Kagutaba Lives!
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].
For nearly two decades, Koji Shiraishi’s Noroi: the Curse spent years as an elusive treasure for viewers to sleuth out in the darkest corners of the Internet. It was released to modest fanfare in its native Japan in 2005, smack-dab between the death of the J-Horror boom and the international rebirth of found footage. However, the early days of social media gave Noroi a viral quality befitting its patchwork investigation–and the concurrent demise of Noroi’s avenues for distribution and resulting obscurity granted Koji Shiraishi’s mixed-media masterpiece an uncomfortable and unmatched sense of realism. It’s what quickly set Noroi apart from other found footage horror for me, and why I felt driven to be one of the film’s vocal champions.
This week, Noroi hits shelves in English-speaking countries as part of Arrow’s J-Horror Rising box set, along with Shiraishi’s 2007 film Carved: the Slit-Mouth Woman and five other hidden gems of the genre. It’s a refreshing new paradigm for this cult hit, hopefully granting Shiraishi the audience he’s more than deserved for decades. I hope this is the beginning of a “Shirassance,” with his massive body of work possibly on the verge of equally reverential distribution.
For now, I’m more than excited to revisit my favorite horror film with our guests and team members and get their take on Koji Shiraishi’s most notorious work of docufiction.
The Pick: Noroi: the Curse (2005)
Featured Guests
NOROI: The Curse (2005) is such an essential film within the found footage horror film canon because its director Koji Shiraishi was heavily inspired by earlier found footage mockumentary / pseudo documentary format films. The 1992 Belgian film Man Bites Dog and 1999’s The Blair Witch Project both came over to Japan and Shiraishi saw these and found them extremely interesting works. Shiraishi’s work within fact vs fiction narratives is strong overall, but arguably NOROI is where his work culminates and presents purely within an accessible horror film structure and narrative. Over the years, NOROI has garnered more and more respect from overseas filmmakers and critics with many citing it as one of the most important found footage horror films.
I first came across NOROI when I was making The Found Footage Phenomenon (Shudder / Vinegar Syndrome) and I actually saw Shiraishi’s Shirome (2011) first! The way the Japanese present a found footage narrative is so different to the west and very much intrinsically linked with their own history in J-Horror. So if you’re interested in Japanese urban legends, the link between presented fact and fiction and general horror themes and suspense, NOROI is a film not to be missed.
The first time I tried to watch Noroi: The Curse, I was ambitious. I had just seen Ghostwatch, the infamous BBC special that fooled a nation one Halloween in 1992, and I was shaken, but determined. I figured, “Well, I got through Ghostwatch, I can probably do this too.” I was mistaken. Not too long after intrepid, fictional documentarian Masafumi Kobayashi (Jin Muraki) finds himself reviewing footage of actor Marika Matsumoto (playing a fictionalized version of herself) where a ghostly silhouette appears in a dark grove of trees behind her, I simply had to tap out. I retreated to the comfort of my bed, and resolved to come back at a later time. When I was approached about writing about Noroi, I knew I had to venture back into the velvet darkness of the screen.
On my second approach, Noroi is just as, if not more, unsettling than my first impressions of it. Like Ghostwatch, and other greats of the Found Footage subgenre, Noroi understands the importance of reality as a grounding mechanism. Namely, the use of “truthful” or “real” formats, like the documentary, the various iterations of television shows we see, and the inclusion of real actors like Matsumoto all work together to trick our brains into buying into it all a little bit more. Logically, I understand that what I’m seeing on screen is fictional, but emotionally, the media formats my brain has been conditioned to think of as “true” over the years take over and a primal kind of trickery begins and lets in a rush of fear. The performances, writing, effects, all the elements of the movie create a perfect alchemy only the most effective films can create.
As I sat with the silence following Noroi’s cacophonous finale, I felt the dread that leaked out of the screen and into my apartment wash over me. In other words, it was just what I hoped it would be.
For those of a certain age, anyone who spent their formative years with the internet, many can remember going down the rabbit hole of “haunted videos”; late night searches across the web for video proof of the supernatural. These journeys down Youtube link chains usually netted you a dozen videos of “orbs”, more than a few videos of a fox’s midnight mating call titled “ghostly baby cries in the woods”, and a fair share of terrible fakes that stomped on the line between sincerity and parody.
But then, every once in a while, you’d come across something. It usually was deep into the evening, about a mile down into videos, right around the time you were clicking on links written in Cyrillic and Hanzi, that you’d come across something that was different. No orbs, no dramatic music, no 15x zoom to really magnify what you were looking at; instead, you’d watch something that would defy explanation. Maybe it was a shadow moving in a way that made no sense; or a human voice emanating from an empty room; or a reflection that didn’t match the way its owner moved. Either way, you found your hackles up, terrified in the depths of a search engine. It felt like you saw something you weren’t supposed to, something that was supposed to stay hidden.
That impending sense of dread, of peaking behind the curtain, is the exact wavelength that Noroi operates on. From the first frame, when we are first introduced to the paranormal investigators, everything feels off, stilted in a very sinister way. As we continue deeper into the mythology, and deeper into the terror, that familiar itch of macabre voyeurism comes creeping back; should I keep watching this? What am I about to see? Am I ready to face it?
With each new detail revealed, and with each ghastly paranormal encounter, you can’t help but feel the need to look away. But, it’s too late; you’ve been hooked, destined to see exactly where this haunted trail leads you, even if it will keep you up until the sun rises.
The Team
“I want the truth. No matter how terrifying, I want the truth.”
Noroi is a film whose formal inventiveness and unmatched cosmic dread has long established a place atop my favorite horror films. Over my 19 years spent with Koji Shiraishi’s masterpiece, though, Noroi’s most rewarding aspect is how each viewing teases out some new aspect to Shiraishi’s matryoshka-doll approach to documentary horror.
This time, I found myself drawn into the real world’s desperate attempts to cope with the supernatural in various mundane ways. TV variety programs commercialize and sensationalize the mysterious or unexplainable, treating potentially psychic children like real-life Stanley Spectors from Magnolia, and other panel shows frame disturbed individuals relaying dangerous messages as something kooky to flip through during one’s nightly programming. While all of Noroi is a work of fiction–there’s something quite biting to how Shiraishi depicts this compartmentalization of the bizarre and otherworldly.
All of this gloss, though, makes Kobayashi such a compelling character. While his documentary work may seem inseparable from this other pop journalism, Kobayashi distinguishes himself as a reporter who takes the paranormal extremely seriously. Including these myriad sources feels like a concentrated attempt to get at something deeper and meaningful, as if by doing so he undoes the degradation of generational knowledge reflected in everything from lighthearted clip shows to long-forgotten scrolls and survey documents. This act of restoration, though, yields increasingly disturbing results–revealing how this buried cultural past has gradually willed the strength to fight back against the rampant march of progress.
The collected experience turns Noroi into a demonically satisfying treasure hunt, cluing in viewers into a rich original world drawn from centuries of folklore. Shiraishi, co-writer Naoyuki Yokota, and legendary horror producer Taka Ichise quickly establish a narrative shorthand which allows viewers to add up Kobayashi’s clues in the face of a story with a staggering scope. It’s a tactic, though, that quickly turns against the viewer, as Shiraishi reserves Noroi’s most gruesome horrors for mere implication at the edges of Kobayashi’s frame. This cosmic danger only grows as we and Kobayashi get closer to the center of the curse, with our relationship to his subject evolving from documenter and spectator to doomed primary sources.
Noroi’s incendiary all-timer ending unspools without the comforting buffer of end credits separating its world from ours–consequently ensuring Shiraishi’s masterful blend of truth and fiction remains a searing, long-lasting experience.
I don’t tend to gravitate towards found footage horror, but this month of programming at Two Cents has been a cool opportunity to explore a subgenre I’m not totally sold on. What I have really appreciated about Noroi, Horror In The High Desert, and Lake Mungo are how watchable these things are. And by that I mean, using tropes from reality tv and documentary, these tend to be pretty satisfying watches because they’re drawing you in using almost primal manipulation of your curiosity. It’s like these filmmakers set up a complex arrangement of dominoes and when you press play on their movies, a highly orchestrated chain reaction to draw you in and intrigue and horrify you begins.
Noroi does a lot of really cool things to draw you in right away. I dig that it is a “movie within a movie” with bookends setting up the Russian doll component of the tale. It’s also neat watching this very early 2000s analog horror here in the internet age, grounding the film in a time that already seems nostalgic. Using reality tv gimmicks like replay, freeze frames, and zooming in on things the filmmakers want us to see, lead character and documentarian Kobayashi cheesily (and effectively) begins researching a curse and conveniently laying out a layered and complex demon mythology that has us wanting to look away one moment from a terrifying image, but looking more closely another moment to try to unravel the mystery. It’s engrossing stuff. Noroi also does a pretty good job with character work, endearing us to the tin-foil-wearing medium Hori, the cursed actress Marika, the little psychic girl Kana, etc. If Kobayashi can just unravel the mystery in time, perhaps they can all be saved! But we know it’s doomed from the start.
Of the 3 found footage horror films I’ve braved this month, Lake Mungo was by far the most haunting and terrifying to me personally. But Noroi was a frightening and effective piece of work, and I can’t wait to someday listen to Julian’s commentary track to see how far the rabbit hole goes.
PS: Bonus points for a super duper John Carpenter influenced score!
PPS: Them lil crawling babies will now haunt me for life.
I’ve mentioned before that I often struggle to find time to watch foreign language films, so despite my noted love for the found footage subgenre and related subgenres, it took me till now to finally catch this one, despite its widespread acclaim and Julian’s insistence for a few years now. But, I’m happy to say that despite waiting years to finally dive in, it was well worth it.
The documentary style of the film reeled me in at the very start. There’s no doubt that the filmmakers of previous selections Lake Mungo and Horror in the High Desert were highly influenced by Shiraishi’s style here. The style was what struck me most on this first (of many) watches of this film.
While I was struck most this go around by the style, it’s the thematic ideas are what will make me return and dive deeper. A few of these themes really stuck out – such as the clear notion that becoming engulfed by one’s pursuits, as noble as they are, can be very dangerous. In addition to being careful not to let one’s search for truth take over their life, the film also seems to be interested in the very nature of evil. As a pastor’s kid and a person of faith, both of these ideas – the search for truth and the nature of evil – are ones that will always keep me coming back to the well. So, it’s safe to say, I’ll be exploring this film more and will excitedly get my hands on Julian’s commentary to hear what he has to say, as well.
Smarter people here have deeper thoughts than I, so I’ll wrap it up there and really just leave you with my initial impressions. However, it seems inevitable that this will not be the last time I explore this film’s themes nor style. A genuinely solid piece of cinema that you can share with any friends who suggest that found footage is a low form of art.
NOVEMBER: Post-Apocalypse Now!
To celebrate the Restocked and Reloaded Second Edition of David J. Moore’s World Gone Wild: A Survivor’s Guide to Post-Apocalypse Movies, the Two Cents team is diving into some of the weirdest, madcap visions of our world gone mad for the month of November.
November 4 – The Blood of Heroes
November 11 – Doomsday
November 18 – Turbo Kid
November 25 – The New Barbarians (aka Warriors of the Wasteland)
