Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
As Julian noted last week, his Cinapse journey began in 2014 with a piece on Noroi: the Curse. A decade later, his debut audio commentary is included on Noroi’s first Western release as part of the J-Horror Rising box set from Arrow Films. To celebrate, Ed invited him to curate this month’s Two Cents, focusing on personal recommendations for found footage horror.
The Pick: Incantation (2022)
As a diehard found footage nerd myself, I am disappointed in myself to say that this film is one that I somehow missed completely. While Noroi has been on my list for years – and, through my own folly, I have not yet watched the film that launched Julian’s heralded Cinapse run and love of found footage – Incantation wasn’t even on my radar. So rather than pretend I know what I’m talking about, here is Julian on why he programmed this Taiwanese gem:
I first came across Incantation during its original Netflix cycle in 2022, back when films like the Korean Marui Video and the Thai-Korean co-production The Medium made the rounds. Like these films, Incantation was positioned by fans and critics to be a “successor” to the unique found footage terror created by Koji Shiraishi’s body of work–and for my money, it’s the film that comes closest to matching Noroi’s evocative sense of meta-dread. With Incantation, Kevin Ko quickly draws viewer into an intriguing web of forbidden Buddhist lore and emotionally-charged maternal bonds before a staggering series of twists, creating a found footage film that directly implicates its viewers in the viral spread of its horror. It’s a rug-pull made even more devious thanks to Incantation’s streamer debut, and one that I’m more than eager to share as part of our October lineup.
Featured Guest
There is no singular successful formula for found footage horror. It’s a subgenre that ebbs and flows like the subgenres that came before it. And even more so, it’s a subgenre that can be done on such a low budget that we often find it hard to determine the quality of these films based on visuals alone.
What we DO know is that when found footage works, it WORKS, and 2022’s Incantation works. Religious folk horror told from an amateur, skeptical yet mostly respectable, team of sleuths, one of which has deep ties to the religion in which they’re investigating. But what REALLY sells the film is the audience participation, something which we rarely see let alone in found footage films. It challenges us to pay attention, looking for clues throughout the film. In turn, our investment is rewarded with effective storytelling and exciting scares.
The Team
In found footage films, it’s not enough to simply justify why a camera exists to the audience; creators must also justify why characters need to use it, and create compelling characters who are equally driven to document their horrific experiences. Kevin Ko’s Incantation masterfully intertwines these genre demands, and its implication of the viewer becomes a crucial part of its horror, following in the footsteps of Ghostwatch and Ring.
Incantation follows Li Ronan (Hsuan-Yen Tsai), who takes in a foster daughter, Dodo (Sin-Ting Huan). We later learn Dodo is actually Ronan’s biological daughter, given up six years earlier after a harrowing ordeal in a remote village left Ronan in psychiatric care. Even before these revelations, Ko and Tsai ground Incantation’s horrors in Ronan’s fraught emotional journey as a mother–navigating the awkwardness of reconnecting with her daughter, how she internalizes Dodo’s perceived flaws or outbursts as a reflection of her parental abilities, and the helplessness she feels as Dodo falls victim to the central curse.
Ko’s cleverness, though, lies in using Ronan’s desperation to lure the audience deeper into Incantation’s spell. The emotional charge set by Ronan’s plea for us to watch the film in order to “save” Dodo never lets up–we search through each scene for ways we can help, despite our position as detached spectators. Ko heightens this emotional investment in how so much of the film’s scares are rooted in keeping us painfully aware of our viewership–from Dodo leaping off a building (before climbing back up), to a terrifying final scene while Ronan films blindfolded. Despite learning that the key to Mother Buddha’s lethal curse lies in how much one knows about her, Ronan’s unquestioning love for Dodo tricks us into never doubting our reciprocal trust in her. When she asks us to chant, we answer–to our doom.
Incantation is a wonderful, seamless blend of found footage, folk horror, and body horror, but Ko’s greatest feat is turning the film itself into a cursed object. In falling for Ronan’s story, we fall just as deeply into the curse and become complicit in its horror. With our investment weaponized, the experience lingers in such a visceral way–long after watching, we, like Ronan, feel compelled to spread the word.
While found footage and other POV styles of horror film are smack dab in the middle of my wheelhouse, foreign films tend not to be. Despite being a lover of the written word, having to watch subtitles with my film viewing is difficult for me, as the combination of my self-diagnosed adult ADHD and my busy life often means I watch films while also finishing my reports for work, coding for various websites, or crossing various other things from my always growing “to-do” lists. So, while catching up to films like Incantation (and Noroi) is difficult, it is often also a great experience, as it forces me to put down the computer, drop the mouse, or put down the pen.
I’ll be honest in admitting that this one took me a bit to latch onto, as I needed to calm my mind – and, with a lot going on recently, that proved difficult. However, once the movie got it’s teeth into me, it had me. While the found footage conceit in this one sometimes works brilliantly, it also doesn’t always feel like it fully works for me personally. What does work, however, is the visuals, the story details, and the extremely believable performances.
To be fair to this one, I’d like to rewatch and meditate on it… but that alone says that it’s a worthwhile film, doesn’t it? If this didn’t hit me, I wouldn’t even want to bother with another watch. So, for this fascination that it ignited within me and the ideas that are whirling around in my head about this story in relationship to Taiwanese culture, spirituality, and the folk stories of that region – I must thank Julian for programming this one.
OCTOBER: Found Footage Horror Curated by Julian Singleton
October 21 – Horror in the High Desert (Tubi – 1 hour 22 minutes)
October 28 – Noroi: the Curse (Shudder – 1 hour 55 minutes)
