Noroi: The Curse(2005)(Review)

When the found footage subgenre was really tipping back and forth between innovative and overplayed after the smash-sucess of ‘The Blair Witch Project’, there were a handful of outliers that really stand strong all these years later. One of the most effective ones was a film that was relatively unseen for decades – Japan’s ‘Noroi: The Curse’.

‘Noroi’ essentially is a faux-documentary about a director whose become obsessed with a few strange cases going on around him – one involving a family who hears strange noises coming from their neighbors home, one involving a young girl with ESP-like abilities, and a few others – but things get ultra weird when they all start to meld together. What begins as an innocent investigation turns into possibly the possession of a cursed videotape. As he continues to interview new characters, some very bizarre things begin to happen to those around him. The only certainties we really seem to hang on are these strange ghost-like images that keep popping up in weird places, an esoteric warning about ethereal worms, and the need to beware the pigeons.

The best word to describe this film is: mood. It’s claustrophobic and tense from the get-go. It incorporates Japanese folklore to create a dizzying blur of fiction and reality, which is especially potent on a Western audience who may just be learning about much of these characters and yokai for the first time.

The film is about 80% faux-documentary, but the other 20% is straight-up found footage, and the combination between the two is completely mesmerizing. This is a film that puts ever-growing dread up front and center instead of real scares, which just means that when we do get actual scares they are that much more effective. It is absolutely effective, unsettling, hypnotizing, and endlessly fascinating. The journey never waivers too far from the source, the surprises are plentiful and entertaining, and I had absolutely no idea where we were going to end up at the end of the story.

If you’re someone whose into found footage, this is an absolute gem. While based on the idea of being a cursed video tape, it finds a way to show enough restraint so as to not sully the point, but also to be bold enough to show us what we need to see to seal the deal. It’s a very delicate balancing act that honestly could’ve faltered very easily – but it doesn’t. Instead, we get an experience that feels organic, precise, and raw. It’s grown more popular over the last few years, but I’m certainly late to the party. If you’re in the same boat then I implore you – hop on and take the ride.

4.5/5
“Noroi: The Curse” is currently streaming on Shudder.

‘Til Next Time,
Mike Cleopatra