825 Forest Road (2025)--My Take On The Movie With Ending Spoilers!
Plot: Chuck moves into a new house with his wife Maria and his sister Isabelle. But the family soon finds themselves in the middle of a haunting.
825 Forest Road is surprisingly a decent horror movie with enough frightening moments that are not all jump scares.
The story is told through different points of view of the three characters, showing how each of them were tormented by the ghost.
An interesting concept, the movie eventually falters towards the end when it becomes a little lengthy and confusing.
825 FOREST ROAD Movie Plot Summary
The movie begins with Ashley, who is on a video call with her friend. She is obsessed with finding Forest Road and complains about how she didn't return the library books on time, causing her mother to personally take her back and make her return it.
Ashley wants to keep investigating and find Forest Road.
When she hears a rap on the door, she immediately hides the books. Her friend reminds her that her parents took her brother to college. So who could it be?
Ashley gets stunned. The banging on the door continues. She opens it carefully and sees no one. Her friend asks if she should call anyone or if she wants to come over, but after she has surveyed the house, Ashley tells her that there is no one at home, then closes the door.
There is a loud rap on the door, and Ashley gets scared.
We don't know what has happened to her yet.
The scene shifts to an aerial view of the town and the cars on the road.
Chuck and his wife Maria, and his sister Isabelle have come to see a house in the town of Ashland Falls. Their realtor is giving them a tour, and Chuck is excited to have a big enough space for his piano.
Now Chuck is a music history professor and gives piano lessons. Maria makes dresses and also has a livestream show. Isabelle is an art major.
Chuck takes a look at the house and comments that Isabelle can finally have some space to do her art, as long as she is still doing that. Isabelle rolls her eyes and walks away while Maria reminds him that his sister is here because of an art scholarship.
The family immediately buys the house because it is cheaper since it has been on the market for three years. The realtor assures them that the roof and fixings are new and that there have been no weird deaths in the house.
Time passes, and the family has moved in. There are more aerial shots.
The first chapter is called Chuck. In his story, we find that shortly after moving, the roof has begun to leak. He is on the phone with the realtor who can't understand how it happened since the house was refurbished.
Chuck has pots lying about everywhere. He then goes to check Maria's studio and finds her in the middle of a show. She has also brought along a creepy mannequin with curly hair and a black dress. The face is all scratched up, and anyone would wonder why anyone would still keep her.
He finds there is no leakage there.
As he goes outside, a neighbor approaches him. He's Larry and immediately dishes up the town gossip to him. He tells him how the last owner killed themselves and how the town is famous for ghosts who target mentally disturbed people. He advises him to be careful of Isabel.
Chuck sends photos of the house to his realtor and tells her that there is no way the roof is new as he has found holes in it. As he sends her photos of the leakage in the rooms, he finds one where a shotgun is placed next to the pots.
After that, Chuck has a student show up who doesn't play the piano very well. She shows him some notes, and he makes an obvious cringe face that would discourage any student. But he does tell her that he lauds her honesty.
He goes to get her a glass of water and then hears her play a nice tune. He comments that she doesn't know how to play after all, but when he turns around, his student is standing right behind him. She looks terrified, saying that a woman has started playing the piano. Chuck goes to check, but there is no one. The student is too spooked to stay.
So basically, the student was playing, and then the "woman" just pushed her off the seat, and she didn't even see her face?
There are some incidents where the creepy mannequin ends up outside, and Maria thinks it's Isabelle, but Chuck doesn't and goes to retrieve it.
One night, Chuck goes to speak with his sister, inquiring about her therapy. He sees a lot of her artwork and notices one of a house that looks like the one they are staying in. Apparently, Isabelle drew it 2-3 years ago. There's another creepy one. Isabelle is in a hallway. A door behind her is open, and someone is making a grab for her.
Considering one of her sketches came true, this one probably is as well.
Isabelle talks about her nightmares in which she sees her mother. She blames herself for her mother's accident because she was the one driving the car. Chuck points out that he lost her too, but she retorts that he lost her long back when he decided to leave them to go to the city.
Turns out, Chuck's wife Maria only found out three months ago that he had a sister.
The siblings then talk about how their mother always left them a note about putting the dishes away: The dishes are not going to put themselves away.
The next day, Chuck visits a library and finds a stack of books in the middle of the aisle. He picks up some books about the town. As he heads to the table, he sees a girl weeping and warning him not to try to find Forest Road. She's Ashley, and clearly, things haven't gone well for her.
Chuck thinks she's disturbed and goes to check out his books. When he mentions this to the librarian, she barely bats an eye, but he mentions the books, and the two administrators look at each other in surprise.
Chuck begins studying the books and learns about a woman, Helen Forester, who met with the councilmen one morning in a locked hall. Following that, no one was seen alive.
He also learns about how the town has changed over the years and the streets have been renamed. His house was once on Rose Lane.
Chuck then goes to a Friends of Gardening group only to find out that it's actually a secret group for people who want to discuss Helen's haunting.
There, Chuck finds Larry and the librarians, among others.
They all have been touched by "her" in some way and think Chuck is, too. They believe that the only way to make Helen leave this town is by burning down her housesp she has no place to manifest, and that she used to live on Forest Road.
When Larry spots Helen roaming about, they abruptly end the meeting.
As they leave, Chuck peeks into the church and finds a lone woman in black sitting there. She senses his presence and turns around.
The next chapter is told through Isabel and her struggles with guilt and grief. She thinks Maria doesn't like her and is still mad at Chuck for leaving.
She constantly has nightmares about her mother and is easily disturbed.
One night, she's playing the piano when Chuck comes home from the meeting. Hopefully, he was the one who taught her how to play. Anyway, Isabelle tells him that Maria is away and she tried calling him, but he wouldn't pick up. He confesses about the Friends of Gardening group and tells her about Helen and how the town is haunted by her.
He then tells her not to blame herself for what happened to their mother, and they get into another tiff. She mentions a girl at her school, Ashley, who killed herself, and so, of course, she's going through a lot at the moment.
Later, Maria takes Isabelle to an art show to bond with her. Isabelle seems surprised that Maria wants to hang out with her and confesses that she assumed that she hated her.
Maria tells her that she doesn't and that she has a sister who is only connected to her through the vlog. Her sister never tried to understand Maria when she was growing up and had bipolar disorder. Based on her own mental health issues, she understands what Isabelle is going through.
Just then, a guest drops her glass, and people start rushing out. Isabelle notices that in one of the sketches, a woman's figure has materialized, and everyone believes it to be Helen.
Luke, one of Isabelle's friends, visits her and is intrigued by her sketches. She tells him about her brother visiting the Friends of Gardening group, and apparently, he knows that they discuss Helen. So what is the point of those secret meetings? Half the town knows about it, including the ghost of Helen.
Anyway, he, too, believes that looking for Forest Road and burning down the house and help get rid of Helen.
Maria pops in for a bit, inquiring whether Isabelle is in her room. Isabelle has been in a closed room with Luke, so obviously not. Maria looks flustered, so something is up, but we won't find out until it's her time to tell the story.
At night, Isabelle is sleeping when the closet light comes on. She switches it off, but when it happens again, she removes the bulb. The light turns on again. Isabelle is spooked because the bulb is right beside her bed. She thinks she sees a woman's figure, but it is just a nightmare.
The next day, she is with Luke discussing Helen and Forest Road when she receives a call from Chuck asking her to come home.
Maria is agitated and weeping, after which Chuck tells Isabelle to pack up her things, then leaves the house.
Naturally, Isabelle assumes she is being thrown out of the house. She's packing to live at campus when Luke arrives. He looks at the photo of her mother and tells her she looks so different now compared to now.
Isabelle is stunned. She tells him to quit joking as her mother died months ago. Luke is certain he saw this woman who introduced herself as Isabelle's mother and let him in.
Isabelle goes downstairs to check, and Luke freaks out and leaves.
Isabelle hears her mother's voice calling for her and blaming her for her death. She searches the house and finds Maria grabbing her and telling her to be quiet. But Isabelle is determined to find out where the noise is coming from. She sees a woman in a black dress approach her and runs away scared.
The front door doesn't open, so both she and Maria run upstairs. Maria rushes into her room, but Isabelle runs to her room instead. She hides behind her bed and hears Maria scream.
Next up is Maria's story.
Maria is supposed to be taking pills for her bipolar disorder, but it isn't.
She isn't very thrilled about moving into this town either and has to make a two hour drive to get to her work.
While Chuck isn't supportive of Isabelle's therapy, Maria is and asks him to let her be.
Maria keeps getting spooked by her creepy mannequin that moves from one place to another on her own.
She believes it to be Isabelle's prank and is getting annoyed by the pile of dishes in the kitchen with the note: These dishes aren't going to put themselves away. Naturally, she believes her sister-in-law is toying with her.
Over the course of the movie, we catch glimpses of a woman in a black dress who is presumably Helen.
One day, while she is doing a livestream, she mentions how cold it is and goes on about dresses and how she is going to teach everyone to make sweaters.
Behind her, the mannequin is flexing her fingers.
Her sister calls her, but Maria ignores her. When she keeps calling, she assumes it is because her sister wants to see the bridesmaids' dresses. She is showing the dresses on livestream when she receives a message from her friend, telling her to get out of the house.
When Maria returns to her studio, she finds the mannequin gone. Since she is alone in the house, she can't pin the blame on Isabelle.
She then finds the mannequin in the bedroom, and when she approaches her, the mannequins head turns.
Maria has a breakdown, and Chuck comes to her. They burn the mannequin, and that's the last we see of it. Isabelle is called and told that she needs to pack her bags. At this point, it seems that Chuck intends to get out of the house with his family and was not tossing Isabelle out.
While Isabelle is upstairs packing, Maria hears a voice telling her that the dishes are not going to put themselves away.
She freaks out when she sees the ghost of her mother-in-law.
She hides, tries to stop Isabelle from investigating, and then they both hurry upstairs—the same scene from Isabelle's story.
Except this time, we learn what happened to Maria and why she screamed.
825 FOREST ROAD Ending Spoilers
Maria is hiding behind her bed when there is a thump on the door.
Apparently she forgot to lock it and now the figure has entered her room.
She scrambles to hide but the woman, possibly Helen, lunges at her. She screams.
In the next instant, she goes to Isabelle's room and comforts her. She asks her what is wrong with her face and Isabelle finds that she is bleeding from the nose and has circles under her eyes.
She's possessed, right?
Later, Luke comes up with maps and figures out that the town changed its borders and the streets were renamed over the years so that they elude Helen's ghost.
Luke thinks he knows where Forest Road could be. Chuck decides to go as well as Isabelle.
But the realtor pops in with a cameraman, reminding Chuck he had promised to film a testimonial for her business.
At this point, they are being haunted, and just recovered from a leaky roof. So really? A testimonial to how good she is as a realtor?
Maria shows up and suggests she do the testimonial since she is good on camera anyway.
So off they go and leave Luke behind so that he can watch over Maria.
The two find the house in the middle of the woods and enter.
At the same time, Maria is not herself when she delivers her testimonial. She looks confused and keeps talking about her daughter Mary and how she always came home crying after being tormented by bullies. When she killed herself, Helen decided to take revenge after which she committed suicide using a shotgun.
Chuck finds a loose floorboard and letters underneath. They are all Helen's who had written to the Clark family requesting them to talk to their children so that they can stop bullying her daughter Mary.
Chuck then discovers that this house belonged to the Clark's and Helen used to live at 15 Rose Lane...their house.
Chuck rushes out and calls for Isabelle who is standing in a dark hallway, much like in her sketch. A hand grabs her from behind, and she trembles.
Chuck rushes to her and grabs her as she is being pulled back. The ghostly figure manages to pull both Isabelle and Chuck inside.
Maria on the other hand, reveals she will have her revenge on the entire town because they didn't help her save her daughter when she was being bullied. She turns into Helen and attacks everyone in the room.
The movie ends.
Turns out whoever finds Forest Road, dies. But is it Helen's ghost or the Clark's who bully trespassers by grabbing them?
Helen, after her death, has become vengeful to the point that she targets those who have mental issues. Rather than sympathizing with them, she uses this as their weakness to torment them.
825 Forest Road may not have a clear characterization of Helen's character but the movie does have some eerie scenes, enough for Horror fans to enjoy themselves.
After a long time, there is a haunted house movie that has the potential to give you the jitters.
Give this one a chance.
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