The Forest of Love (Japanese: 愛なき森で叫べ, romanized: Ainaki Mori de Sakebe, lit.

The film was inspired by the murders, torture and extortion committed in Kyushu, Japan from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s by convicted serial killer Futoshi Matsunaga.

The film and series stars Kippei Shiina, Kyoko Hinami and Shinnosuke Mitsushima.

Joe Murata sits in a restaurant as the misdeeds of a serial killer are reported on television.

The girl, Taeko, refuses Shin but introduces him to her high school classmate, Mitsuko, a shut-in with well-off but strict parents.

Five of the girls decide to take sleep medication and stand on the edge of the school roof.

In the present, Mitsuko receives a call from Murata, who claims she had lent him 50 yen several years previously.

Mitsuko watches the video with Taeko and recognizes Murata as a con artist who had claimed to want to marry her sister.

The relative discovers the film company is a sham and arrives to demand his money back.

She explains she had not taken the sleep medication and had hoped Taeko would die, that she had sex with her friends' boyfriends as well as Ami's.

She had known Murata was a con artist and Shin was a killer but hoped they would kill Ami, her parents, and Taeko.

They fight, and Murata escapes and waves down a car driven by a woman who resembles Eiko.

On-screen text states that those behind the murders that inspired the film were caught in 2002 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Forest of Love: Deep Cut was released on Netflix on April 30, 2020, as an extended cut limited series with 7 episodes, featuring an extra 2 hours and 15 minutes duration in addition to the original film, for a total runtime of 278 minutes.

[4] David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a B− saying, "As frenzied as Sono’s best work, but as unfocused as some of his worst, 'The Forest of Love' is hard to find your way through.

"[5] Brian Tallerco of RogerEbert.com wrote, "It is a movie that wallows in its excess, undeniably long and repetitive and somewhat nonsensical, but never boring."

With regard to the film's length, Tallerco wrote, "There’s no reason for this movie to run over two-and-a-half hours.