Noroi: The Curse A.k.a ノロイ (Noroi)
(2005) 115 Min.
Rated: NR (mutilated animals, gore)
Country: Japan
Director: Kôji Shiraishi
Starring: Jin Muraki, Rio Kanno, Tomono Kuga
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★★★
A documentary filmmaker follows a trail of paranormal phenomenon that lead to his own disappearance.
Synopsis:
The film is presented as a documentary that focuses on the work of Masafumi Kobayashi (Muraki), a paranormal expert who has produced many books and documentaries on paranormal events around Japan. Kobayashi went missing while making his latest documentary, The Curse. His house burnt down and his wife Keiko was found dead in the ruins. The film begins to show the documentary The Curse featuring Kobayashi with his cameraman Miyajima behind the scenes.
Kobayashi initially investigates a claim by a woman who hears a baby crying though her neighbor doesn’t have a baby. Kobayashi discovers the neighbor is named Junko Ishii (Kuga) and she has a young son. Ms. Ishii screams at Kobayashi to leave her alone and on a later visit Kobayashi learns Ishii has moved out. He finds dead pigeons on her property. The original woman who claimed to hear the baby noises and her daughter die in a mysterious car crash a week later.
Footage taken from a variety show appears. A young girl named Kana Yano (Kanno) is able to show strong psychic ability and can draw pictures hidden from view. She manages to form water in a sealed beaker with her powers but for some reason a hair appears in the water. A scientific test is performed and it’s believed to be baby hair. Kobayashi interviews her family who say that Kana is tired and probably exhausted from the tests.
Actress Marika Matsumoto is filming at night at a shrine when she hears a man’s voice and becomes haunted by a spirit. Later the footage of her at the shrine plays in a live broadcast where a psychic named Mitsu Hori appears. He’s eccentric and covered in tinfoil. Hori attacks Ms. Matsumoto and screams that she’s in great trouble and mentions pigeons. Hori is pulled away.
Later Matsumoto is showed a clip of footage that was edited out of the original shrine footage. It shows a ghostly figure walking behind her before she screams and collapses. Matsumoto then tells Kobayashi that she’s been doodling strange designs on her daily planner and feels that it’s related.
Kana Yano goes missing. Kobayashi speaks to her parents and learns that a man used to visit her. This man was another psychic named Mitsu Hori. Kobayashi goes to visit Hori who claims Kana was taken by “ectoplasmic worms” and draws a map where he believe she is.
Kobayashi takes the map and visits the apartment where he believes Kana may be. The owner of the apartment is a man named Osawa. A neighbor claims he has not seen Osawa with a girl, but that Osawa would often fight with their other neighbor, a woman. Osawa would complain to her about the sound of babies crying from her apartment, but the woman only had a young son. Osawa is later reported missing. Later in the film it’s revealed Osawa’s neighbor is Ishii.
Matsumoto finds unusual loops woven in her apartment and Kobayashi sets up a camera to film her sleeping at night. In the video she sleepwalks and takes a lamp outside on her balcony. The lamp is found the next day to have loops woven into the cord. In the video a male voice can be heard and the word uttered is “Kagutaba”. Matsumoto recognizes it from when she was at the shrine.
Kobayashi further investigates “Kagutaba” and finds that Kagutaba is a demon, summoned by a religious village called Shimokage. The sorcerers imprisoned it underground below the town for disobeying them. The village then began to perform an annual ritual to appease Kagutaba. However, the village was demolished in 1978 to make way for a dam. Kobayashi is shown a video recorded of the final ritual by a historian. As the priest Ishii performs the ritual, his daughter, Junko Ishii, is dressed as Kagutaba. At the end of the ritual something goes wrong and Junko Ishii is possessed by the spirit of Kagutaba and the footage ends.
Kobayashi tracks the daughter down, discovering she recently moved back from Tokyo into the Mikaishi community where her family house is. Kobayashi learns Ishii studied to be a nurse and got work in a obstetric clinic where she helped with illegal abortions and supposedly took the embryos home.
Matsumoto is frightened. Her neighbor disappeared and was found hanging the next day with other people in a park. Among the seven people who committed suicide was Osawa. Later a news clip plays with information that Kimiko Yano was stabbed to death by her husband, their daughter, Kana Yano is still missing.
Matsumoto still is scared about the spirit haunting her so she wishes to perform the ritual to appease Kagutaba. Kobayashi, his cameraman and Hori all go to the dam where the village would be located under the water. Matsumoto performs a ritual on a boat. She feels better after performing the ritual, but Hori calls them over quickly. He says they must leave quickly.
Cameraman Miyajima takes Matsumoto in the van while Kobayashi takes a spare camera and follows Hori up the mountain as Hori claims to see Kana Yano. Night falls as Kobayashi follows Hori through the darkness. They find mutilated dogs and pigeons along the way. Finally they reach an ancient shrine where Hori becomes catatonic and Kobayashi glimpses a ghost of a girl surrounded by fetuses. Meanwhile, Matsumoto becomes possessed and runs out of the van. Miyajima runs after her and eventually she stops screaming and calms down.
Kobayashi and Miyajima go to investigate Ishii’s home and find that she’s hung herself. They also find Kano, but she is dead. The only remaining person alive is Ishii’s mute son. Kobayashi decides to adopt him.
The Historian explains that Ishii tried to replicate the sorcerer’s ritual for summoning Kagutaba by feeding Kana the stolen embryos. (Originally the sorcerers sacrificed small monkeys and dogs.)
Marika Matsumoto recovers from the ordeal. Hori is placed in a mental institute but he escapes and is found dead later.
After Kobayashi’s disappearance, Miyajima receives a package containing a video camera with a tape. The tape shows shows events that led to the fire at the Kobayashi’s house. Hori arrives at the residence and attacks Ishii’s son claiming he is Kagutaba. He hits him with a rock and Kobayashi sees through the camera that the boy has blood on his face. Briefly, Kana’s ghost can be seen standing in a corner near Ishii’s son.
Keiko suddenly becomes possessed pours fluid on herself and sets herself on fire. Hori leaves with Kagutaba/Ishii’s son. Kobayashi has been hit by Hori and can’t move very much as the flames grow in the house. The film ends noting Kobayashi is still missing.
Review:
I think this is probably one of the best “found footage” films I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. I think part of what really makes it believable is the documentary nature of the film and the overall creepy feeling one gets as the mystery of Kana Yano’s disappearance is pieced together.
The plot is unraveling slowly through news snippets and interviews conducted by Kobayashi. This might be somewhat jarring for some viewers who are unaccustomed to scene jumps. The overall feel is fairly genuine so that helps with the mindset that this is an actual documentary. There are minimal credits, it starts with a narration over the work of Kobayashi. We are introduced to clips of previous interviews and investigations of Kobayashi. So it plays along like any paranormal show on TV.
Of all the characters, the psychic Hori is probably the most distracting and somewhat frustrating. I think I found myself wondering why anyone would ever trust the ramblings of a man covered in tinfoil, but then I realized I’m not Japanese and I really don’t “get” the fortunetelling and superstitious part of their culture.
There isn’t too much in the way of gore aside from dead pigeons and towards the end, mutilated dogs. There are also a few jump scares and edits that can catch one off guard but it’s really quite minimal. The majority of the film is really focused on the lore within its world. There’s really a feeling of attention to detail and care given to the story that help make it seem genuine and relatable.
I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a very creepy story with cult-like basis. If you enjoy stories where things aren’t merely what they seem at first glance, then this movie is for you. Noroi may not be the scariest film ever made, but it definitely has a memorable quality to it. As of this writing there are no current copies available for sale to the US market. I really hope that changes soon.
