Long wanting to catch Kenichi Ugana’s work, it wasn’t until we caught the inimitable punk fever of last year’s The Gesouidoz (at London Fanta) that we finally caught up with the eclectic director making a name for himself on the international festival circuit. When his name popped up again for Fantastic Fest with his latest movie, The Curse, we had to pounce (doubly so, as we have an interview coming up tomorrow). And we can report that it’s 2 for 2 with us. Fresh from its world premiere at Austin, Texas’s legendary Alamo Drafthouse, Ugana’s movie plays out like a homage to the halcyon days of late-’90s/early-’00s Japanese Horror albeit with a key twist.
It all starts off innocuously, a trendy salon receptionist Riko (Yukino Kaizu) and her flatmate Airi notice an old friend living in Taiwan, Shufen, has posted a creepy, uncanny photo on her Instagram. After that, things unravel with fatal consequences. Airi convinces Riko to ring an old boyfriend, Jiahao (Yu), who also lives in Taiwan, as he might know more. We learn that the uncanny photo was posted by someone who has been dead for six months, that no one really knows who or what killed Shufen so they thought it best to keep it quiet. Unfortunately, engaging with that account has invoked the wrath of a curse. Along the way, events dive into vindictive comment threads on social media, influencers posting for attention, before diverting toward a mysterious demonic social media killer in Taiwan. But before things relocate from Tokyo to Taiwan, Riko is faced with the challenge of fending off the curse from its latest target.
Japan has a long tradition of the supernatural and the mysterious, but that’s not the worldview Ugana has instilled in his characters, the reality of The Curse is that such things don’t exist in Japan – however, in Taiwan, they do. They had fair warning too, as the trope of an outsider who warns our heroes of their impending threat dies instantly and without any real cause, right in front of them. Typically, this would see the main cast engage in some level of self-preservation, however, that’s not the story Ugana is telling. Instead, he is using the vehicle of the vengefully violent curse to satirise those who hold the dopamine hit of social media in the highest esteem, allowing for some interesting and satisfying deviations from convention. A key subtext is that if this happened to a more competent bunch of characters, things maybe wouldn’t play out so badly.
All I’ll say is that the attempts to save people go horribly wrong, with a level of fake blood and black gunk that would make any would-be splatstick fan giddy with excitement.
The literacy of the horror is particularly satisfying, on a pure referential level, there’s a lot happening under the surface. After an initial viewing, I picked up on the liminal spaces of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, visual cues from the Ju-On franchise, the curse mechanics of Hideo Nakata’s landmark Ringu, and the general air of bloody violence that comes from so many Hong Kong Category III horror movies.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have any horror tricks of its own. There are three particular instances that really stayed with me. The first is the third iteration in a sequence of shots where Riko looks at a dog tied up in the garden that she passes on her walk home – I won’t reveal where it goes to preserve the shock factor. The second features a staple of horror as Riko again checks under, behind, and between things in search of a person who may be hiding in her flat. The first time it happens, she looks under the bed and sees nothing. The second time she looks under the bed and sees nothing, but we do. It’s a far more skin-crawling scene playing out like that, dramatic irony makes it far scarier than a typical, bog-standard, seen-it-a-thousand-times-before jump scare. And the third scene comes on two fronts, and they are both delightfully icky – a trait all too rare in modern horror. All I’ll say is that the attempts to save people go horribly wrong, with a level of fake blood and black gunk that would make any would-be splatstick fan giddy with excitement. I can’t imagine how long it would all take to clean up, and I can’t explain why I take a perverse level of joy from that…
Further credit has to go to the production design crew (as you’ll discover in tomorrow’s written interview too), the director was also appreciative of the work the Taiwanese crew did in making the mythical and mystical aspect feel real. There’s one room that I shall call the “curse room” that has a level of tactile, environmental storytelling that just boggles the mind. As well as following along with the fatalistic yet deadpan surreal tone of The Curse, that one scene filled me with the sort of all-too-rare joy for a modern movie – the question, “how did they do that?”
Of course, the movie isn’t without its flaws, but I don’t think any of them are too critical. For example, The Curse shares a lot in common with Zach Cregger’s latest movie, Weapons, as far as criticism goes. It’s a simple question of motivation, in that there are an awful lot of answers that go unquestioned around what the curse is and its rules – it is all a bit too nebulous. Additionally, as strong as the performances are, everyone with the exception of Ray is quite muted – but therein lies another set of questions: is that because there’s something lacking, or is it part of the larger satirical whole that Ugana is playing with? Honestly, I think the satire runs deep with the apathy and incurious ways of the social media world defanging most meaningful criticism of this energetic love letter to the ’90s Japanese Horror Boom. The movie isn’t interested in these issues because the world of social media influencers is utterly incurious about the world around them. This all collectively forms one of the more fun horror experiences of 2025’s festival season, and this is exactly how I felt after watching The Gesouidoz, I can’t wait to experience more from this director who innate curiosity leaves me eager to see where he’ll go next.
THE CURSE HAD ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT FANTASTIC FEST 2025
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