The Curse (2005 film)

The Curse
DVD cover
Directed by	Kôji Shiraishi
Produced by	Takashige Ichise
Screenplay by	Kôji Shiraishi
Starring	Jin Muraki Rio Kanno Tomono Kuga
Cinematography	Shozo Morishita
Editing by	Nobuyuki Takahashi
Studio	Xanadeux Company
Distributed by	Cathay-Keris Films PMP Entertainment Universe Laser & Video Co. Ltd.
Release date(s)	August 20, 2005 (2005-08-20)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Budget	$2 million

The Curse (ノロイ Noroi) is a 2005 J-Horror, "found footage" film in the form of a documentary. The movie was directed by Kôji Shiraishi, and is unusually long and complex^[1] for the J-Horror genre, being just under two hours in length, and having a main cast of well over twenty-five characters.

Plot

The movie begins in a video editing room, where a voiceover narrator briefly describes Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal expert who produced a series of books and movies on supernatural activity around Japan. The movie then explains that he disappeared in the process of making his greatest and most disturbing film yet, The Curse, and the aforementioned movie begins to play.

The movie begins with Kobayashi's investigation of a woman named Junko Ishii and her apparent son (it is later revealed the boy is not her son), brought about when Kobayashi was contacted by her next-door neighbour. Soon after Kobayashi makes his first visit, however, Ishii moves out of the apartment, and the neighbours that contacted Kobayashi die in a freak car accident. Ishii is not seen or mentioned until the film's denouement.

The first half of the movie then depicts a steadily unfurling series of seemingly unrelated events, including the disappearance of a psychic child, a television personality making complex loops of string in her sleep, a mass suicide where the participants hang by similarly knotted string, and many more equally bizarre occurrences.

The multitude of events do not seem to have any commonality to one another, until the second part of the movie begins. Here, it becomes apparent that all of the events relate to a mysterious entity known only as Kagutaba.

Kobayashi's quest to find the truth brings him to a regional area of Nagano, where many years prior a very religious town once stood. The town performed an annual ritual to contain Kagutaba, until it was demolished to construct a dam.

As the movie comes to a close, each character's relationship with Kagutaba becomes apparent, and the many individual stories and narrative threads draw to a single climactic conclusion.

True to the movie's tagline, Everybody dies, most of the primary cast dies by the conclusion of the film. After Kobayashi's film has ended, we return to the video editing room, where the voice-over continues that Kobayashi's wife was killed in a fire mere days after the events of the film. Kobayashi himself went missing. In addition, several other characters have since died in bizarre and unexplainable methods, including one character being found in a ventilation shaft.

The voice-over then announces that footage from Kobayashi's camera was anonymously mailed to a television station, and this footage is then played. It depicts Kobayashi and his wife eating dinner with the mysterious boy previously under the care of Junko Ishii, whose name is still unknown. After a series of events more heard than seen (thanks to the disorienting movement of the camera), the camera stabilises to show Kobayashi's wife, apparently in the throes of possession, casually douse herself with kerosene and light herself on fire, as the mysterious boy leaves the room.

The voiceover then announces that Kobayashi's wife was found in the remains of the burnt-down house, but neither Kobayashi nor the mysterious boy have been seen. The film ends ambiguously here, with a short clip from the film's chilling climax quickly flashing onto the screen followed immediately by the credits.

The movie is shot entirely with a DV camera, both to simulate the home-made documentary feeling and to save budget space for marketing; the movie had an atypically large amount of advertising for a movie of its budget and genre.

Alternative ending

One of the characters, an eccentric psychic, entered Kobayashi's home and started attacking mysterious boy (whom Kobayashi and his wife intended to adopt). However the boy did not die, but instead transformed into his true demonic self. After possessing that character and using him to knock Kobayashi out, the mysterious boy departs the room in the company of that. As Kobayashi wakes up, he watches helplessly as his wife burns herself to death. The films ends with a statement saying Kobayashi is still missing today.

Kobayashi is probably alive and was the person who mails the tape to the TV station.

Reception

The movie received generally high reviews, though some critics were displeased by its unusually long and complicated plotline.^[who?] However, this departure from the typical J-Horror template found favour with most critics, particularly those who specialise in the horror genre.^[who?]

See also

• Occult (2009), another "found footage" mockumentary by the same director
• Shirome (2010), another "found footage" mockumentary by the same director

External links

• Noroi at the Internet Movie Database

References

1. ^ 3:AM Magazine, "If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It): An Interview with Koji Shiraishi," by David F. Hoenigman (November 29th, 2009 - retrieved on September 23rd, 2011).