Last night I realized I hadn't watched any J-horror so far this year. Casting about on Shudder revealed that they had Sadako vs Kayako - but I just couldn't bring myself to watch it. I know - I'm contemplating a Bill Rebane double feature, but this is where I draw the line? What can I say - I've only got low expectations for Giant Spider Invasion, but I really enjoyed Ringu, Ju-On and their US remakes. I sense only disappointment coming from watching a film where those two characters clash. (And I say this as someone who actually enjoyed Freddy vs Jason.)
I did see that they had a film called Noroi: The Curse by the same director. Not necessarily a high recommendation, I know, but it looked like an early (2005) Japanese found footage horror film (not something I've seen a lot of). I looked up the director, and realized I'd seen at least one of his films, Shirome, another found footage flick. I didn't remember much about it (other than the butterfly imagery and a lot of screaming girls), but it was enough to make me take the plunge. "Five minutes," I thought. "if it doesn't catch me in five minutes I'll bail and find something else."
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| Something with more gravestones in it. |
Well, it caught me.
The Medium
Noroi is a Shudder exclusive, which I think means it's the only service with the streaming rights (in the US anyway). The quality was as good as you can expect for a film that appears to have been shot in standard definition on various media (including VHS tape). (That's consistent with the context of the film, and not a budget consideration.)
The Movie
Noroi is a bit of a film-within-a-film in that the framing sequence - a matter of a few minutes introduction and ending - is presenting the final work of a 'well known' journalist and paranormal expert, Masafumi Kobayashi. The majority of the film is the actual documentary - finished before Kobayashi disappeared in the wake of a fire at his home that resulted in the death of his wife.
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| "That totally has nothing to do with the documentary though, right?" |
This is a great choice and allows for pacing, music, repetitive visuals, slow motion and generally all of the filmmaking tricks one uses when creating a documentary to try and tell a story. There's no need to have long sequences of running through the woods with vague shouting (although, to be fair, there is a bit of that) or people saying things people would never actually say in order to get information across. We get newspaper clippings, segments from (actual) Japanese TV shows, interviews and footage from various sources edited together to create tension and mood, while still maintaining that 'realistic' feeling. And of course you've got a cameraman and a documentary filmmaker - the perfect excuse to keep the cameras rolling when most people would have dropped the damn thing and beat feet.
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| Like I totally would have if this showed up. |
Kobayashi's documentary is called The Curse (natch) and details his final investigation, starting with a woman's call about a strange neighbor and developing through to a final exploration of the events in and around a 'drowned' village (flooded by a damn). Along the way we'll see psychic kids, tinfoil hat (and clothes) wearing conspiracy theorists, strange knots, possessed TV stars, suicidal pigeons, ancient shrines and much more besides. It sounds like a lot - and it is - but here the films length actually works for it, allowing all these disparate threads to slowly weave together, forming a tapestry of unsettling events and people.
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| "And worms! Ectoplasmic worms!" |
There are a few missteps in execution and not every actor is as good as the leads, but to be honest I'm only thinking about those things in retrospect. They didn't bother me while I was watching - I was pretty engrossed. There's also one dodgy piece of CGI, but it was horrifying enough in context that I didn't notice until the film re-used it later. The scares are more in a growing sense of unease and the creepiness of realizing what's going on. There are some jump scares, but they're few and used to good effect. I found the ending pretty clear (and horrifying), but some might find it either too ambiguous or too flat.
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| Sleep with this ambiguity in your head tonight, though. |
The Bottom Line
Noroi is a really effective horror movie - in mood and execution it kinda reminded me of Junji Ito's work, though not as gory or bizarre as they tend to end up. There's a great mood and the sense of being unsettled by what you're seeing. It's in the unsaid things that slowly add up and the implications you're led to. One of the better found footage movies I've seen and highly recommended.
Still not up for watching Sadako vs Kayako, though.
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