Noroi

"Noroi" is a found-footage horror film that follows the story of a documentary filmmaker who becomes increasingly obsessed with a mysterious cult and paranormal phenomena. The film is known for its unsettling atmosphere, eerie imagery, and slow-burn approach to horror. The film's controversial found-footage style adds an extra layer of realism to the already tense narrative, making the viewer feel as though they are part of the story.

If you know that you can handle the unconventional "found footage" narrative, then you're in for a treat. With its use of sound and visuals, the movie successfully creates a sense of tension and dread. The film's central mystery of the cult and its sinister dealings is both intriguing and chilling, keeping viewers glued to the screen until the very end, as long as they are okay with this format.

For better or worse, found footage is the punk rock of film genres. Purposely rejecting the lavish possibilities of polished professionalism in favour of a gritty, distorted mess that celebrates it's own flaws. Noroi: The Curse dives head first into the style, delivering all sorts of shaky, grainy scenes. It's not enough for them to include sequences from imaginary public access shows, but they go out of their way to degrade the video quality until it looks like a 5th generation VHS copy of a copy, and several chilling moments stem from purposeful digital glitches. The technical errors are the art form itself.

In many ways, this works well, as the film manages to skirt past many horror tropes while still finding effective ways to make your skin crawl. It keeps a lot of tragic implications off screen, keeping to a "tell don't show" ethos and never resorting to cheap jump scares. It's impact rides on well established realism and a lot of subtly creepy imagery.

Where the whole format becomes difficult to swallow is in how many traditional film elements have been left behind. Things that can elevate a cinematic experience like cinematography or music cues are largely discarded to serve the mockumentary form. I understand why this was necessary, but I can ultimately only take so many of these things before I start to miss having a nice score pulling on my heartstrings.

Suffice to say I have never seen a film quite like "Noroi". It is perhaps THE creepiest film I have ever watched. Note that I say "creepy", not "scary". There is nothing that will make you jump in this movie, but there is a level of terror and suspense you'll be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. Think "The Blair Witch Project", only stretched out through a longer runtime and a (much) more complex story.

Much like "The Blair Witch Project", the movie is filmed mostly on camcorders and tries (though not nearly as relentlessly as "The Blair Witch Project") to pass itself off as a true story. Purporting to be last documentary of paranormal investigator Masafumi Kobayashi, the movie's real genius is in its construction. It begins with several, seemingly unrelated plot threads, each one kicked off by some mysterious, creepy event. Kobayashi records a bizarre EVP while investigating a reclusive woman's house, a young girl displays psychic powers on a television program, an actress goes into convulsions while investigating a haunted temple. The tension in the movie is maintained beautifully, rising at a steady pace throughout the entire film as bizarre, seemingly supernatural events begin happening to and around the characters. The real horror in the film comes from seeing how these events are all related, a realization the viewers will reach long before the characters, though the plot threads do eventually converge.

A sense of rising horror pervades this entire movie, and by the time the climax rolls around the tension has built to such a screeching pitch it's almost unbearable. Combined with the fact that the last twenty minutes or so contain some of the most unsettling scenes I have ever seen, and you've got a cinematic punch that will stay with you for days. A couple points come off for one character's delirious overacting (although he does play something of a nutcase), but otherwise this movie's got it all. The only question is...are you ready for it?

Released at the tail end of the J-Horror boom, Noroi is not quite a masterpiece like Ringu (1998), Kairo (2001), and Ju-On (2002). Nonetheless, it is a rare example, and almost certainly the best example, of a found footage movie from the heyday of Japanese horror in the late 90's through mid 00's.

Noroi is a remarkably intricate mockumentary about a journalist's investigation of a series of strange occurrences linked to a folk demon called Kagutaba. In fact, it may be a little too intricate for its own good, and the stream of eccentric characters and disparate video clips threatens to overwhelm us viewers. But critically, Noroi manages to carefully build the creepiness factor and unleash some truly hair-raising scares when the time is right. These scares are mostly of the "supernatural events that are only visible when reviewing video camera footage" variety, and although that is one of the more ridiculous clichés in modern horror, it is extremely effective in the right hands, as it is in Lake Mungo (2008) and here in Noroi.

My only real criticism is that about 50% of the plot is explained in a few perfunctory sentences of narration right at the end, inserted as if the filmmakers had finished the movie and then realized that almost nothing was satisfactorily resolved or explained. I don't necessarily mind baffling movies (Kairo for example is almost completely incomprehensible if you haven't seen the inferior American remake), but as Noroi is based entirely on the investigation of a mystery, I feel like it kind of dropped the ball a little bit right at the end, even with the shoehorned narration.

Found footage seems to be a particularly personal thing when it comes to being terrified; millions (including me) consider The Blair Witch Project (1999) the most frightening movie of all time, while millions of other people think Blair Witch is some kind of joke, and Paranormal Activity (2007) is where the real scares are. Whether Noroi will scare the crap out of you or not is hard to predict, but there is little doubt that this is good stuff. Worth any horror fan's time.

NOROI follows a documentary filmmaker, Masafumi Kobayashi, as he slowly uncovers something mysterious and evil that's leaving a trail of dead bodies in its wake. After interviewing a woman who claims to hear loud baby's cries coming from the house next door (where there is no baby), Kobayashi heads over to talk to the neighbor. He's greeted with hostility by the unhinged, disheveled woman (Maria Takagi) who answers the door (and promptly slams it in his face) and gets a peek at her 6-year-old son through a window. Strangely, both the woman and her son disappear just days after his visit (leaving behind a pile of dead pigeons on their back porch), and the woman who first complained about the noises, as well as her daughter, are both killed in a mysterious accident not long after that. This piques Kobayashi's interest and he sets out on a quest to find out what's going on. He soon uncovers that those with psychic abilities and extra-sensory perception seem to be tuning into something sinister, unexplainable and possibly even apocalyptic. Well-known 10-year-old clairvoyant, and TV celebrity, Kana (Rio Kanno) seems to think we may all be doomed, but she mysteriously disappears before she can be of much help. Another female psychic/actress (Marika Matsumoto) becomes involved, as does Mr. Nori, a mentally unstable kook/psychic who wears a hat and jacket made of aluminum foil and thinks people are being eaten by what he refers to "ectoplasmic worms." Clues eventually lead back to the site of a small village that's now covered by a lake, and the legend of an ancient demon known as Kagutaba...

Unlike many other hand-held horror flicks, this one depends just as much on the plot as it does reactionary first-person scares. Thankfully there's something of a storyline here, a very interesting and intricate one at that, so it doesn't rely on glimpses of horrific things through spastic camera-work every once in awhile to keep your interest. The way Masafumi travels around following leads in search of the truth - with well placed jolts along the way - reminded me somewhat of THE OMEN in its pacing. The film also doesn't entirely consist of footage shot by the documentarian, but weaves in news reports and television variety shows as if what we're watching is an already completed documentary. That helps to break up some of the monotony usually associated with films shot in this particular style. The performances are good enough not to harm any of the realism of the 'actual' footage either. Overall, it's a well-made horror film, with lots of plot shifts, some suspense and quite a few genuinely creepy moments, that's well worth checking out. My only real gripe is that it could have used a little trimming here and there and seems to go on a bit too long. Otherwise, pretty good stuff.