Noroi: The Curse

ノロイ Kōji Shiraishi, (2005)

Over the years, Japanese made horror films, or J-Horror, have gained international notoriety as being some of the scariest and most cutting edge horror films ever made. The truth is, I have only seen a handful of truly great ones, and it seems to me that much like the horror genre anywhere else in the world, the bad ones outnumber the good by a ridiculous number. Films such as Pulse and One Missed Call didn’t really do anything for me; in fact, they almost put me to sleep. Upon a friend’s recommendation, I recently watched Kōji Shiraishi’s The Curse, a found footage style documentary which has drawn inevitable comparisons to The Blair Witch Project. Which I am a bit embarrassed to say, I still haven’t seen. I am happy to report though, The Curse had moments that genuinely spooked me.

The Curse is presented as the final work of Masafumi Kobayashi, an expert paranormal investigator who travels Japan in search of unexplained phenomenon, writing books and producing documentaries. This chubby, slightly bumbling character’s exploits form the body of the film, with Kobayashi conducting interviews and piecing together clues in a sort of tabloid private detective way. We follow Kobayashi on a house call to visit a woman who has heard strange noises emanating from her strange next-door neighbour’s house. It is here that the curse begins… Sharing the cameraman’s point of view, we are positioned as an onlooker, a part of Kobayashi’s production crew. This sets up a parameter of distance yet involves us at the same time, drawing us into the atmosphere of the film quite effectively, with the camera as our eye dictating what we see; the film’s terror comes from careful inclusion and omission and is divided into clear, often short sections. For example, the aforementioned house call is followed by footage of a television variety program, the relevance of which is not apparent at first, yet provides information which later falls into place. The film seems full of these red-herring type clues, but this wide range of media, such as newspaper headlines and archival footage, was for me, the films greatest strength, retaining my interest throughout the bit-too-long two hour running time.

These various sources succeed in creating a kind of trashy TV exposé style, accurately recreating the loud enthusiasm of Japanese variety TV shows and also the kind of true crime investigation shows that exploit eerie music and inter-titles to create clichéd late night TV trash. Director Hiraishi has recreated this kind of TV show style so well that I actually forgot I was watching a movie and felt a bit queasy watching what seemed like such a lowbrow show. In that respect, his film is a resounding success. Another of the film’s strong points is its cast. There are so many characters in the film that it would be hard to keep track, and it is the film’s convoluted nature that has attracted much criticism. But the film focuses closely on Kobayashi and a select few who remain present throughout the investigation, the majority of the actors are really quite amazing. Kobayashi at first seems like a pitiful little man with a bogus occupation, but becomes quite endearing over time. The character of Hori-san is pretty over the top and annoying, but particular attention should be paid to actress Marika Matsumoto, who gives a great performance (and scream) as a TV personality with some psychic ability.

For me, the large cast of characters coupled with the abundance of clues added to, rather than detracted from the overall mood and style of the film and its perplexing happenings. The slow burn unravelling of the curse and its increasing creepiness helps to convey Kobayashi’s role as investigator in a believable and engrossing way. We learn of the relevance of certain information as he does, following him through this maze of fear.

The film contains many textbook examples of the found footage style, including its low budget aesthetic, and is by no means a masterpiece, but it is a horror film that is definitely worth a look, and as I mentioned, does contain some scary scenes and truly terrifying imagery, much of which stems from the ancient demon ritual that the film explores. The last scene of the film was one of the scariest things I’ve seen in a while, the perfect payoff to a slow moving and yes, at times complex, but overall entertaining horror film.

Dark Water

仄暗い水の底から Hideo Nakata, (2002) 

In 1998 director Hideo Nakata’s critically acclaimed film Ringu reignited the horror genre in Japanese cinema, and also proved to be hugely influential on a world scale. A few years later, Nakata returned to the horror genre with Dark Water, which has many themes in common and follows a similar structure to Ringu, but unfortunately, the film ends up being more an uninteresting and clichéd family drama than horror film.

Yoshimi Matsubara’s life is in a state of change, working through a divorce, returning to work and beginning a new chapter of her life as a single mother are challenges she has to face seemingly all at once. In order to start anew, she decides to move into the creepiest apartment block she can find with her six year old daughter Ikuko (quite a good performance from young Rio Kanno). Over time, the apartment reveals itself as something of a haunted house, with mysterious leaks appearing in their apartment and a worrying red handbag that won’t stay in the bin. Over time we learn that this water phenomenon is linked with a case of a missing child who used to live in the apartment. As Yoshimi and Ikuko become suspect to the strange goings on and learn of the history of the apartment, Yoshimi’s already hectic life begins to fly even further off the rails.

Nearly the entire first hour of this film is dedicated to setting up the relationships between Yoshimi and those around her; her lawyers, daughter and estranged husband. Amongst all this family drama, we are only shown the tiniest of glimpses of anything supernatural or out of the ordinary, most often, as the title would imply, of mysterious water appearing throughout the building. Nakata has clearly gone to great lengths to create the atmosphere of the bleak apartment block and its labyrinthine corridors, but it pales in comparison to the palpable atmosphere of dread that was so perfectly created and sustained in Ringu. The whole film feels like it is building up to a great big horror climax, but it takes so long to get there, with the missing girl plot so slowly pieced together, that when I finally reached the final half hour, to find it hastily wrapped up, I was almost completely disinterested.

There are some interesting effects, mostly based around the water, but so much more could have been achieved with this concept. There really only are a few pure horror movie moments, and even they are failry uninspired and un-scary. The film relies too heavily on the family aspect, which includes every divorced family cliché in the book, and presents a rather dull main character Yoshimi, who just can’t seem to hold anything together. Even the biggest of horror fans won’t find much of interest here, which is such a shame, as Nakata’s Ringu handled the similar themes of broken family and malevolent curse in a much more an interesting way and with an atmosphere so many horror movies fail to deliver.