The found footage horror genre presents an often intimate, claustrophobic, and grounded terror. From The Blair Witch Project to REC, these movies are similar in premise but each unique in their storytelling. What makes the films both memorable and scary are their use of atmosphere and subtlety. The use of a video camera limits the audience’s awareness of the larger surroundings, making scares and twists mostly unexpected.
Noroi: The Curse is perhaps Japan’s best example of the genre, directed by Kōji Shiraishi. Although not as well known as say Hideo Nakata and Takashi Miike, Shiraishi has an extensive filmography, especially with found footage movies. Much like Blair Witch, Noroi establishes its premise immediately with a fictional documentary created by a missing person. Its sense of realism comes from being edited like an actual documentary, featuring a variety of straightforward interviews, inserted footage from other sources, and subtle uses of background music and text. It carries the hallmarks of its sub-genre, but is able to create its own exceptional style, tone, and lore. The film’s sense of realism stems from use of real TV shows and presenters – including Japan’s endless daytime panel shows!
Our doomed protagonist is Masafumi Kobayashi (Jin Muraki), a well-respected paranormal investigator and journalist. His latest investigation concludes with his house burning down, his wife Keiko found dead, and he is reported missing. The documentary, “The Curse”, is deemed too disturbing for public viewing – but we’re privy to watch it regardless. The film is shown through the lens of Kobayashi’s camera Miyajima, but it feels like we are the unseen partner in Kobayashi’s case.
The movie goes back and forth between a series of unconnected investigations, which soon intertwine in an eerie conspiracy of demon worship and ritualistic murder. The first involves a neighbourhood complaint against the reclusive Junk Ishii (Tomono Kuga), who has an unseen son, and the cries of babies coming from her house. Two weeks later, Ishii has moved out, dead pigeons surround the house, and her neighbour dies in a car crash. This revelation is told through a freeze frame, a dramatic zoom-in, and a line of text. This use of telling instead showing might put some people off, but it aligns with the realistic nature of the film. It’s unexpected and subtle.
In the next segment, a variety show introduces us to a group of children who are being tested for psychic powers. I guess that’s an acceptable thing to show on Japanese TV. One girl, Kana Yano (Rio Kanno) displays phenomenal abilties, summoning fresh lake water and a baby’s hair out of thin air. She falls ill, which Kobayashi captures on tape when she telekinetically hurls her dinner off the table. Shortly thereafter, she disappears.
Kana’s unfathomably calm parents point Kobayashi to an eccentric psychic named Mitsuo Hori (Satoru Jitsunashi) as a lead. An unhinged but sympathetic character, Hori is frantic and fidgety, wearing tin foil to protect himself from “ectoplasmic worms” that kidnapped Kana. He clearly has answers but cannot directly share them beyond obscure directions. He screams out a word “Kagutaba”, draws a vague map to Kana’s location, and then distorts the camera footage in one of the film’s more unnerving scenes. Kobayashi and Miyajima figure out Hori’s directions point to a certain apartment block where they see a tenant take pigeons into his flat. When they go to confront him, the pigeon fancier disappears.
In a third plot, actress Marika Matsumoto plays herself. She is perhaps best known as voicing Rikku in Final Fantasy X. In a TV show, Marika travels to a remote shrine with a pair of actual comedians called the UnGirls, only to exhibit demonic possession. Kobayashi and Hori are brought in as consultants, but the latter instead attacks Marika and warns her to watch out for pigeons. Unaired footage from Marika’s show reveals a distorted figure was watching her from the shadows. Marika begins sleepwalking at home, fashioning interconnected loops that look suspiciously like nooses. Kobayashi records her midnight shenanigans, hearing strange noises and words, including another mention of “Kagutaba”.
An investigation into the phrase guides Kobayashi into the past of a doomed village named Shimokage. A historian describes Kagutaba as an evil entity summoned by the villagers to do their bidding, but they sealed him underground when he rebelled. To pacify the demon, Shimokage performed an annual ceremony, until the village was demolished to make way for a reservoir. Kobayashi is directed to the lone surviving priestess from the last ceremony: Junko Ishii. Kobayashi uncovers Junko’s eerie past, involving illegal abortions, foetus smuggling, and spreading the good word of Kagutaba around the region.
During all this, all sorts of disturbing subplots are going on in the background. Kana’s father murders his wife, several people hang themselves in a playground using the same nooses Marika was crafting, and dogs disappear on masse. Marika lodges with Kobayashi’s wife Keiko (Miyako Hanai), but she shows signs of demonic possession, and attracts suicidal pigeons.
Kagutaba is never directly seen in the movie, nor is his actual identity set in the stone. He could be a demon, a ghost, or something more ancient and unknown. He is represented by a blood red mask, which may actually be his face. He has influence over every event in the story, but his true nature and goals remain ambiguous. It is worth rewatching Noroi to fully take in the larger threads and ripples that the curse has on the characters.
The third act involves the central characters driving to the dam to pacify Kagutaba, skipping a dramatic supernatural showdown, in favour of more terrifying woodland chases. The film ends on an equally soul destroying note that unravels lingering questions but leaves Kobayashi’s fate unknown. With an extensive cast of characters, just about every key figure is either killed, punished, or left severely shaken. The curse is not just a supernatural one, but a depressing gloom that consumes all in its way.
Noroi: The Curse was one of the classic Asian horror films to be spared a shoddy American remake. A key element to the movie’s scare are the slowly dawning realisation that everything that happens is bound together through Kobayashi’s investigation. Scares are not forced in the audience’s face, but are gradually built upon until coming to fruition in swift blows, which are often left unexplained or up to the viewer’s imagination. Kōji Shiraishi excels in telling such a captivating story, through his memorable characters and filmmaking style.
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English (US) · 