Noroi: The Curse (2005) A Modern Classic in the Analogue Canon

Mention the term ‘found-footage horror’ to anyone and they’re sure to bring to mind any of the big hitters: [REC], Cloverfield, Unfriended, Creep, and of course the big one, Paranormal Activity (as well as its many, many sequels). That film in particular took the genre to such a stripped back, simplified conceit and inspired an ungodly amount of ripoffs, probably motivated both by how easy it made horror filmmaking look and by the incredible amount of profit the franchise has turned in since 2007, that it has essentially defined the genre even to this day.

It’s easy to forget that the breadth of found footage cinema spans far and wide and has given us some bonafide horror masterpieces; The McPherson Tape, while primitive and underseen, utilised the uncanny artiefacting of video tape and preyed upon unsuspecting viewers all the way back in 1989 to create what is now slowly being revisited as one of the key films in horror history. And of course, undoubtedly the most influential found footage film, or perhaps horror full stop, of all time, The Blair Witch Project is still an integral entry in the horror canon. However while the general discourse loves to look back on the disruption that film caused upon release, it’s often overlooked how powerful the film is as a terrifying documentation of why we use the camera and filmmaking as an act of creating ghosts. And for my money nothing tops the tragic, corporeal heights of 2008’s Lake Mungo.

All of this is to preface that found footage is more than just actors being filmed sleeping in a bedroom waiting for a door to slam, its range is endless. Noroi: The Curse from 2005 is one of those contemporary classics, a film that hasn’t left much of a dent on the wider cinema landscape but is slowly gaining traction as one of the foremost texts in found footage cinema. The brainchild of seasoned horror director Koji Shiraishi, this is a supposedly cursed video tape from established paranormal investigator Masafumi Kobayashi, a document of his last investigation before his house went up in flames and his body was never recovered. It begins as you would expect a ghost hunting TV show would, Kobayashi and a camera crew knock on the door of a woman who reports some strange behaviour concerning her neighbour and a boy who she assumes is her son. The investigation goes on from there as Kobayashi discovers a curse surrounding a spirit by the name of Kagutaba. 

Noroi is a sprawling mockumentary that covers quite a dizzying array of characters, locations, and plot threads. One of the film’s defining features is its commitment to low-quality formats with the entire film being shot on low quality video tape. From scene to scene we move between all sorts of different types of found media: on-the-ground documentary, archive footage, TV variety show, live performance, audio analysis- and each time the film switches it’s completely convincing, using the format to totally submerge us in this strange paranormal puzzle. The dominant television show presentation is more akin to Ghostwatch but the folkloric mystery brings it into Blair Witch territory.

The creation of these lonely, dingy villages and cluttered homes where the people touched by Kagutaba are slowly going insane creates a rich amount of atmosphere, elevated by the grotty VHS look. One innocuous moment in particular provided the most powerful scene in the film, a moment when Kobayashi and crew leave the house of the woman and her daughter who are involved in their documentary. As the camera films the two outside their house waving goodbye happily as the car drives away the film freeze-frames abruptly on a close-up of the girl, after a few seconds of silence followed by the text: “They both died 3 days later”. It’s dispassionate, cold, haunting, and crucially it’s a moment of drama entirely contingent on the form of documentary, the sort of technique you can’t really get away with in traditional fictional cinema.

While the film excels in immersing us in the texture and feel and smell of this world, the story has a critical lack of focus that unfortunately left me unmoved by the wider story. The wide reach of its story across many locations and characters doesn’t provide a strong core to the story and unfortunately didn’t capture my attention for a lot of its 115-min runtime. This is very likely down to a personal disconnect I have to this being both a Japanese film and nearly twenty years old, but for me the film doesn’t speak to a larger everyday cultural terror that I think the best found footage films do other than the standard fear of the occult, a flaw that is then amplified by how busy the story is. Sure it has a refreshing variety of scares and a consistently unnerving quality throughout, but it lacks a personal touch to the story that makes us fear for the lives of those behind the camera. In fact I was craving for some cheap scares or something ominous to happen because the film gets lost in the cast and its locations a lot of the time. It’s disappointing because Shirashi’s commitment to the form is impressive even now.

For nearly two decades Noroi has felt like a well kept secret over here in the West, a film made to be a taboo cursed tape that then became something that was largely unavailable on physical and streaming, something that has added to its allure dramatically. Its new life as a key film in the found footage canon is certainly deserved for how you can see its influence on both other horror mockumentaries of its ilk but also in the emergence of viral horror on social media, even if it’s now an open secret for all. A film like Joel Anderson’s masterpiece Lake Mungo for me improves on Noroi in nearly every aspect, but it’s well worth seeing where the seeds of that film were sown.

Noroi: The Curse also features on the J-Horror Rising Boxset

Jake’s Archive – Noroi: the Curse