Noroi: The Curse

Noroi: The Curse (ノロイ, Noroi) is a 2005 Japanese horror film directed and co-written by Kōji Shiraishi. It stars Jin Muraki as Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher investigating a series of mysterious events for a documentary. The film employs a mockumentary style of storytelling[1] and utilizes found footage conventions, with the majority of the narrative being presented as if it were Kobayashi's documentary, made up of footage recorded by Kobayashi's cameraman. The film's cast also includes actress Marika Matsumoto, who plays a fictionalized version of herself,[2] as well as Rio Kanno, Tomono Kuga, and Satoru Jitsunashi.

Noroi: The Curse
Theatrical release poster
Directed byKōji Shiraishi
Produced byTakashige Ichise
Screenplay byKōji Shiraishi
Naoyuki Yokota
Starring
CinematographyShozo Morishita
Edited byNobuyuki Takahashi
Production
company
Xanadeux Company
Distributed by
Release date
  • August 20, 2005 (2005-08-20)
Running time
115 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese
Budget$2 million

Noroi: The Curse was released in Japan in 2005, and has received limited distribution elsewhere. It has garnered generally positive reviews, with critics commending the presentation and pacing of its narrative. It is available for streaming on Shudder.[3][4]

Plot

The film focuses on Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher who has produced a series of books and documentaries on supernatural activity around Japan. During the process of making a documentary titled The Curse, Kobayashi disappeared after his house burnt down and his wife Keiko was found dead in the ruins. The aforementioned documentary begins to play, shown mostly through the recordings of Kobayashi's cameraman Miyajima.

A year and a half earlier, Kobayashi investigates a woman named Junko Ishii and her son after her neighbor hears the sound of crying babies coming from her house. Ishii soon moves away, and Kobayashi and Miyajima return to her former residence to find dead pigeons on the property. Ishii's neighbor and her daughter die in a mysterious car crash and Kana Yano, a girl who exhibits psychic powers on a variety television program, disappears. Speaking to her parents, Kobayashi learns a man named Mitsuo Hori visited Kana. Hori, an eccentric psychic, claims that Kana was taken by "ectoplasmic worms." Kobayashi and Miyajima observe a man named Osawa taking pigeons into his home in a nearby apartment block. Osawa is later reported missing.

After filming at a shrine, actress Marika Matsumoto finds herself fashioning yarn and wires into interconnected loops in her sleep. Kobayashi sets up a camera to record her one night and captures a voice saying the word "Kagutaba." Kobayashi visits local historian Mr. Tanimura, who tells him that Kagutaba is the name of a demon. The residents of a village called Shimokage once summoned Kagutaba but imprisoned it for disobeying their commands. An annual ritual was performed to appease Kagutaba until the village was demolished in 1978 to make way for a dam. The final ritual, which was filmed, was performed by a priest and his daughter. At the end of the ritual, the daughter became hysterical; Tanimura says that she was believed to have become possessed. Kobayashi discovers that the daughter is Junko Ishii. He learns that Ishii worked at a nursing school where she helped perform illegal abortions and stole aborted fetuses.

Marika reveals that her neighbor Midori committed suicide by hanging. Midori, along with six other people including Osawa, hanged themselves in a park. After Marika experiences strange behaviors, she goes with Kobayashi and Hori to the Shimokage dam to perform the ritual to appease Kagutaba, hoping that doing so will free her from the demon's influence. After Kobayashi and Marika perform the ritual, Hori becomes agitated and runs into a nearby forest, and Kobayashi follows him. Marika flees from Miyajima, and he chases her into the forest, where he finds her screaming on the ground. Meanwhile, Kobayashi and Hori find the villagers' dogs slaughtered near a secluded shrine in the woods. Kobayashi's camera captures an apparition of Kana under a torii, surrounded by writhing fetuses.

After delivering Marika and Hori to a hospital, Kobayashi and Miyajima break into Ishii's current home. Inside, they find that she has hanged herself, Kana is dead, and Ishii's young son is alive. It is learned that Ishii's "son" is not her biological child; Kobayashi adopts him. Kobayashi returns to Tanimura, who shows him a scroll depicting how Kagutaba was first summoned, wherein baby monkeys were fed to a medium. Ishii tried replicating this by feeding the stolen fetuses to Kana. Marika recovers, and Hori is placed in a mental institution, only to escape and be found dead a day later.

After Kobayashi's disappearance, his video camera is discovered in a package. The tape inside shows the events that led to the destruction of Kobayashi's house: a crazed Hori arrives at the house, declares Ishii's "son" to be Kagutaba, and bludgeons the child with a rock. The boy briefly takes on the appearance of Kagutaba, and a ghostly Kana is seen standing in a corner. Hori leaves with the boy, and Keiko becomes possessed, pouring gasoline on herself and setting herself alight. The film ends noting Kobayashi and the boy are still missing.

Cast

Release

The film was released in Japan in 2005.[3] Since its release, distribution of the film outside of Japan has been limited.[3] On June 1, 2017, it was made available for streaming in Canada on the video on demand service Shudder.[5] In March 2020, the film was added to Shudder's catalog in the United States.[3][4] The film has not received a DVD or Blu-ray release in the U.S.[3]

Reception

Koichi Irikura of Cinema Today included Noroi: The Curse in his list of the best "documentary-style" horror films, calling the screenplay "excellent".[6] Niina Doherty of HorrorNews.net called Noroi: The Curse "the best found footage film of the decade", referring to it as "well crafted, credible and most important of all, genuinely scary."[7] Rob Hunter of Film School Rejects praised the film for "delivering an engrossing and increasingly terrifying experience packaged in the form of a supremely competent production."[4] Joshua Meyer of /Film wrote that the film, with its "intricate mythology", is "like seeing a whole season of The X-Files condensed down into two unsettling hours."[8]

Writer Megan Negrych noted that the film "weaves together a complex story of curses, demons, and the forgotten with strong attention paid to atmospheric tension and the slow-building narrative in order to pursue a more subtle and highly effective horror experience."[9] Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting emphasized the film's "methodical storytelling", writing: "For many, it works. For others, it'll drag without a satisfying payoff to merit the pacing. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of enjoyment, Noroi's place in horror remains fascinating."[3]

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gollark: You could probably automate this. Solving linear equation systems isn't too awful for computers.
gollark: Imagine doing maths with numbers.
gollark: If work within another one is absolutely necessary ours can be sharded.
gollark: Well, in all generated jurisdictions we allow ourselves arbitrarily high lawyer energy input at no cost.

See also
  • "J-horror"
  • Other found-footage-style mockumentary films directed by Kōji Shiraishi:

References
  1. Burkart, Gregory S. (October 1, 2014). "13 Scariest Mockumentaries Ever Made!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved April 14, 2020.
  2. Thapa, Shaurya (March 3, 2020). "10 Things You Didn't Know About Noroi: The Curse". Screen Rant. Retrieved April 14, 2020.
  3. Navarro, Meagan (March 25, 2020). "Does Shudder's 'Noroi: The Curse' Earn Its Reputation as the Scariest Found Footage Horror Film?". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved April 14, 2020.
  4. Hunter, Rob (March 4, 2020). "5 Scary As F*ck Movies Streaming on Shudder in March 2020". Film School Rejects. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  5. "Orange you glad June is finally here?". The Windsor Star. Windsor, Ontario. June 2, 2017. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  6. Irikura, Koichi (June 1, 2012). "え!?これって本物?　現実の恐怖が襲う！リアリティーホラー！" [Eh!? Is this real? The fear of reality strikes! Reality horror!]. Cinema Today (in Japanese). Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  7. Doherty, Niina. "Film Review: Noroi: The Curse (Noroi) (2005)". HorrorNews.net. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  8. Meyer, Joshua (February 6, 2018). "8 Great Asian Horror Films That Hollywood Hasn't Remade". /Film. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  9. Murguía, Salvador Jimenez (2016). The Encyclopedia of Japanese Horror Films (National Cinemas). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 219–220. ISBN 978-1442261662.

Further reading
  • Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra (2014). Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality. McFarland & Company. pp. 122, 189. ISBN 978-0786470778.
  • Clymo, Rob, ed. (September 2013). "Best of the Rest..." Digital Filmmaker. Select Publisher Services Ltd. p. 114. ISSN 2052-0964. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
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