[3] Since its release, distribution of the film outside of Japan has been limited. 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. For the better part of 15 years, Noroi was the subject of only occasional international screenings, and it never got a physical release in the United States. 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. Hori, an eccentric psychic, claims that Kana was taken by "ectoplasmic worms." They just (WARNING: possible spoiler, but also not really a spoiler) get devoured by it. It does get off to a slow start. Director Kōji Shiraishi makes one brilliant choice upfront: Unlike most found-footage movies—which are usually presented as raw footage shot by a doomed amateur—Noroi is introduced as a mostly-completed "documentary" crafted by a seasoned journalist. Noroi: The Curse. Kobayashi sets up a camera to record her one night and captures a voice saying the word "Kagutaba." I don’t want to say too much about Noroi’s plot, because one key to its success is throwing so many different things at the audience before revealing how they all come together. It is best to watch Noroi: The Curse by knowing little or nothing about it save that it is a fake paranormal vhs doc, the last of its line, as the researcher responsible has disappeared after uncovering a story too vast to be fit onto vhs cassettes. When viewed through a YouTube window, some of Noroi’s more off-putting qualities—like the incredibly grainy VHS-style picture quality, which stands out even more in the HD era—are sneaky assets, helping the movie camouflage the fact that it’s a movie at all. 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, incapacitates Kobayashi, and bludgeons the child with a rock. I would, uh, never endorse watching a movie this way (and for the record: Now that it’s on Shudder, or for purchase on iTunes, that’s how you should watch it). Japanese Noroi: The Curse (ノロイ, Noroi) is a 2005 Japanese horror film directed and co-written by Kōji Shiraishi. And as usual, the movie gets blocked… [3] On June 1, 2017, it was made available for streaming in Canada on the video on demand service Shudder. “The Curse” by Ryan Green is a true crime story about Leonarda Cianciulli, an Italian serial killer who murdered women to prevent her son’s getting killed as he was going to join the army during WW2. It's the same trick that Blair Witch used, more or less, and there are some other similarities between the two movies. For others, it'll drag without a satisfying payoff to merit the pacing. Marika recovers, and Hori is placed in a mental institution, only to escape and be found dead a day later. Kobayashi discovers that the daughter is Junko Ishii. Kobayashi specializes in the supernatural, and his latest project tackles a series of seemingly disconnected mysteries: a creepy house where neighbors always hear the sound of crying babies, a string of sudden and bizarre deaths, an adolescent girl with apparent psychic powers, and a ghost-hunting reality TV show that goes very, very wrong. Actresses Marika Matsumoto and Maria Takagi, among others, are … Brought to you by Watch4HD.net and directed by Kôji Shiraishi, A documentary filmmaker explores seemingly unrelated paranormal incidents connected by the legend of an ancient demon called the “kagutaba.” Hori's obscure directions lead Kobayashi and Miyajima to observe a man named Osawa, who takes pigeons into his home in a nearby apartment block. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Kobayashi's camera captures an apparition of Kana under a torii, surrounded by writhing fetuses. It’s why and how it happens, and what it means. In theory, this is what most found-footage horror movies attempt to do—but Noroi’s purity is rarer than you might think. So if it’s so great, why haven’t you already seen Noroi? Noroi: The Curse opens with a warning: "This video documentary is deemed too disturbing for public viewing.” It spends the subsequent two hours living up to that warning. As the narratives intersect in Kobayashi’s film, the horrible story of the curse begins to come to light. ", "5 Scary As F*ck Movies Streaming on Shudder in March 2020", "Film Review: Noroi: The Curse (Noroi) (2005)", "8 Great Asian Horror Films That Hollywood Hasn't Remade", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noroi:_The_Curse&oldid=991511212, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. "[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. Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. The boy briefly takes on the appearance of Kagutaba, and a ghostly Kana appears in a corner. Speaking to her parents, Kobayashi learns a man named Mitsuo Hori visited Kana. But broadly: Noroi is a 2005 horror movie presented as a polished but incomplete documentary by an independent journalist named Masafumi Kobayashi (Jin Muraki). So ultimately, the question isn’t what happens to these characters. However, I found it to be absolutely fascinating. I loved the segment with the last record of the ritual, it is found footage inside found footage. This is the unconventional but successful trick at the heart of Noroi: By refusing to follow the beats and tropes of a normal horror movie, it ends up feeling real. He learns that Ishii worked at a nursing school where she helped perform illegal abortions and stole the fetuses. Of course, that’s not strictly true and there is a certain connection that ties all of these people together and to this curse, but it doesn’t mean that others can’t get hurt. The veneer of reality adds to its uncomfortableness. Like Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse , it shows us a Japan that's not the busy nation which we know. In Noroi: The Curse, the film's conclusion brings each storyline to a close but leaves a possible open-ended fate for one character — admittedly a solid creative choice. Noroi: The Curse is filled with mystery and once the unknown is revealed to the viewer, the slow pace is well worth it! Wikipedia says it's just a mockumentary. His video, formerly considered too disturbing to show to the public, is the main segment of the movie. Many people encountered Noroi for the first time in bootleg subtitled copies that were uploaded in full to torrent sites or YouTube by devoted fans. Even if the movie didn’t tell you about its closing tragedy in its opening text, it’s obvious that Kobayashi and Matsumoto have walked into a trap they can’t recognize until they’re already caught, and that everyone around them will be dragged in as well. The film employs a pseudo-documentary 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. This film, my friends, is Noroi the Curse, from director Kôji Shiraishi. "[3], "10 Things You Didn't Know About Noroi: The Curse", "Does Shudder's 'Noroi: The Curse' Earn Its Reputation as the Scariest Found Footage Horror Film? Noroi is a Japanese effort at the found-footage genre and comes off as one of the best. Because the character holding the camera is supposed to be a professional cameraman, Noroi largely avoids the headache-inducing shaky-cam popularized by legions of Blair Witch Project imitators. And it’s hard to imagine a better way to enhance this movie’s already disturbing sense of realism than dropping it on YouTube devoid of any context, where curious, brave viewers could swap the link on message boards and debate just how much of it was real. [3][4] The film has not received a DVD or Blu-ray release in the U.S.[3], Koichi Irikura of Cinema Today included Noroi: The Curse in his list of the best "documentary-style" horror films, calling the screenplay "excellent". It is learned that Ishii's "son" is not her biological child; Kobayashi adopts him. Noroi: The Curse Review. After Kobayashi and Marika perform the ritual, Hori becomes agitated and runs into a nearby forest, and Kobayashi follows him. Noroi: The Curse was released in Japan in 2005, and has received limited distribution elsewhere. Some die-hard fans have been uploading Noroi: The Curse on YouTube time and again. But just as you’re turning that moment over in your head, Noroi rewinds and freeze-frames the image of the figure in the woods and analyzes it closely—as, of course, any responsible documentarian would. The Blair Witch Project’s Heather begins the story as an overconfident amateur filmmaker, and ends by admitting she’s in way over her head. All rights reserved. As Kobayashi struggles to get to his feet, the video ends. No, it’s not true, though. [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. Because until earlier this year, it was very, very difficult for anyone who wasn’t in Japan to track it down. The other day I managed to see what might be the most complex one yet, one that doesn’t sacrifice story for the sake of cheap shocks.This film, my friends, is Noroi the Curse, from director Kôji Shiraishi. Cloverfield’s Rob and Beth begin the story by pretending they’re not in love, and confess they love each other just before the bombs start to drop. Shown through the video recordings of his personal investigation and clips of television shows, the documentary ties together the threads of a collection of strange events known as The Curse (Noroi… "[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. Hori leaves with the boy, and Keiko becomes possessed, pouring gasoline on herself and setting herself alight and setting the house on fire. It stars Jin Muraki as Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher investigating a series of mysterious events for a documentary. I'd classify it now as a Curse game. If I have one complaint, it’s that—as great as Noroi: The Curse is—putting it on Shudder alongside horror classics like Night of the Living Dead and Halloween also gives the game away. Noroi doesn’t bother with anything like that. Haru's true identity is nothing more and nothing less, so there's no meaning to reading too much into her. "[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. The story is pure Japanese, the lost village, the forbidden ritual, and the kugataba, the demon. 2005. Indeed, people in the periphery of this story are also affected, most of them in a frightful manner. The claims that Antrum is cursed have also migrated to other social media platforms, like Twitter, and have sent the movie’s popularity soaring on Amazon Prime. Text notes that Kobayashi is still missing. Ad Choices, Noroi: The Curse Is a Genuinely Terrifying Hidden Gem. And because Kobayashi is experienced, the "found footage" is edited more like a conventional documentary meant to entertain and inform a mass audience, which means that Noroi—even at nearly two hours—is paced more like a real film than some weirdo’s old home movie. The film was released in Japan in 2005. Actor Ai Iijima from Noroi: The Curse is cast as "Guest on TV Program." Noroi’s commitment to documentary conventions is so absolute that it can be jarring if you’re not prepared for it. Ai Iijima's real age is N/A. So what makes Noroi stand out from the dozens of bad, cheap imitators that cropped up in the wake of The Blair Witch Project, which came out five years earlier? It is a desolate, lonely ghost town whose atmosphere is enough to send chills down the spine of anybody who dares to walk on its nigh empty roads. The sheer plausibility of Noroi’s footage and presentation is part of what makes it such an effective horror film: despite featuring an investigation into supernatural events, Noroi consistently feels like a documentary first and a horror film second. 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. At first the plot kind of jumps around and it feels a bit like run of … In a normal horror movie, this would be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment designed to make you go, Did I really just see that? Found-footage movies have a bad reputation among horror fans—which is fair, since most of them are terrible. What follows is a strange mishmash of surreal imagery presented in a disarmingly straightforward way—dead pigeons, braided ropes, barking dogs—and a dread-inducing downward spiral. Midori, along with six other people including Osawa, hanged themselves in a park using nooses similar in fashion to Marika's loops. An annual ritual was performed to appease Kagutaba until the village was demolished in 1978 to make way for a dam. Noroi: The Curse may not be for everyone. Noroi: The Curse is a slow-burner of a horror film, far less dependent on visual scares than similar J-horror films. This immediately fixes several problems that typically plague found-footage movies. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of enjoyment, Noroi's place in horror remains fascinating. Chris: Noroi: The Curse is a little uneven, but it does a great job conveying a sense of creepiness via found footage trappings. The film's cast also includes ac… After filming at a shrine, actress Marika Matsumoto finds herself fashioning yarn and wires into interconnected loops in her sleep. Noroi never falls into any such traps. [5] In March 2020, the film was added to Shudder's catalog in the United States. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Noroi: The Curse opens with a warning: "This video documentary is deemed too disturbing for public viewing.” It spends the subsequent two hours living up to that warning. "[9] Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting emphasized the film's "methodical storytelling", writing: "For many, it works. She flees into the forest, pursued by Miyajima. After delivering Marika and Hori to a hospital, Kobayashi and Miyajima break into Ishii's current home. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ishii soon moves away, and Kobayashi and Miyajima return to her former residence to find dead pigeons on the property. Told through a compilation of television shows and interviews and documentary-style footage, it tells a spooky ghost story in a very modern way. The Japanese horror film from 2005 defies convention and has developed a cult-like following—and for good reason. For having a … Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Your California Privacy Rights. Osawa is later reported missing. Kōji Shiraishi’s Noroi: The Curse frames itself as a realistic documentary about some disturbing paranormal activity, but the film’s story slowly gets out of control. Kana Yano, a girl who exhibits psychic powers on a variety television program, disappears. It is not a spoiler to say that things don’t end well for Kobayashi; Noroi literally opens by explaining that Kobayashi’s house has burned down with his wife inside, and that Kobayashi himself has vanished. After Marika experiences strange behaviors, she goes with Kobayashi, Miyajima, 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. Noroi: The Curse is a Japanese mockumentary/found footage horror movie that was released around the tail-end of the found footage craze, right before the Paranormal Activity sequels hammered it into the ground.. Noroi also shares some style and vibe with supernatural horror movies like Sinister, with an evil spirit violently haunting anyone who looks too … Noroi: The Curse lives in a world that is constructed by demons and curses, rituals and shady towns. Directed by Kôji Shiraishi. It uses the documentary angle effectively to tell the story about the curse and its rituals, but it never relies too much on talking to move the story forward and doesn't need jump scares to be an effective film, because it's just so damn creepy it doesn't need it. Other found-footage-style mockumentary films directed by Kōji Shiraishi: This page was last edited on 30 November 2020, at 13:15. Actor Miyoko Hanai from Noroi: The Curse is cast as "Keiko Kobayashi." The film employs a pseudo-documentary style of storytelling and utilizes found footageconventions, with the majority of the narrative being presented as if it were Kobayashi's documentary, made up of footage recorded by Kobayashi's cameraman. © 2021 Condé Nast. The fun part is watching everything start to fall in place. Miyoko Hanai's real age is N/A. I was mesmerized by Kōji Shiraishi's 2005 Noroi: The Curse from beginning to end. It takes a while for the story to get going. The residents of a village called Shimokage once summoned Kagutaba, but imprisoned it for disobeying their commands. It stars Jin Muraki as Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher investigating a series of mysterious events for a documentary. You are watching now the Noroi: The Curse movie has Horror Mystery Thriller Genres and produced in Japan with 115 min runtime. It also runs a bit long. Noroi: The Curse is the Greatest Found Footage Horror Film Ever Made. Ishii tried replicating this by feeding the stolen fetuses to Kana. Inside, they find that she has hanged herself, Kana is dead, and Ishii's young son is alive. At the end of the ritual, the daughter became hysterical; Tanimura says that she was believed to have become possessed. But we don’t really learn anything about them, and they don’t change or grow from their encounters with the demon Kagutaba. De-da-da-daaa-n. How Shiro no Noroi was born. Actor Gôkyû from Noroi: The Curse is cast as "Guests of TV Program." Noroi no video is a documentary horror series made for Broadway. With Jin Muraki, Rio Kanno, Tomono Kuga, Marika Matsumoto. Shiraishi, Kōji. The story would not have worked as effectively outside the mockumentary format. This is a documentary-style movie, which means that the entire film is a compilation of video clips that are linked by the legend of a demonic entity named Kagutaba. Marika abruptly recovers. I believe that Noroi: the Curse is one of the best of the best within its subgenre. It stars Jin Muraki as Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher investigating a series of mysterious events for a documentary. A documentary filmmaker explores seemingly unrelated paranormal incidents connected by the legend of an ancient demon called the "kagutaba." Marika reveals that her neighbor Midori committed suicide by hanging. Noroi: The Curse (ノロイ, Noroi) is a 2005 Japanese horror film directed and co-written by Kōji Shiraishi. Noroi: The Curse (ノロイ, Noroi) is a 2005 Japanese horror film directed and co-written by Kōji Shiraishi. Masafumi Kobayashi and his ally Marika Matsumoto—an actress, like The Blair Witch Project’s Heather, playing a fictionalized version of herself under her real name—are perfectly credible protagonists. The film works as it employs what is best about Japanese horror. It has garnered generally positive reviews, with critics commending the presentation and pacing of its narrative. The film focuses on Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher who has produced a series of books and documentaries on supernatural activity around Japan. Most found-footage movies at least try to sneak in a few traditional cinematic building blocks, like character arcs. The novel was about 100 pages and I was able to finish it within a day. Chasing these threads ultimately leads Kobayashi to an old ritual tied to a demon named Kagutaba. From award-winning writing and photography to binge-ready videos to electric live events, GQ meets millions of modern men where they live, creating the moments that create conversations. Continue scrolling to keep reading Click the button below to start this article in quick view. Ishii's neighbor and her daughter die in a mysterious car crash. Kobayashi visits local historian, Tanimura, who tells him that Kagutaba is the name of a demon. Fans of Japanese horror in its many forms will be familiar with this trope and they do it so well. Noroi is one of them. Noroi: The Curse 2005 A documentary filmmaker explores seemingly unrelated paranormal incidents connected by the legend of an ancient demon called the kagutaba. But you can also see how obscurity only fanned the flames of Noroi’s cult appeal. In an ideal world, this movie would still be hiding among all the amateur documentaries you can find on YouTube, ready to make anyone who stumbles onto it spend some sleepless nights wondering just how much of it was real. Noroi: The Curse Is a Genuinely Terrifying Hidden Gem The Japanese horror film from 2005 defies convention and has developed a cult-like following—and for … The final ritual, which was filmed, was performed by a priest and his daughter. Marika flees from Miyajima, but exhibits signs of possession. Offering 2005’s mockumentary Noroi: The Curse up as a counterexample, the video below underlines how horror mockumentaries have what found footage wants. It is available for streaming on Shudder.[3][4]. After Kobayashi's disappearance, his video camera is discovered in a package. So it isn't a true story. Kobayashi returns to Tanimura, who shows him a scroll depicting how Kagutaba was first summoned, wherein baby monkeys were fed to a medium. But I wouldn't call Noroi a ripoff or remake. It’s true that when it’s bad, it’s really bad, but there are a few gems out there that make it all worthwhile. While all of these are excellent, none are as deeply unsettling as Noroi: The Curse. Makoto Inamori's real age is N/A. The other day I managed to see what might be the most complex one yet, one that doesn’t sacrifice story for the sake of cheap shocks. It’s true that when it’s bad, it’s really bad, but there are a few gems out there that make it all worthwhile. Meanwhile, Kobayashi and Hori find the villagers' dogs slaughtered near a secluded shrine in the woods. But the absence of an official release had an unintentional but potent side effect: It allowed Noroi to spread across the internet like an urban legend. Noroi: The Curse, … LTD. in Japan. One early scene shows a ghostly figure briefly appearing in the woods. The aforementioned documentary begins to play, shown mostly through the recordings of Kobayashi's cameraman Miyajima.