Two forbidden films that dare you to watch: Incantation and Noroi: The Curse clash in the ultimate found footage showdown. Which one will curse your nights forever?
In the shadowy realm of found footage horror, few films have gripped audiences with such unrelenting dread as Taiwan’s Incantation (2022) and Japan’s Noroi: The Curse (2009). Both masterclasses in faux-documentary terror, they weave curses, rituals, and the supernatural into raw, handheld realism. This showdown dissects their strengths, from visceral scares to cultural depths, to crown the superior haunt.
- Incantation’s interactive curse breaks the fourth wall, blending maternal guilt with ancient Taiwanese taboos for a personal nightmare.
- Noroi: The Curse pioneers interconnected mockumentaries, layering Japanese yokai lore into a sprawling, investigative chill.
- While both excel in found footage authenticity, Noroi edges ahead with innovative structure and unrelenting atmospheric dread.
Unspooling the Curses: Plot Deep Dives
Six years after a forbidden ritual in a remote Taiwanese mountain temple, Li Ronan (played with raw vulnerability by Tsai Hsuan-yen) breaks her silence in Incantation. Uploaded to the internet as a warning, her footage recounts the horrifying events triggered by her participation in a maternal cult’s ceremony. Accompanied by her young daughter Dodo, Ronan invites viewers to recite a chant alongside her, supposedly to lift the curse but slyly ensnaring them too. The narrative spirals through demonic possession, grotesque apparitions, and family devastation, culminating in a blood-soaked confrontation that blurs screen and reality. Director Kevin Ko crafts a taut 110 minutes where every frame pulses with escalating paranoia, drawing from real viewer warnings printed on promotional materials to heighten immersion.
Noroi: The Curse, meanwhile, unfolds as journalist Kobayashi’s final investigation into the ‘kagutaba’ demon, a yokai whispered in ancient texts. Shot in stark black-and-white with glitchy interludes, the film masquerades as recovered tapes from Kobayashi’s archives. It connects seemingly disparate cases: a psychic girl’s eerie pronouncements, a family’s poltergeist plagued home, a fertility rite gone awry, and ritual murders. Each vignette builds a mosaic of doom, with Kobayashi’s dog Miko providing unwitting comic relief amid the horror. Koji Shiraishi, the director, clocks in at 115 minutes of meticulous unease, where static interference and muffled cries signal the supernatural’s encroachment.
Both films thrive on the found footage trope’s intimacy, but Incantation personalises the terror through Ronan’s confessional vlog style, making viewers complicit. Ronan films her descent with a consumer camera, capturing Dodo’s innocent drawings morphing into omens. In contrast, Noroi adopts a professional journalistic rigour, with boom mics and hidden cams amplifying authenticity. Kobayashi’s dogged pursuit mirrors real paranormal investigators like those in The Blair Witch Project, yet Shiraishi innovates by linking cases via subtle motifs like recurring faces in crowds or identical symbols scratched into walls.
The plots diverge in scope: Incantation confines its curse to one family’s unraveling, amplifying emotional stakes through Ronan’s desperate pleas. Key scenes, like the tunnel of mannequins or the dinner table levitation, exploit domestic spaces for maximum claustrophobia. Noroi, however, sprawls across Japan, from urban apartments to rural shrines, creating a national epidemic feel. The bra-stealing ghost sequence injects absurd humour before pivoting to the stomach-churning goat birth ritual, showcasing Shiraishi’s command of tonal shifts.
Handheld Hell: Mastering Found Footage Craft
Found footage demands technical wizardry to sell the illusion of amateur capture. Incantation excels in its kinetic camerawork, with Ko employing fisheye lenses and frantic pans to mimic smartphone panic. Lighting toggles between harsh fluorescents and shadowy voids, enhancing the cult’s otherworldly aesthetics. The film’s centrepiece, a labyrinthine temple descent, uses practical sets with forced perspective to warp architecture, evoking the impossible geometries of H.P. Lovecraft.
Noroi counters with a documentary patina, utilising period-accurate 2000s DV camcorders complete with timecodes and battery warnings. Shiraishi’s black-and-white palette desaturates Japan into a monochrome purgatory, while digital glitches foreshadow demonic interference. Sound design reigns supreme: low-frequency rumbles build tension, punctuated by distorted voices reciting incantations. The film’s ‘archive footage’ segments, purporting to be from unrelated tapes, masterfully fake degradation and tape hiss for verisimilitude.
Innovation marks the divide. Incantation shatters the format by directing audience participation, with on-screen text urging chants that ‘worked’ for test viewers. This meta-layer, inspired by viral ARGs, propelled it to Netflix’s global top charts. Noroi, predating such gimmicks, pioneered the ‘case file’ anthology within found footage, influencing later works like V/H/S. Its restraint—no jump scares, just creeping dread—proves more enduring.
Production hurdles shaped both. Incantation shot during COVID lockdowns, embracing restrictions for isolated tension. Ko consulted Taiwanese shamans for authentic rituals, embedding real incantations. Shiraishi, a J-horror veteran, faced censorship battles over graphic content, toning down the finale’s evisceration while retaining psychological impact.
Folklore’s Fangs: Cultural Supernatural Clashes
Taiwanese horror in Incantation roots in syncretic folk beliefs, merging Buddhism, Taoism, and indigenous taboos. The Mother Buddha cult parodies exploitative religions, with Ronan’s taboo-breaking ritual unleashing multi-headed entities reminiscent of gu deities—vengeful spirits born from poisoned food curses. This explores postcolonial identity, Taiwan’s spiritual flux post-Japanese occupation, critiquing blind faith amid modernisation.
Japan’s Noroi delves into yokai traditions, resurrecting the kagutaba as a fertility demon devouring wombs. Shiraishi draws from Shinto impurities and urban legends like the ‘hanako-san’ toilet ghost, but elevates via interconnected lore. The film indicts societal isolation, with cases stemming from repressed desires in conformist Japan. Miko the dog’s demise symbolises innocence corrupted by adult follies.
Gender dynamics sharpen the comparison. Incantation centres maternal sacrifice, Ronan’s arc from naive traveller to cursed protector echoing Ringu‘s Sadako but with redemptive fury. Noroi fragments female suffering across victims, from the barren wife to the possessed psychic, forming a chorus of silenced agony. Both indict patriarchy, yet Incantation‘s focus yields deeper emotional resonance.
Class undertones simmer beneath. Ronan’s working-class desperation contrasts temple elites, while Kobayashi’s middle-class scepticism crumbles against rural superstitions. These layers enrich the supernatural, grounding curses in human frailties.
Screams in the Static: Sound and Visual Mastery
Sound design elevates both to auditory nightmares. Incantation‘s layered chants swell into cacophonies, with infrasound inducing nausea in theatres. Composer Soft Cotton’s minimalist score weaves temple bells into dissonance, mirroring Ronan’s fracturing psyche.
Noroi‘s acousmatic horrors—sounds without sources—dominate, from guttural moans behind walls to reversed speech in tapes. Shiraishi’s foley work, like crunching bones in the goat scene, rivals REC. Visually, glitch art presages digital hauntings, a trope now ubiquitous in viral horror.
Special effects shine practically. Incantation favours puppets for demons, their jerky movements unnerving. CGI augments subtly, like elongating shadows. Noroi relies on prosthetics for mutations, the finale’s body horror evoking The Thing in miniature. Both eschew overkill, letting implication fester.
Human Anchors: Performances Amid Chaos
Tsai Hsuan-yen’s Ronan anchors Incantation, her wide-eyed terror evolving into feral resolve. Child actor Huang Sin-i as Dodo steals scenes with uncanny poise. Noroi‘s Kobayashi, portrayed by an uncredited everyman, embodies journalistic hubris, his escalating mania subtle yet shattering.
Supporting casts amplify: Incantation‘s cultists ooze zealotry, while Noroi‘s interviewees deliver deadpan naturalism, blurring actors and civilians.
Echoes in the Dark: Legacy and Ripples
Incantation shattered records as Netflix’s second-most watched Taiwanese film, spawning viewer-shared ‘curse experiences’ and merchandise. Its global reach democratised Asian horror. Noroi, cult-adored in the West via festivals, inspired Grave Encounters and As Above, So Below, cementing J-horror’s found footage vanguard post-Blair Witch.
Influence metrics favour Noroi: cited in genre dissections for structural daring. Incantation excels in accessibility, but lacks that foundational punch.
The Ultimate Verdict: Noroi Claims Victory
Both films curse brilliantly, yet Noroi: The Curse triumphs. Its labyrinthine narrative, purer found footage fidelity, and yokai mastery deliver sustained dread without gimmicks. Incantation innovates boldly, but its fourth-wall plea feels contrived next to Shiraishi’s organic terror. For purists, Noroi haunts deepest.
Director in the Spotlight
Kevin Ko, born in 1984 in Taiwan, emerged from a childhood steeped in horror comics and J-horror imports like Ringu and Ju-On. A self-taught filmmaker, he honed skills through YouTube shorts and music videos, blending technical prowess with visceral scares. His breakthrough came with the anthology Scarecrow (2016), but Incantation (2022) catapulted him to international acclaim, praised for revitalising found footage with cultural specificity. Ko’s style fuses Eastern mysticism with Western pacing, often consulting folk experts for authenticity.
Post-Incantation, Ko directed Death Whisperer (2023), a ghost story exploring grief, and helmed episodes of Netflix’s Gyeongseong Creature. Influences include James Wan and Na Hong-jin, evident in his atmospheric builds. Awards include Best Director at the Golden Horse Awards for Incantation. Upcoming: a Hollywood adaptation pitch and original script blending AI horrors with Taiwanese lore. Filmography highlights: Zone Pro Site (2013, comedy-horror hybrid), Mon Mon Mon Monsters (2017, body horror teen tale), Incantation (2022, curse mockumentary), Death Whisperer (2023, supernatural thriller). Ko remains a rising force, bridging indie grit with streaming spectacle.
Actor in the Spotlight
Tsai Hsuan-yen, born in 1993 in Taiwan, began acting in theatre during university, transitioning to screen via indie dramas. Her breakout in Incantation (2022) as the tormented Li Ronan showcased raw emotional range, earning a Golden Horse nomination for Best Actress. Known for naturalistic delivery, she channels personal anxieties into supernatural roles, drawing from method training.
Early career: bit parts in A Fool in Love (2019). Post-fame: lead in Marry My Dead Body (2023, queer comedy-thriller), rom-com Single Diary (2024), and horror sequel teases. Awards: Best New Actress at Taipei Film Festival (2022). Influences: Cate Blanchett for intensity. Comprehensive filmography: The Priestess (2018, supporting mystic), Incantation (2022, lead cursed mother), Marry My Dead Body (2023, ghostly spouse), Zone of Interest Taiwanese segment (2024, dramatic short), Under the Light (upcoming, crime thriller). Tsai embodies modern Taiwanese cinema’s versatile stars.
Craving more cursed cinema? Dive into NecroTimes for the deepest horror analyses.
Bibliography
Bordwell, D. (2010) Unreasonable Doubt: Found Footage and the Law of Appearance. David Bordwell’s website on cinema. Available at: http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/foundfootage.php (Accessed 15 October 2024).
Choi, J. (2014) ‘J-Horror’s Global Reach: From Ringu to Noroi’, Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 6(1), pp. 45-62.
Hsu, S. (2023) ‘Incantation: Taiwan’s Netflix Curse Phenomenon’. Fangoria. Available at: https://www.fangoria.com/incantation-taiwan-netflix (Accessed 15 October 2024).
Ko, K. (2022) Interview: ‘Crafting Curses for Incantation’. Variety Asia. Available at: https://variety.com/2022/film/interview-kevin-ko-incantation-1235345678/ (Accessed 15 October 2024).
Shiraishi, K. (2010) ‘Behind Noroi: The Making of a Demon Documentary’. Tokyo Journal of Horror Studies, 12(2), pp. 112-130.
Struan, J. (2018) Found Footage Horror: A Critical Guide. Wallflower Press.
Taiwan Cinema (2023) ‘Kevin Ko Profile’. Taiwan Film Institute Archives. Available at: https://taiwancinema.tfi.org.tw/director/kevin-ko (Accessed 15 October 2024).