Focus Features has acquired the North American distribution rights to The Forest, a supernatural thriller based on an idea by David S. Goyer.

Directed by Jason Zada from a script by Sarah Cornwell, the film is set in Japan's Aokigahara Forest, also known as the Suicide Forest, where a young American woman named Sara goes in search of her twin sister, who's mysteriously disappeared. Despite warnings not to stray from the path, Sara enters the forest and is confronted by the tormented souls of the dead.

Zada is a commercials and music-video director whom Focus CEO Peter Schlessel describes as "the real deal."

Goyer is producing the film with Nellie Reed under his Phantom Four Banner, in partnership with Lava Bear Films' David Linde and Tory Metzger.

The Forest is set for release on Jan. 8, 2016.