“Sadness will last forever” is the quote that starts and closes The Forest of the Lost Souls (A Floresta das Alma Perdidas in its original Portuguese title), its meaning being that if sadness will consume our life forever, we might as well end it now.
Living by these words, Carolina, Daniela Love (Offline, Empress Of The Evil Dead), a teenage girl, spends her day in “the forest of the lost souls”, a vast forest known for being the chosen resting place of many people committing suicide.
Like the people who wandered here before her, she knows she wants to die, but isn’t entirely ready to take the plunge yet.
There among the trees, she meets Ricardo, Jorge Mota (Conta-me Historia, Santa Barbara (TV)), a middle-age man who just lost one of his two teenage daughters (played by Lília Lopes (Ramiro)) and left his family to end his life.
Such a premise could lead to a heartwarming story of two people connecting, building each other up and leaving suicidal thoughts behind to live a long and happy life.
But The Forest of the Lost Souls is, instead, a much more macabre story and turns into a quasi-slasher in which Carolina, like an angel of death, goes after Ricardo and his his wife Filipa, Mafalda Banquart (Santa Barbara (TV), Post-Mortem (Short)), his remaining daughter, Joana, Lígia Roque (Amor Maior (TV), Jardins Proibidos (TV)) and Tiago, Tiago Jácome (Video Store (Short)), his daughter’s boyfriend, to end their pain once and for all.