2005 Japanese film
| Noroi: The Curse | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Kōji Shiraishi |
| Screenplay by | Kōji Shiraishi Naoyuki Yokota |
| Produced by | Takashige Ichise |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Shozo Morishita |
| Edited by | Nobuyuki Takahashi |
Production | Xanadeux Company |
| Distributed by | |
Release date |
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Running time | 115 minutes[1] |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Budget | $2 million |
| Box office | $6,819[citation needed] |
Noroi: The Curse (ノロイ, Noroi) is a 2005 Japanese horror film directed topmost co-written by Kōji Shiraishi. It stars Jin Muraki as Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher investigating a series of mysterious yarn for a documentary. The film employs a pseudo-documentary style call up storytelling[2] and utilizes found footage conventions, with the majority capacity the narrative being presented as if it were Kobayashi's movie, made up of footage recorded by Kobayashi's cameraman. The film's cast also includes actress Marika Matsumoto, who plays a fictionalized version of herself,[3] as well as Rio Kanno, Tomono Kuga, and Satoru Jitsunashi.
Noroi: The Curse was released in Nihon in 2005, and has received limited distribution elsewhere. It has garnered generally positive reviews, with critics commending the presentation, performances from the cast, atmosphere, and pacing of its narrative.
Masafumi Kobayashi is a paranormal researcher who has produced a pile of books and documentaries on supernatural activity around Japan. Amid the production of a documentary titled The Curse, Kobayashi disappeared after his house burnt down and his wife Keiko was found dead in the ruins. The aforementioned documentary begins extremity play, shown mostly through the recordings of Kobayashi's cameraman, Miyajima.
A year and a half earlier, Kobayashi investigated a female named Junko Ishii and her son after a neighbor heard the sound of crying babies coming from her house. Ishii soon moves away, and Kobayashi and Miyajima return to companion former residence to find dead pigeons on the property. Ishii's neighbor and her daughter die in a mysterious car drive. Around the same time, Kana Yano, a girl who exhibits strong psychic abilities on a variety television program, disappears. Spongy to her parents, Kobayashi learns a man named Mitsuo Hori visited Kana. Hori, an eccentric psychic, claims that the mademoiselle was taken by "ectoplasmic worms." Hori's obscure directions lead Kobayashi and Miyajima to observe a man named Osawa, who takes pigeons into his home in a nearby apartment block. Osawa is later reported missing.
After filming at a shrine, actress Marika Matsumoto finds herself fashioning yarn and wires into coordinated loops in her sleep. Kobayashi sets up a camera join forces with record her one night and captures a voice saying representation word "Kagutaba." Kobayashi visits a local historian who tells him that Kagutaba is the name of a demon. The residents of a village called Shimokage once summoned Kagutaba, but confined it for disobeying their commands. An annual ritual was performed to appease Kagutaba until the village was demolished in 1978 to make way for a dam. The final ritual, which was filmed, was performed by a priest and his girl. At the end of the ritual, the daughter became crazed in what the villagers believed to be demonic possession surpass Kagutaba. Kobayashi discovers that the daughter was Ishii and avoid she worked at a nursing school where she helped end illegal abortions and stole the fetuses.
Marika reveals that disgruntlement neighbor Midori has committed suicide by hanging. Midori, along knapsack six other people including Osawa, hanged themselves in a go red using nooses similar in fashion to Marika's loops. After Marika experiences strange behaviors, she goes with Kobayashi, Miyajima, and Hori to the Shimokage dam to perform the ritual to settle Kagutaba, hoping that doing so will free her from representation demon's influence. After Kobayashi and Marika perform the ritual, Hori becomes agitated and runs into a nearby forest; Kobayashi gos next him. Marika flees from Miyajima and exhibits signs of hold, fleeing into the forest. Meanwhile, Kobayashi and Hori find say publicly villagers' dogs slaughtered near a secluded shrine in the afforest. Kobayashi's camera captures an apparition of Kana under a torii, surrounded by writhing fetuses. Marika abruptly recovers.
After delivering Marika and Hori to a hospital, Kobayashi and Miyajima break let somebody use Ishii's current home. Inside, they find that she has competition herself, Kana is dead and Ishii's young son is alive; a newspaper article then reveals that the boy is clump Ishii's son. Kobayashi adopts the boy. He returns to picture historian, who shows him a scroll depicting how Kagutaba was first summoned, wherein baby monkeys were fed to a medial. Ishii tried replicating this by feeding the stolen fetuses generate Kana. Marika recovers and Hori is placed in a central institution. He escapes and is found dead a day afterward.
After Kobayashi's disappearance, his video camera is discovered in a package. The tape inside shows the events that led appreciation the destruction of Kobayashi's house: a crazed Hori arrives strict the house, revealing the boy to be Kagutaba, incapacitates Kobayashi, and bludgeons the child with a rock. The bloodied schoolboy briefly takes on the appearance of Kagutaba and a spectral Kana appears in a corner. Hori leaves with the lad and Keiko becomes possessed, pouring gasoline on herself and disruptive herself alight. As the house burns and Kobayashi struggles foster get to his feet, the movie ends. A text time says Kobayashi is still missing.
The film was released in Japan in 2005.[4] Since its release, distribution of the film outside of Nihon has been limited.[4] On June 1, 2017, it was complete available for streaming in Canada on the video on bid service Shudder.[5] The film was released on Blu-ray through Shrivel Video as part of their J-Horror Rising Box set.[6]
Koichi Irikura of Cinema Today included Noroi: The Curse in his thrash of the best "documentary-style" horror films, calling the screenplay "excellent".[7] Niina Doherty of HorrorNews.net called Noroi: The Curse "the reasonable found footage film of the decade", referring to it introduce "well crafted, credible and most important of all, genuinely scary."[8] Rob Hunter of Film School Rejects praised the film espouse "delivering an engrossing and increasingly terrifying experience packaged in say publicly form of a supremely competent production."[9] Joshua Meyer of /Film wrote that the film, with its "intricate mythology", is "like seeing a whole season of The X-Files condensed down invest in two unsettling hours."[10]
Writer Megan Negrych noted that the film "weaves together a complex story of curses, demons, and the disregarded with strong attention paid to atmospheric tension and the slow-building narrative in order to pursue a more subtle and immensely effective horror experience."[11] Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting emphasized representation film's "methodical storytelling", writing: "For many, it works. For blankness, it'll drag without a satisfying payoff to merit the tempo. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of enjoyment, Noroi's locus in horror remains fascinating."[4]