsell suggests he leave by the front door and out the drive, but Holden insists he'll go back through the woods he came through. As he leaves Karswell sighs "I ''told'' him not to go through the woods...he just wouldn't listen!" Holden encounters...''something'' in the dark... |
| 121 | * ''Film/NobodySleepsInTheWoodsTonight'': The film follows a group of teenagers who've been sent to a camp to get away from technology. They go on a three-day hike in the woods, and end up running into a pair of murderous twins [[spoiler:who are possessed by some kind of black alien sludge]]. |
| 122 | * ''Film/PansLabyrinth'': In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a little girl whose mother is married to a fascist captain goes with her mother and stepfather to a retreat in the forest, where she gets wound up in (possibly imaginary) antics involving the fauns and fairies who live about the estate, discovering the secret to her past in the process. [[spoiler:Ultimately subverted in that the forest-dwelling fey creatures are good, despite being incredibly creepy.]] |
| 123 | * ''Film/PicnicAtHangingRock'', more of a MindScrew than most such movies. A teacher and group of students venture into the Australian wilderness on a picnic. ''Something'' out there claims the girls one by one, and they're never seen again. Sort of an OlderThanTheyThink take on ''Film/TheBlairWitchProject''. |
| 124 | * ''Film/PigHunt'': The protagonists' pursuit into the woods takes them through fields of marijuana and into the muddy landscape of Big Wallow, involving weaponry, the violent Tibbs brothers, tortured animals, a kukri-toting hippie, vengeful rednecks, and throat-slitting young women who grow pot by day and worship the giant boar at night. |
| 125 | * ''Film/{{Preservation}}'': A woman, her husband, and her brother-in-law go on a hunting trip in a state forest: ignoring the signs saying that the park is closed. Overnight, all of their gear is stolen and the trio find themselves being stalked by a group of maniacs bent on HuntingTheMostDangerousGame. |
| 126 | * ''Film/{{Prophecy}}'': The main cast are stuck in a forest in Maine ([[CaliforniaDoubling actually Canada]]) which is home to a killer bear that has been mutated by pollution from a local paper mill. |
| 127 | * ''Film/TheRedwoodMassacre'' is about a bunch of teenagers going to spend the weekend at an infamous murder site, only to end up at the mercy of a SackheadSlasher. |
| 128 | * ''Film/TheRitual'' features four friends taking a hike in Sweden to honor the memory of a fifth recently deceased friend. They decide to take a shortcut through a forest. Unfortunately, said forest is home to [[spoiler: an ancient Nordic god monster, possibly a daughter of Loki, and a village of people that worship her and give her human sacrifices.]] |
| 129 | * ''Film/{{Rituals}}'' centers around five friends who go on a camping trip into the isolated Canadian wilderness, only to find themselves methodically hunted and picked off one-by-one by a disfigured hermit. |
| 130 | * ''Film/{{Rovdyr}}'': Four friends (for given values of friendship) plan a weekend hiking trip in the woods of Norway's far north. On the way there, they are abducted and knocked unconscious. When they wake up, they discover that have dumped deep in the woods and are now the prey for someone who is HuntingTheMostDangerousGame. |
| 131 | * ''Film/RustCreek'': A Kentucky college student makes the mistake of taking a detour through some forested back roads and getting lost. She runs afoul of some HillbillyHorrors who take advantage of the fact that they are miles from civilization. |
| 132 | * ''Film/{{Shrooms}}'' follows a group of American students and their English guide who are stalked by a SerialKiller while out in the woods looking for psilocybin mushrooms in an isolated Irish forest. The killer might be real, a ghost, or just the product of their mushroom-induced hallucinations. |
| 133 | * ''Film/SimonSays'' involves a typical scenario of a group of teens deliberately looking for a remote location with bad history. Two strange guys tell them a story of a couple of twins, one of whom goes AxeCrazy and kills the other twin and their parents. The teens then meet a creepy long-nosed store owner (obviously, the same AxeCrazy twin) and head to the woods. Needless to say, the guy starts attacking them. There is another group of campers (adults, this time) who are killed by him in-between killing the teens. |
| 134 | * ''Film/SleepawayCamp''. Set primarily in [[SummerCampy a summer camp]] in Upstate New York, but at one point bunch of kids and a counselor venture into the woods. Most of the kids never came back. |
| 135 | * ''WesternAnimation/StrangeMagic'': The fairies and elves are warned to not go into the dark forest or they'll be locked away forever by [[EvilOverLord the Bog King]]. |
| 136 | * ''Film/TheresNothingOutThere'', complete with Lampshade Hangings a-plenty. There's even a scene where a van load of kids from a different movie show up. |
| 137 | -->"Isn't this the camp by the lake?"\ |
| 138 | "No! This is the cottage by the pond!" |
| 139 | * ''Film/{{Ticks}}'' has ticks mutated by herbal steroids swarming a forest. |
| 140 | * ''Film/TimberFalls'': A couple goes camping in the mountains and falls prey to a pair of deranged [[TheFundamentalist fundamentalist]] religious maniacs. |
| 141 | * In the cowboy movie ''Film/TrackOfTheCat'', Creator/RobertMitchum and his brother go out into a snowy forest to hunt down a mountain lion that has been preying on their cattle, and which Mitchum's character believes might be a supernatural creature. Not a horror film, but the hunt goes very badly for both of them. |
| 142 | * ''Film/TuckerAndDaleVsEvil'' parodies the trope: The preppy college kids camping in the woods ''think'' the hillbillies inhabiting in a rundown shack in the wilds belong here; in fact, it's their 'holiday home', they're fixing it up, and most of the confusion stems mainly from the college kids being prejudiced, elitist WrongGenreSavvy snobs who misinterpret the motives of the in-fact quite friendly and harmless (if not incredibly bright) hillbillies. It doesn't stop a lot of them dying in hilariously gory ways, however. Tucker and Dale even believe that the kids are part of some deranged murder-suicide pact. |
| 143 | * ''Film/TheVillage2004'' had this, with people being warned to stay out of the woods because of the monsters. When the girl protagonist goes to get help, she gets chased by them. [[spoiler:They turn out to be not real, but she only finds that out later]]. |
| 144 | * ''Film/TheVirginSpring'': Two young Swedish women enter the spooky forest. They encounter a creepy old man in a cabin who might be Odin. Then one of them is raped and murdered by a pair of shepherds. |
| 145 | * ''Film/TheWatcherInTheWoods'', where a summer in the forest turns into an encounter with a wandering spirit and forces from another dimension. |
| 146 | * ''Film/{{Welp}}'' involves a Belgian Cub Scout troop going into French woods, where one of the Scouts begins to suspect a [[WildChild feral boy]] is stalking them. He's right to a degree, [[FromBadToWorse but it's actually a whole lot worse...]] |
| 147 | * ''Film/TheWidow2020'': The movie is about a rescue team in the year 2017 searching the forest near the town of St. Petersburg for a missing teenager named Nikita. The woods are infamous in the town for being haunted by a vengeful spirit called "The Lame Widow", who's known for taking people who wander into the forest, and what few she returns being stark naked when found. No points for guessing for what they run afoul of while out there. |
| 148 | * ''Film/TheWindmillMassacre'': The tourists have to trek through the woods to reach the mill after their bus breaks down (and falls into a canal). Most of the deaths occur in the woods rather than the mill. |
| 149 | * ''Film/TheWitch'': A puritan family in [[SalemIsWitchCountry 1630s New England]] become convinced that they are being tormented by a WickedWitch who lives in the woods outside their farm. Eventually, however, the horror moves out of the woods and into their home. The movie ends with [[spoiler: the eldest daughter, and probably the last surviving family member, walking into the woods to become another witch after making a DealWithTheDevil.]] |
| 150 | * ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' has the spooky forest around the Witch's castle, with a sign famously reading "I'd turn back if I were you!" |
| 151 | * ''Film/WrongTurn'' has a group of teenagers (and a former medical student) run into inbred cannibal hillbillies in the woods. The setting was also carried into the first two sequels, ''Film/WrongTurn2DeadEnd'' and ''Film/WrongTurn3LeftForDead''. |
| 152 | * ''Film/YouMightBeTheKiller'' is set at a remote woodlands camp, 25 miles from the nearest town, which comes under attack by a slasher villain. |
| 153 | [[/folder]] |
| 154 | |
| 155 | [[folder:Jokes]] |
| 156 | * An old joke: A man and a young boy are walking through a forest. The boy says, "I'm scared." The man replies, "''You're'' scared? I'm the one who has to walk back on my own!" |
| 157 | [[/folder]] |
| 158 | |
| 159 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 160 | %%* A recurring theme in the works of Creator/AlgernonBlackwood. |
| 161 | * ''Literature/Afterglow2015'': Shannon and her friends, Drew and Marcy encounter an entity who gave them life-changing hallucinations 25 years before the story begins, in the Olympic National Forest. Shannon is still tormented by small-scale hallucinations, while [[spoiler:Marcy dies before the story begins, and Drew goes crazy, eventually becoming Godhead]]. It's also where Josie's second confrontation with Godhead occurs. |
| 162 | * ''Literature/Alice2014'': The woods around the town are implied to be full of monsters, while Christopher only encounters a few in the town, and they [[NothingIsScarier usually aren't seen, just heard.]] |
| 163 | * ''Literature/DarkAngel1996'': While walking home from school beside the woods, Gillian hears a child crying from somewhere in the trees. It's freezing and getting dark, so against her better judgment Gillian heads into the woods to find what she assumes is a lost kid. While searching near the creek, Gillian ends up falling in and almost drowns, then dies of hypothermia (she gets better and meets her supposed GuardianAngel there). [[spoiler:It's later revealed Angel was the one crying like a child to lure Gillian into the woods]]. Gillian also recalls that a local child named Paula [[MissingChild went missing]] in the woods a year ago [[spoiler:and it turns out her body is buried in the woods, after Angel accidentally killed her while performing a dangerous spell (he'd in fact gone out to the woods to do the spell specifically ''because'' he thought it would be safer)]]. |
| 164 | * ''Literature/FangsOfEndearment'', a Creator/DaveBarry ''[[Literature/TheTwilightSaga Twilight]]'' parody: One character tries to warn the protagonist (who, in a deliberate show of GenreBlindness, decides to grab the IdiotBall instead) not to go into the woods, and describes how a lot of hikers have died mysterious, violent deaths there recently: |
| 165 | -->"I mean, sure, we usually get two or three violent-dismemberment hiker deaths a week around here; that's going on as long as anybody can remember. But a hundred and fifty-eight dead in two days seems like a lot. Doc Smelkins examined all of the body pieces we were able to find, and he ruled out natural causes such as hookworm." |
| 166 | * ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: Spore'': The woods of Ithor, forbidden to outsiders on account of, among other reasons, carnivorous trees. Tash and Zak find out their ball has gone in there, and for once it's Zak who's inclined to be cautious and Tash who just goes in. |
| 167 | -->"It's so peaceful, [[TemptingFate I'm sure there's nothing dangerous here]]."\ |
| 168 | The sentence had barely left her mouth when [[WhenTreesAttack a bunch of vines wrapped themselves around Zak and pulled him into the air]]. |
| 169 | %% Zero Context * In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheGirlWhoLovedTomGordon'', the title character gets lost in the forests of LovecraftCountry. |
| 170 | * ''Literature/TheGraceYear'': The grace year girls are convinced that there are ghosts (not true) and wild animals (true) in the woods. The biggest danger to them is the poachers hunting them to sell their parts (believed to be magic) in the black market. One of the girls runs off into the woods to cry after being bullied, and ends up captured by a poacher. They can hear her screaming for hours. When the screaming stops, Tierney is relieved her suffering is over. |
| 171 | * ''Literature/TheGreatGodPan'': Some of Helen's earliest victims are driven to madness after going in the woods with her. (She is the daughter of the pagan nature deity Pan, who is depicted as a [[EldritchAbomination very dark force]].) |
| 172 | --> "Ah, mother, mother, why did you let me go in the forest with Helen?" |
| 173 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': The Forbidden Forest. The students are not allowed in for their own protection as the forest is host to a wide array of dangerous magical peoples and creatures, such as the [[ProudWarriorRace proud violent]] [[OurCentaursAreDifferent centaurs]] who consider the forest theirs to the exclusion of wizardkind and for whom "[[CategoryTraitor betrayals]]" like teaching human children are to be met with a [[PublicExecution painful execution]] and the [[ImAHumanitarian maneating]] [[GiantSpider Acromantula]]. |
| 174 | * ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'': |
| 175 | ** The Kingdom of Valdemar has the Forest of Sorrows; subverted in that though it certainly is dangerous... that's only if you have evil or cruel intent. A toddler would be safe in there but a group of bandits would get torn to pieces. |
| 176 | ** The Palegis forest has the Tayledras invoking this for many reasons. Including the fact it is actually a very dangerous place to be. |
| 177 | * The Doctor Who novel ''The Way Through The Woods'' has a forest that the locals try to avoid, even building roads that go kilometers out of their way to avoid it, because an alien [[OurWereBeastsAreDifferent werefox]] crashed his spaceship there thousands of years ago, and the damaged vessel caused time (and space) distortions, meaning people that go in never come out. They just end up going in circles until they die. Of course, the human population doesn't know most of this, they just know that no-one who went in ever came out. |
| 178 | * ''Literature/AHoleInTheFence'': The Epnoi Forest has been designated as a Forbidden Zone for generations, and its edges are relentlessly watched by patrol guards who stop intruders from entering and discovering what lies within the wood. |
| 179 | * ''Literature/TheHowling1977'': There are rumours that the heavily-wooded valley Drago resides in are haunted or cursed, with Karyn learning there have been many strange deaths and disappearances over the years and the locals from the surrounding towns give the area a wide berth. Karyn keeps hearing something howling in the woods and she's not convinced it's a coyote or an owl like Roy claims. Karyn's dog goes missing in the woods and Karyn finds her remains not far from the house, convincing her there's something dangerous out there. A young couple out on a hike are killed by a wolf on an isolated trail, raising more alarm bells for Karyn when she realises they're 'missing'. She soon shares Inez's belief a werewolf hunts in the valley... and ''hoo boy'' is she right. |
| 180 | * ''Literature/HowToSurviveAHorrorMovie'' has this as a RunningGag; it claims that going into the woods is basically the equivalent of painting a target on your back. |
| 181 | * ''Literature/TheInheritanceCycle'': The forests of the Spine. It's said that "though the trees were tall and the sun shone brightly, few people could stay in the Spine for long without suffering an accident." It's also mentioned that, around a hundred years before the current storyline, King Galbatorix lost half his army in there; it's eventually revealed in-story that this mass-disappearance was a huge ambush by [[OurOrcsAreDifferent the Urgals]] who inhabit the Spine, leading to a total rout of the soldiers, and the Urgals are a bit miffed that no one knew this. |
| 182 | * ''Literature/LoneHuntress'': Everyone on Gaia already lives in the woods (because almost the entirety of the planet's sole continent is given over to a massive rain forest with kilometer high trees), but they prefer to live in the canopy layer, deemed relatively safe in comparison to the understory and the floor. Trips to the floor are regarded as so dangerous that survivors traditionally receive a tattoo to mark their courage. |
| 183 | * ''Literature/NowhereStars'': Forests and wilderness are the domain of [[EldritchAbomination Harbingers]], nightmare creatures that feed on human suffering. In the cities, where Harbingers have to contend with [[MagicalGirl Keepers]], they confine themselves to [[PocketDimension Wounds]], only emerging to ambush or hunt humans from the shadows. In the forests, they don't bother, wandering openly and making war on each other. You could wander into one's territory and not even know it until reality starts twisting around you into a nightmare, and by then it's usually too late. |
| 184 | * ''Literature/{{Messenger}}'': [[SettingAsACharacter Forest]] decides to kill people, seemingly at random -- and that's on a good day. It becomes even more malevolent to reflect the personalities of Village's inhabitants. |
| 185 | * ''Literature/TheMinpins'': The Forest of Sin. Truth be told, the only really threatening thing in the forest is the fiery Red-Hot Smoke-Belching Gruncher, and it becomes much more calm once he's been dealt with. |
| 186 | * ''Literature/TheMonsterBed'': The narrator warns the reader against the Withering Wood, claiming that an assortment of fearsome creatures live there (gnomes, trolls, fairies, pixies, and Dennis and his mother). |
| 187 | * ''Literature/{{Once}}'': By his cottage childhood home of Little Bracken, Thom Kindred, on a nostalgic walk through the woods, is steered, by soil-disgorged leering dwarfs, into a wasps' nest. Later [[InvertedTrope inverted]], when Thom learns most of the forest-dwelling ''[[OurFairiesAreDifferent faerefolkis]]'' to be benevolent. |
| 188 | * ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'': |
| 189 | ** The Forest is filled with carnivorous trees, wolverines and nasty witches, and not a place to enter without caution. [[spoiler: Septimus and Nicko get almost killed in ''Flyte'' in this Forest]]. |
| 190 | ** In ''Queste'', the forests of the Low Countries are also implied to be dangerous. |
| 191 | * ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': The prologue of the first book and several chapters of the later ones take place in the Haunted Forest just North of the Wall. Already dangerous due to the bitterly cold climate and the tribes of hostile barbarians living there, the woods beyond the wall become even more dangerous [[spoiler:due to the arrival of Others and their army of the dead]]. |
| 192 | * ''Literature/TheSwordOfShannara'': We don't recommend heading into the Black Oaks. There's wolves in there. Ironically, in trying to avoid it, the main characters stumble into the wraith-haunted [[SwampsAreEvil Mist Marsh]]. |
| 193 | %%Zero Context* Lois Lowry's ''Autumn Street'' is a children's book, not a horror story. But this trope definitely applies to [[spoiler:Charles]] near the end. |
| 194 | * ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': |
| 195 | ** Mirkwood, haunted by a weakened shade of Sauron and a swarm of {{giant spider}}s. There are Wood-Elves living there, but they come across as far more sinister than many of the other elves in Middle-Earth. |
| 196 | ** The Old Forest on the borders of the Shire, which is intelligent and actively hostile, as a result of being one of the last survivors (along with Mirkwood and Fangorn) of the old-growth forests that once covered most of the continent, the rest having largely been destroyed by Sauron's armies and by human expansion during the Second Age. It's full of thorny bushes that let people deeper into the forest but close up when they try to leave, it's actively tried to expand into settled land in the past, and in its depths waits [[WhenTreesAttack Old Man Willow]]... |
| 197 | ** Fangorn Forest had a pretty bad reputation, probably due to the Ents' (a race of ultimately benevolent, though still dangerous, [[{{Treants}} tree-people]]) proclivity for taking down anything that might be a threat. Even Aragorn was wary of it. It's mostly due to the Huorns, trees that have woken up or Ents that have almost turned into trees (the process seems to go both ways). They aren't very intelligent, but they can move -- as fast as bullet train if needed -- and aggressively pursue anything they perceive as a threat if there are no Ents around to herd them. |
| 198 | ** In the First Age there was the Forest Elf realm of Doriath. Technically, it was one of the safest places at the time in Middle-Earth due to a magical barrier created by its Queen Melian, meaning evil creatures couldn't enter. However, the barrier meant people who weren't invited would often get lost in the woods and die. Similar to Babes in the Wood, the twin princes Eluréd and Elurín are abandoned in the woods by the servants of Celegorm when the sons of Fëanor sacked Doriath and their father King Dior was killed. Fëanor's eldest son Maedhros repented and tried to find them but was unable to. It is left unclear what happened to them, though there is a story that says the birds and beasts led them to safety. |
| 199 | ** ''Literature/TheChildrenOfHurin'': The woods of Brethil are dangerous due to the large band of outlaws living there, the Gaurwaith (Sindarin for Wolf-Men). When he joined them, Turin made the wood dangerous for orcs by turning the outlaws into LaResistance. |
| 200 | * ''Literature/{{Uprooted}}'': The Wood is a living, malevolent ''thing'' that corrupts or kills all who enter. People or animals who return tend to lose their minds, become violent, and often mutate. Worse, [[GeniusLoci it's sapient]], able to use its corruption to manipulate events far beyond its borders. Naturally, people avoid it like the plague -- which would be easier if it weren't also actively expansionistic. |
| 201 | * ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Kittypets (house cats) are terrified of the woods, and tell stories about the savage wildcats that eat bones and the dangerous animals that live out there. Most feel that if you go into the woods, you won't come out, but some of them do like to explore there from time to time, and some actually join the Clans of cats that live out there. |
| 202 | * ''Literature/TheWindInTheWillows'': Mole impulsively decides to visit Mr. Badger's house by himself after Rat evasively discourages the idea several times -- he finds out the hard way that the Wild Wood is not a safe place for small creatures to travel alone. |
| 203 | * "[[Creator/NathanielHawthorne Young Goodman Brown]]": The protagonist goes into the woods, and he sees his wife [[MeaningfulName Faith]]'s [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic pink ribbon]]. He meets up with a LouisCypher and sees that Faith has joined a Satanic cult, along with several other supposedly upstanding members of their Puritan community. |
| 204 | [[/folder]] |
| 205 | |
| 206 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 207 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E9ItTakesYouAway "It Takes You Away"]], the blind girl Hanne warns the Doctor and her companions about a mysterious monster in the woods near her cottage, which took her father away. Terrifying roaring sounds back up her argument. [[spoiler:It turns out to be ''invoked'' by Hanne's missing father, Erik, who set up a speaker system outside to play the roars on a loop to keep his daughter from, well, going in the woods while he was on the other side of a dimensional portal.]] |
| 208 | * ''Series/KamenRiderGaim'': The Helheim forest in perpetually is very dangerous, infested with Inves monsters and fruits that turn unfortunate saps into monsters if eaten. It's best to travel in groups when going through this world. And also, there is a [[spoiler: ruined city in there.]] |
| 209 | * ''Series/LostTapes'': various forests are a common setting of this found-footage horror series, and it usually ends badly for the characters featured in those episodes. "Southern Sasquatch", "Dover Demon", "Devil Monkey", "Wendigo: American Cannibal," and "Beast of Bray Road" all take place in woodlands and have high death tolls, though [[spoiler: "Bigfoot", "Thunderbird", "Mothman", and "Jersey Devil"]] have few to no fatalities. For a given metric of "forest", the episodes "Swamp Creature" and "Devil Dragon" take place in a forested swamp and a rainforest, respectively. |
| 210 | * ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S1E11UnderTheBed Under the Bed]]", many generations of parents told their children not to play in the woods outside Buford. It turns out that there is a child-snatching monster living in them. |
| 211 | * ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'': Invoked, as the people of Briarwood are superstitious about the nearby woods. It turns out that the woods ''is'' home to a number of inhuman mystical beings... but they turn out to be pretty friendly for the most part. Just what they were so afraid of is a good question subject to WildMassGuessing (there are several quite plausible possibilities, none stated in-show). Though this was not ultimately kept in the series, the ads showed that the magical forest creatures were equally afraid to go into the city. The final episode has both sides overcome their mutual superstitious fears... which [[PlotHole weren't actually in the series proper]]. |
| 212 | * ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': In the [[Recap/RevolutionS1E1Pilot pilot]], Charlie and her brother have been repeatedly told not to go wandering because "it's not safe out there", despite being in their late teens/early 20s and obviously able to handle themselves. JustifiedTrope in that we don't know whether or not bandits or wild animals beyond the capability of Charlie's crossbow to take down are in the woods. And the militia appears to be just as bad of a threat, if not worse. The militia may have also imposed restrictions on how far ordinary citizens are allowed to range from their homesteads, just as Medieval serfs (and plantation slaves in the pre-Civil War South) were bound to the estates of their masters. Get caught without a pass and you may ''wish'' the bear had eaten you first... |
| 213 | * ''Series/{{Strange}}'': In "Dubik", an evil presence lurks within the trees in a forest in Eastern Europe -- a forest from which wood ends up being shipped abroad. |
| 214 | * ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': In [[Recap/SupernaturalS01E02Wendigo "Wendigo"]], campers disappear in in the Lost Creek Wilderness. |
| 215 | * ''Series/{{Taken}}'': In "Acid Tests", Louise Rankin frequently tells her daughter Wendy not to go into the woods because of the HalfHumanHybrid Lester. [[spoiler: Ironically, when Wendy does wander into the woods in search of her dog Champ, Lester tends to her after she falls out of a tree and breaks her leg.]] |
| 216 | * ''Series/TwinPeaks'': The aptly-named Ghostwood Forest around the town, which contains a portal to the hellish Black Lodge, and is creeping with vaguely-defined evil and [[OminousOwl terrifying demonic owls]]. |
| 217 | * ''Series/TheXFiles'': |
| 218 | ** "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E20DarknessFalls Darkness Falls]]" is about Mulder and Scully's nice trip to the woods -- or so Mulder thought at first. Not only do they have to deal with eco-terrorists who sabotage their car, radio, and other equipment, but they discover that certain mysterious and deadly bugs are responsible for loggers' deaths. They nearly don't make it out. |
| 219 | ** "[[Recap/TheXFilesS05E04Detour Detour]]": Mulder and Scully face "moth men" -- predatory creatures who are barely visible and who try to protect their space. Several people get lost in the woods, and the creatures also come back for those who have been in their territory. Mulder and Scully are stranded in the woods and discover a creepy pit with human bodies and injured people. |
| 220 | [[/folder]] |
| 221 | |
| 222 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 223 | * The plot of Rob Cantor's song "[[Music/ShiaLaBeoufLive Shia LaBeouf]]" begins when the protagonist gets lost in the woods with a [[CellPhonesAreUseless non-functioning phone]]. It's unfortunate that the eponymous "actual cannibal" lives there. |
| 224 | %%* Music/TheCogIsDead: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9MlmEx8sA4 "Never Go Into the Woods"]]:%%Quotes aren't acceptable context. |
| 225 | %%-->There's danger lurking just outside\ |
| 226 | %%But no need to be terrified\ |
| 227 | %%This simple advice can be applied:\ |
| 228 | %%NEVER GO INTO THE WOODS! |
| 229 | * Music/TheKinks song "Wicked Annabella" warns: |
| 230 | -->Don't go into the woods tonight\ |
| 231 | 'cause underneath the sticks and stones\ |
| 232 | are lots of little demons enslaved by Annabella\ |
| 233 | waitin' just to carry you home |
| 234 | * Music/QueensOfTheStoneAge: |
| 235 | ** "Someone's in the Wolf": "Once you're lost in twilight's blue, you don't find the way, the way finds you". |
| 236 | ** "Mosquito Song" implies that the cannibals are waiting in the forest. |
| 237 | * A song by the Swedish techno-bluegrass band Music/{{Rednex}}, called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1xueTp9gfk "Is he alive"]] tells about a HumanoidAbomination that plays the fiddle and hides in a mine in the woods. |
| 238 | * "The Teddy Bears' Picnic"; especially the last verse: |
| 239 | -->If you go down in the woods today you better not go alone\ |
| 240 | It's lovely down in the woods today but safer to stay at home\ |
| 241 | For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain\ |
| 242 | Because today's the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic |
| 243 | * A song from Finnish heavy-metal band, Music/{{Terasbetoni}}, is called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUHYOBoZHU0 "Älä mene metsään"]] ("Don't go in the woods"). |
| 244 | * The music video of ''Voracity'' by Japanese pop-rock band ''Myth & Roid'' shows a rabbit mask-wearing HumanoidAbomination haunting [[EldritchLocation creepy woods]]. Later, it starts pursuing a little girl that entered the place in manner reminiscent of ''Film/{{Juon}}'' and does ''[[NothingIsScarier something]]'' to her when it catches up. |
| 245 | [[/folder]] |
| 246 | |
| 247 | [[folder:Mythology & Religion]] |
| 248 | * Myth/NorseMythology: The Iron Woods, full of trolls, [[OurTitansAreDifferent jötnar]], witches, giant wolves, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs jötunn witches who shapeshift into giant wolves.]] |
| 249 | [[/folder]] |
| 250 | |
| 251 | [[folder:Pinball]] |
| 252 | * ''Pinball/IronMaidenLegacyOfTheBeast'': The mode "Fear of the Dark" displays the viewpoint of a person fleeing a shadowy creature with GlowingEyesOfDoom in a [[OminousFog foggy]] forest. |
| 253 | [[/folder]] |
| 254 | |
| 255 | [[folder:Podcasts]] |
| 256 | * ''Podcast/BinaryBreak'' has the Witch Woods, which have gained a reputation lately for having monsters prowling within them. Ironically, when they actually find Witchmon, she herself attacks them because of those same rumours and accuses them of being said monsters. |
| 257 | * ''Podcast/TheFallenGods'' has the Shoiken Grove that grows around the Tower of Sorcery in Palanthis. It’s said to be cursed, as everyone who enters is never seen again. [[spoiler: They're populated by living shadow monsters, and even if the adventurers manage to reach the Tower there are even worse horrors awaiting them]]. |
| 258 | * ''Podcast/InStrangeWoods'' has a mundane version of this trope, as the Whitetail National Forest is vast, deep, and easy to get lost in on good days, and when coupled with snowstorms, this results in Jacob's death. |
| 259 | * ''Podcast/{{Tanis}}'' takes place in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The titular EldritchLocation is said to be located somewhere within those woods and has a pronounced effect on those who go into it or even get too close. Many of the tales told during episodes feature men and women turning homicidal and/or suicidal after exposure to it, ranging from random fur trappers in the nineteenth century to Charles Manson. |
| 260 | [[/folder]] |
| 261 | |
| 262 | [[folder:Stand-Up Comedy]] |
| 263 | * Creator/JimGaffigan: If you ever get up to go to the bathroom at night while you're camping, you might as well say to your friends "Nice knowin' ya! You want to get killed with me, or do you want the SerialKiller to get you when you come looking for me?" |
| 264 | %%* Creator/EddieIzzard did a similar routine once. |
| 265 | %%-->Let's go camping in ''the Forest of Death and Blood!'' |
| 266 | * Creator/NormMacDonald has a bit where he notes that nothing good ever happens in the woods and that no [[MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome missing girl]] ever comes bounding out of the woods perfectly fine. |
| 267 | [[/folder]] |
| 268 | |
| 269 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 270 | * ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': Forests are the home of green dragons, {{manipulative bastard}}s who deceive foes and reveal their true colors to lesser beings. Other inhabitants include larger and more dangerous versions of real-world animals such as dire bears, dire wolves, and dire boars. |
| 271 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Summerland}}'' has the Sea of Leaves, a [[EnchantedForest supernatural forest]] that spontaneously covered the world one day. Travel through it from the few communities left is extremely ill-advised since the psychic Call it emanates causes any human who hasn't suffered massive emotional trauma to degenerate into one of the mad hermits or the [[CannibalTribe savage, feral cannibals]] that already live in it. |
| 272 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': |
| 273 | ** Pretty much [[CrapsackWorld every]] forest in the Old World is filled with brigands, wolves, goblins, giant spiders, mutants, beast men, minotaurs, cockatrices, chimeras, or even worse things. The EnchantedForest of [[HiddenElfVillage Athel Loren]] is in some ways the least scary because the xenophobic Wood Elves will just shoot you full of arrows -- if you're lucky. You're at least equally as likely to get lost on twisted, maddening paths that lead only where the forest wants them to lead, at which point all manner of suck will happen, especially once the [[OurNymphsAreDifferent dryads]] get their hands on you. |
| 274 | ** There is a forest in the Empire called the Witches' Woods, which is inhabited by Wood Elves. No one is allowed to enter the woods on pain of death, not even the province's Elector Count. No one knows what's in the forest, but best guess is Wood Elves that will turn trespassers into target practice. |
| 275 | [[/folder]] |
| 276 | |
| 277 | [[folder:Theater]] |
| 278 | * ''Theatre/EvilDeadTheMusical'' opens with the song [[http://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/evildead/cabininthewoods.htm "Cabin in the Woods" ]]. |
| 279 | [[/folder]] |
| 280 | |
| 281 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 282 | * ''VideoGame/BugFables'': The Far Grasslands are the bug equivalent to a dangerous forest, being a wild patch of backyard where the grass has grown incredibly tall. It looks like a peaceful, tranquil sort of area... until you run into the dangerous monsters that populate it such as [[DemonicSpiders Wild Chompers]] and [[GoddamnedBats Mantidflies]]. It's also part of the dangerous, warmongering [[WickedWasps Wasp Kingdom's]] territory, and shares a border with the even more hostile [[BubblegloopSwamp Wild Swamplands.]] Unsurprisingly, one of the few friendly [=NPCs=] you can find here is a paranoid wreck due to living in such a hostile environment, and the first meeting with him results in the battle due to him fearing that Team Snakemouth came to harm his family. |
| 283 | * ''VideoGame/Clown2020'': One of the clown-haunted maps to hunt for cards in is a forest. |
| 284 | * ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': In the ''Far Harbor'' expansion, the Island's woodlands are shrouded in a radioactive FogOfDoom and home to baddies such as [[SavageWolves Mutant Wolves]], [[DemonicSpiders Fog Crawlers]], [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Trappers]], and the [[ReligionOfEvil Children of the Atom]]. |
| 285 | * In ''VideoGame/FearTheMoon'', the heavily wooded area where the friends set up their camp is rumoured to be the territory of a monster called [[OurWerewwolvesAreDifferent the Wolfman]]. While this is dismissed as a just a spooky story, the woods are undoubtedly eerie, with lots of fog, a dilapidated shack with creepy messages graffitied on the walls and a dead bird in the shed, an abandoned house with a dark past and several missing person cases associated with the area. As the night goes on, the friends also start to realise there may be some truth to the Wolfman legend. |
| 286 | * ''VideoGame/FeverCabin'' is set in a forest full of zombies. The PlayerCharacter is in an old hunting cabin therein, trying to survive five nights until a group of survivors comes to get them. |
| 287 | * ''VideoGame/FleshBirds'': The birds in the forest have become a ravenous swarm that attack, murder, and eat any human they come across [[spoiler:because some "hippies" turned them on you and your coworkers when you wouldn't leave the forest]]. |
| 288 | * ''VideoGame/ForestOfDrizzlingRain'': The forest is home to a deadly {{youkai}} and the ghosts of her victims. |
| 289 | * ''VideoGame/GhoulsForest'', a series of [[GameMod Game Mods]], has the player chased through the woods by assorted monsters. |
| 290 | * ''VideoGame/InSilence'': Four people are stuck in the woods one night with a [[EldritchAbomination horrifying monstrosity]] that will kill them if they don't either fix their car and drive away, or open up the armory and kill it. |
| 291 | * ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'': The only ones that can somewhat safely enter the Lost Woods are the Kokiri accompanied by a guardian fairy. Everyone else becomes one of the undead monsters that roam the forest. Link may have entered the woods a few times before getting a guardian fairy, but always in the company of Saria, which makes it possible her guardian fairy worked for both. |
| 292 | * ''VideoGame/{{Limbo}}'': The first act is set in an eerie, fog-shrouded forest full of monsters. |
| 293 | * ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods'': The titular woods are home to an incorporeal, teleporting, kidnapping entity that begins to stalk [[PlayerCharacter Mae]] once she becomes aware of it, and is later shown to be [[spoiler: a member of a murderous cult that was empowered by their eldritch god]]. |
| 294 | * ''VideoGame/{{Oakwood}}'': Dinosaurs wander about in abandoned camp in the woods. They eat any camper they find. |
| 295 | * ''VideoGame/ThePath'' instructs you not to go into the woods, and because this is an adaptation of Literature/LittleRedRidingHood, you know what's waiting there... but on the other hand, if you follow instructions and don't go in, nothing of note happens. So, even with a warning not to do it, and knowing what waits for you in there, you have no choice but to go in if you want a satisfying game-experience... |
| 296 | * ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'': The Slumbering Weald is a vast, eerie-looking forest shrouded in huge amounts of fog. Residents of Postwick generally avoid going in there for good reason, and the first time you and Hop head in there to rescue a Wooloo, both of you get lost in the dense fog. But that's not even the scary part -- the scary part is when you encounter the legendary mascot as soon as you wind up lost, and end up going into a HopelessBossFight against a beast that you know absolutely nothing about. And all this happens ''right after you get your starter''. |
| 297 | * ''VideoGame/RawFootage'': The protagonist explores a forest said to be inhabited by a mysterious creature. They're trying to get video evidence that it exists, only everyone else who tried the same before wound up dead. |
| 298 | * ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', likewise, has its first act in and around a small woodland village in rural Spain, where a PuppeteerParasite has turned the [[HillbillyHorrors townsfolk]] into {{technically living zombie}}s. |
| 299 | * ''VideoGame/SkinwalkerHunt'': The game has you playing as a Native American hunter who's been hired to take out a SkinWalker that's been killing tourists and causing the wildlife to become aggressive. |
| 300 | * ''VideoGame/{{Slender}}'': The Slender Man haunts a forest that the protagonist finds themself stuck in. |
| 301 | * ''VideoGame/SpiritsOfAnglerwoodForest'': The children of Anglerwood Forest are told by their parents not to go in the woods at night. Stories are told around the area of children that encounter strange creatures or go missing in the woods. By the end, we know that [[spoiler: something [[TheCorruption corrupted]] Ezra and took his spirit into the woods. After that, corrupted Ezra made the woods a ''much'' more dangerous place to be]]. |
| 302 | * ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' has the Red Forest. Based on the real Red Forest in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (which turned to this color after the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster killed the trees), the area is a place where even stalkers in large and well-armed groups fear to go, and the only permanent inhabitant is [[CoolOldGuy Forester]]. Radiation hotspots and [[RealityIsOutToLunch anomalies]] are numerous, large packs of mutants (including a respawning BossInMookClothing) roam the area, the safe roads are controlled by [[EliteMooks Monolith]] ''and'', once one goes through all of that, they find themselves straight into the area of effect of the [[MindControlDevice Brain Scorcher]], turning them into [[EmptyShell Zombies]] or [[ReforgedIntoAMinion Monolith soldiers]]. |
| 303 | * ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': The planet Voss has a forbidden area known as the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Nightmare Lands]], a twisted forest surrounding the Dark Heart, home to an ancient evil entity. If you don't get killed by the monsters and crazy people roaming the forest, you're likely to be driven insane by the heavy Dark Side presence infusing the place. |
| 304 | * ''VisualNovel/TaishoxAlice'': Both Red and Snow White where told not to leave their house as children in their respective routes. |
| 305 | * ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'': Eight friends take a winter getaway at a hotel deep in some mountainous, [[SnowMeansDeath snow-covered]] woods haunted by a psychotic killer [[spoiler:and infested with {{wendigo}}s]]. It doesn't end well for any of them. |
| 306 | * ''VideoGame/AWalkInTheWoods'': The forest the kids are camping in is inhabited by a monster and his inhuman children. The kids need to find each other and get out of the woods before they become more of the monster's children. |
| 307 | * ''VideoGame/{{Wick}}'': The forest is haunted by five murderous ghostly children. In-game collectibles imply their supernatural abilities predate their deaths and that [[spoiler: two of them may have never been human to begin with]]. |
| 308 | * ''VideoGame/WitchHunt'' takes place in an expansive, dark forest surrounding a small colonial town, where a sinister witch has been creating armies of scary creatures that have been terrorizing the residents. Among its horrors include a werewolf that killed the player's horse, the Witch herself, a tree monster that her invincibility is tied to, giant spiders, zombies, and shambling skeleton creatures. |
| 309 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': |
| 310 | ** The Duskwood region is extremely creepy and quite dangerous. The local [=NPCs=] ominously warn you to keep to the roads and only travel by day (though it doesn't make a lot of difference because ... well, how do you think the area got its name?) One of the loading screen tips advises you to keep to the roads if you want to avoid monsters. A sound piece of advice, actually, as monsters and other enemy [=NPCs=] usually prefer to wander off-road. |
| 311 | ** Silverpine Forest is pretty much the same. Sandwiched neatly between the Werewolf kingdom of Gilneas and the Zombie kingdom of Tirisfal, you can't take two steps away from the road without blundering into something that's been horribly mutated or cursed. |
| 312 | [[/folder]] |
| 313 | |
| 314 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 315 | * ''Webcomic/CharbyTheVampirate'': One need not be human to be endangered by entering the forest of Kellwood, although most humans seen in it are summarily killed and eaten by the monsters therein and the fact that it is [[BiggerOnTheInside ''much'' larger]] than it looks on human maps or when flying over it or walking around it would make it an easy place to become hopelessly lost. |
| 316 | * ''Webcomic/CursedPrincessClub'': Subverted. The forest below the cliff on which the Pastel Kingdom palace is built has a reputation for being haunted, which the eponymous club exploits to keep their activities secret, but there's no indication of anything intrinsically dangerous about it. |
| 317 | * ''Webcomic/TheDreamwalkerChronicles'': There are a number of human-eating monsters in the forests, and while some of the supernatural entities encountered are benevolent the one that attempts to help the main trio while they're in the woods ends up being killed himself. |
| 318 | * ''Webcomic/EarsForElves'': Elon gives Myari this warning after she's wandered into the dark, dangerous forest without him. |
| 319 | --> '''Elon:''' Why must you always put yourself at risk like this? We all know how dangerous the forest is! |
| 320 | * ''Webcomic/TheQueenAndTheWoodborn'': The Shimmerwood is an enchanted forest inhabited by creatures from Slavic folklore, including the anthropophagic witches Baba Roga and Baba Yaga. Crossing the boundary demarcated by the stones bordering the Godsroad puts unwary mortals at the mercy -- or lack thereof -- of the titular Woodborn. |
| 321 | * ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': The staple and prevalent background scare. Enhanced by the fridge horror of the fact it's not just the woods outside the settlement walls -- it's the entire known world. If the scene showing the landscape during the train ride isn't a dead ringer for this trope, nothing is. |
| 322 | [[/folder]] |
| 323 | |
| 324 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 325 | * ''WebVideo/BedtimeStoriesYoutubeChannel'': One episode covers mysterious killings and disappearances in American and Canadian national parks. And suffice to say, don't go into the woods unless you want to end up like these people. This trend is continued in a later episode, where sightings of BigfootSasquatchAndYeti living deep in the forest are mentioned, complete with the deaths of several hunters, loggers, factory workers, and outdoorsmen. |
| 326 | * ''Series/TheCallOfWarr'': Everyone, save Vid, is afraid of the woods -- the trees specifically because they heard voices coming from the trees and couldn't find their way out. The small town they reach is completely surrounded by trees, so they consider themselves trapped until rescue. When Gravesite decides they should go into the woods to find Durkin, even Prince, who was previously mocking Glintz-Terry's fear of trees, is horrified and opposed to the plan. |
| 327 | %%* ''WebVideo/DemoReel'': The bad guys drop off Donnie in the deepest part of some very creepy woods and leave him to die. With what happens to him later, he probably ended up wishing he did. |
| 328 | * ''WebAnimation/DontWalkHomeAloneAfterDark'': In ''The Pine Creepers'', the narrator and his friends like to go camping in a clearing in the pine woods surrounding their town, though the narrator is unsettled when Jordy brings up a story his dad told him about people seeing strange creatures – known as Pine Creepers – in the woods, round about the same time people started going missing. The narrator tried to dismiss it as a story, but later that very night he finds out the hard way that it's true. |
| 329 | * ''WebVideo/NyxCrossing'' takes place in a forested area, which appears to be an EldritchLocation. |
| 330 | * ''Website/SCPFoundation'' does it in [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-899 SCP-899]]. It's a bad idea to go near it if you're an adult. It's even worse if you're a child. And if you're a teenager going through puberty [DATA EXPUNGED]. [[spoiler: And this is ''before'' the SCP-899-1 manifestations appear...]] |
| 331 | * ''Roleplay/InkCity'': The forest bordering Ink City is home to mindless ink monsters and other threats, and also holds the FourthWall. Assuming you make it that far, it's best just to leave the Wall alone... touching it leads to ''bad things''. The City's first major Event involved a large group of residents venturing into the woods only to discover exactly WHY that was such a bad idea. |
| 332 | %%* ''Website/{{Neopets}}'': The Haunted Woods gives off this vibe, although it's just as visible as any other realm. |
| 333 | * ''Blog/OffThePageAndIntoLife'': The locations page reveals that the Hanging Woods, which everyone avoids due to a town legend of a man that hanged himself there, and general creepiness. It's unknown if the woods are really dangerous or if it's all paranoia and rumors, mainly because no one's willing to go and check. At any rate, we ''do'' know that the reincarnation of TheBigBadWolf himself lives there... |
| 334 | * ''Website/TheOnion'': In [[http://www.theonion.com/article/report-leading-cause-death-still-venturing-beyond -- 52615 Report: Leading Cause of Death Still Venturing Beyond the Pines]], disregarding this trope and venturing into the forest -- whether by losing your way on a foggy night, [[GenreBlind looking for a shortcut despite repeated warnings not to]], or just waking up in the middle of the night and heading straight for the forest -- turns out to be the leading cause of death among Americans. |
| 335 | -->"The report, which analyzed the nation's mortality data from the past decade, found that wandering past the tree line and entering the shadowy depths that lie therein results in approximately 650,000 deaths each year." |
| 336 | * ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': The various forests of Remnant are home to the creatures of Grimm, who will attack any human they can find. While it makes it handy for aspiring Hunters to go out and train, the forests are so infested that human civilization has barely expanded beyond a few small states, and going out into the woods alone and unarmed is basically a death sentence, as Yang and Ruby almost found out the hard way when they were children. |
| 337 | * ''Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos'': The Slender Man sure loves his pine forests, but he's not averse to [[Blog/SeekingTruth other]] [[WebVideo/MarbleHornets kinds]] of [[Blog/JustAnotherFool trees.]] |
| 338 | ** A specific example is in WebVideo/EverymanHYBRID; in the episode entitled ''Joke's Over'', Evan, Vince, and Jeff see [[spoiler: the Slender Man in the woods. Evan chases after him, with Vince and Jeff following. Slendy vanishes and they suddenly find a circle of black bags. Vince cuts one open... [[{{Squick}} and there's a few pints of blood in there.]]]] |
| 339 | ** WebVideo/MarbleHornets narrows it down a bit -- while the Operator can show up just about anywhere, wandering into the woods in Rosswood Park is practically ''guaranteed'' to end in a run-in with him. |
| 340 | * ''VideoGame/StoryOfTheBlanks'' is a ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fan-game/creepypasta that uses the Everfree Forest (see Western Animation below) as the key to the storyline. In a nutshell, Apple Bloom wanders into the Everfree until she discovers a TownWithADarkSecret hiding in its depths. In detail? [[spoiler: Apple Bloom follows a mysterious filly to Sunny Town, a town in the depths of the Everfree where no adult pony has a Cutie Mark. Determined to find the filly who led her there, Apple Bloom eventually finds a creepy house on the outskirts of town... where she finds the charred bones of a filly in the fireplace. Fleeing back to the town, she finds the ponies have become creepy, undead monsters, who admit to killing the filly for getting her Cutie Mark and declare they will "protect" Apple Bloom from a similar fate. Apple Bloom just barely manages to flee with the aid of Ruby, the CuteGhostGirl who inadvertently lured her here.]] What makes things worse is that the story is minimalistic; we have no idea what happened (beyond the gruesomely obvious) or ''how'' Sunny Town ended up the way it did... [[NothingIsScarier which may be part of the reason why the game is so scary]]. |
| 341 | * ''Website/TaerelSetting'': Some of Taerel's woodlands are inhabited by hostile kin'toni clans. There is also the Torsh Dense Taiga Forest, filled with poisonous gas. |
| 342 | * ''WebAnimation/TheresAManInTheWoods'': A BrattyHalfPint named Sid makes up a lie about there being a murderer in the woods next to the school so he can have the honeysuckle bush at the edge of the woods all to himself. His lie {{snowball|Lie}}s into a moral panic that ends up getting the teacher fired for not doing enough to protect the kids from the nonexistent killer (as if that's his job and not the job of the police), all while the teacher's claims that Sid is lying fall on deaf ears. The unjustly slandered teacher turns from a NiceGuy into an AddledAddict, and eventually decides that if everybody else is going to play along with Sid's lie, then so will he... [[WouldHurtAChild by making]] [[{{Revenge}} it true]]. |
| 343 | -->Do you hear that, Sid? '''''There's a man in the woods.''''' |
| 344 | * ''WebVideo/UnwantedHouseguest'': [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou The Houseguest says on several occasions that his audience should leave because Aberfoyle Woods become dangerous after dark.]] [[spoiler: There's no indication that the danger applies to him when he's forced to take shelter from the Shadow Demon.]] |
| 345 | * ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': The wooded areas around the titular SuperheroSchool are exceedingly dangerous. Aside from the oft-hostile GeniusLoci known as The Grove, the area is dotted with {{Eldritch Location}}s, and patrolled by the native [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent Werefolk]] who own the land Whateley Academy sits on. |
| 346 | * ''WebVideo/WhiteStagEducation'': The depths of the Pine Barrens are where the [[MalevolentMaskedMan Masked Strangers]] live, try to kidnap/kill hikers, and hold rituals involving an EldritchAbomination called the Adversary. The park rangers are trained to keep visitors safe by, among other things, painting blaze markers on trees, removing deceptive blazes put up by the Strangers, and occasionally killing Strangers. |
| 347 | [[/folder]] |
| 348 | |
| 349 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 350 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS1E20ThePicnic The Picnic]]": To get to the picnic area, the class has to go around the Forest of Doom ([[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Yes, that's what it's called]]). Gumball and Darwin misunderstand it as going ''through'' the Forest of Doom, so they do. They get lost and have to run from [[OurMonstersAreWeird very, very bizarre]] predators like a teal deer with fangs and a rooster head and giant cyclopic bear with antlers. |
| 351 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': The forests of Amphibia are filled with giant insects, birds, reptiles, and fire-breathing beavers, all of which are dangerous to the frogs as most of them are big enough to eat them. |
| 352 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': In the HalloweenEpisode, Kaeloo warns Stumpy not to go into the forest. Stumpy ignores her, finds a cemetery which for whatever reason was inside the forest, and ends up accidentally causing a ZombieApocalypse by raising the dead. |
| 353 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The ponies of Equestria treat the Everfree Forest as an EldritchLocation, looking at it with fear, and preferring to avoid it when possible. Turns out, the forest isn't so bad... it just happens to be an EldritchLocation '''for them only''', because ''the plants and animals fend by themselves without pony aid, and the weather is not [[PaintingTheFrostOnWindows under the control of the pegasus ponies]]''; which clashes directly with the rest of the pony-ordered, cheerfully civilized Equestria. It is of note, though, that Everfree Forest ''does'' contain a lot of genuine danger in the form of dangerous creatures such as [[OurManticoresAreSpinier manticores]], [[BasiliskAndCockatrice cockatrices]] and [[BearsAreBadNews Ursas]], as well as assorted nasty stuff like Poison Joke -- a plant which causes humorous afflictions on those who come in contact with it based on its own warped sense of humor -- and tends to offer some exotic new danger every time it's visited. It's just not as unnatural as the ponies believe. Zecora, meanwhile, lives quite happily in the forest. |
| 354 | * ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'': Wirt and Greg encounter a number of strange threats in the forests of the Unknown, including [[EldritchAbomination the Beast]]. |
| 355 | %%* ''Franchise/TheSmurfs'': Since the Smurfs already live in the woods, they are warned in ''[[WesternAnimation/TheSmurfsTheLegendOfSmurfyHollow The Legend of Smurfy Hollow]]'' not to go into Smurfy Hollow. |
| 356 | * ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' has "The Forest of Certain Death" from "[[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS1E9DiazFamilyVacation Diaz Family Vacation]]", a Mewni landmark which is just as bad as it sounds. |
| 357 | [[/folder]] |
| 358 | |
| 359 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 360 | * The Roman General Quinctilius Varus was warned by several German chieftains not to lead his army into the Teutoburg Forest as the warlord Arminius was planning an ambush. [[TooDumbToLive Varus did it anyway]], and the entire army was destroyed. |
| 361 | * During the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian general Demosthenes once led a group of [[MightyGlacier heavy infantry]] into hilly ground held by his light-armed enemies. Predictably, using the high ground to their advantage, the missile troops ripped the Athenians to shreds. Demosthenes's surviving men fled into a nearby forest hoping the light infantry would not follow them there. They did not. Instead, [[KillItWithFire they set it on fire]]. |
| 362 | * Aokigahara forest in Japan is most famous for the numerous suicides that have happened there. However, many people have also gotten lost and never returned. Aokigahara was a popular location for suicides long before, but the ''suicide fad'' really started to get going in 1960 when the forest appeared in a novel about a pair of StarCrossedLovers, who killed themselves. In the last decades, the yearly average of suicides has grown increasingly, and the local authorities decided to no longer publish numbers when they hit 100 (discovered) cases in 2003. Even without the forest's grim nature as a suicide hotspot, the forest has a reputation for being a place of supernatural activity, with many stories about malevolent ghosts and eerie spirits roaming its hallowed ground. It helps that the dense tree cover and rough terrain help suppress noise, giving the impression that visitors are walking in almost perfect silence. |
| 363 | * Schwarzwald, also known as the [[DarkIsEvil Black]] Forest, inspired many of the more violent German folk tales. |
| 364 | ** [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Place names]] like Höllental (Hell Valley, leading up to Himmelsreich, or Realm of Heaven), Notschrei (Scream of Distress), and Siehdichfür (Be Aware) do of course help this. |
| 365 | ** And it is a local tradition to dress up as devils, witches, monsters, etc. in spring to party WILD and also scare winter away. Aversion for anyone who likes that kind of stuff. |
| 366 | * In some parts of California, hiking off-trail is ill-advised as you may stumble into a drug cartel operation (usually pot) and/or their booby traps. Or you might just stumble across somebody who already did... members of the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service take these warnings ''very'' seriously. |
| 367 | * In most large national parks, hiking off-trail is ill-advised (even for short distances) simply because the chance for you to get lost is huge, and several hikers have starved to death not a hundred feet from a major trail. |
| 368 | * One word: Siberia. Miles and miles and miles of endless forests in all directions, on a stretch of land big enough to cover all Lower 48 States plus Europe. Also consider this: it has the world's largest population of wolves, bears, wolverines, lynxes, boars and only gods know what else. Oh, and it's also the coldest place on Earth outside of Antarctica. Siberia consists of ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga taiga]]'', which is the Northern coniferous forest with spruces, pines, and birches dominant, and ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra tundra]]'', which is semi-desert permafrost where only the hardiest vegetation can survive. Even the ''Mongols'' dared not to venture into the taiga, let alone the tundra. |
| 369 | * This trope was the rule of thumb in Medieval Europe; you could be killed by wolves, bears, bandits... and if you went into the wrong woods, the local nobleman or even the crown. There is a story from 13th-century France where three students of the Sorbonne got lost in a forest... and were arrested on suspicion of poaching, and hanged without a trial by the baron (Enguerrand IV, Lord of Coucy) who owned the woods. Thankfully, King Louis IX arrested the baron and was inches from hanging him, only freeing him after stripping him of virtually all power and levying a hefty fine. |
| 370 | * The forests of Finland contain some of the most dangerous creatures of all: [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests the Finnish Army]]. They are forest specialists ''par excellence'', and every conscript is taught to survive and find his way in the woods. The woods provide excellent hideaways and bases for Finnish jaegers and rangers. The invading Russian Army learned this the hard way during the Winter War. The Finnish Army had an overwhelming terrain advantage, and their snipers -- including Simo Hayha a.k.a. 'the White Death' -- mowed down those poor devils by the ''hundreds''. |
| 371 | * During Russia's Time of Troubles, the invading Polish Army was searching the countryside in pursuit of Tsar Michael I of Russia when they learned that he was hiding in a particular monastery in the woods. A local named Ivan Susanin offered a Polish detachment to guide them there, but being a supporter of Michael, instead took them so deep into the woods that none (not even Susanin) came out alive. (Actually, while Susanin is a historical figure, the wood story is most probably fiction.) |
| 372 | * In some zones of Mexico (particularly the states of Michoacán and Veracruz, which have the quite unlucky combination of thick forests and heavy [[TheCartel cartel]] activity), it is ill-advised to travel at night through forest highways, especially if you don't know the road. Although there are safer federal highways, other, more remote roads can be very dangerous. They are dark and often neglected, and you risk falling victim to muggers playing a WoundedGazelleGambit (when they're not blocking the road), or worse, getting mistaken by [[ProperlyParanoid local cartels]] for undercover rivals. Either way, it wouldn't end well. |
| 373 | [[/folder]] |
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