This episode is sponsored by
Filmora
Noroi is a 2005 Japanese horror film
And it's one of the most unique horror experience I ever had
It's about a journalist investigating
A series of paranormal mysteries
From missing children
To occult rituals
At first, the film appears to be a series of unrelated scenes
Each telling a separate horror story
But as the film progresses
All stories begin to converge
And by the end
It is exhilarating
"There must be a connection"
Noroi is often referred to as a found footage film
Which is fair
The entire framing device
Is that the journalist has gone missing after his investigations
And his unfinished film was found
But, in practice
It feels nothing like any found footage film I've seen
In fact, it feels nothing like most horror movies
Noroi gives off a hard to describe mood
It feels realistic
It feels personal
Watching it is like walking down a hallway in my school at night
Instead of some imminent danger
I feel uncomfortable
And I don't know why
Today, let me dissect this film
While keeping spoilers to a minimum
Let's find out exactly how it conveys its sense of dread
What makes it different from other found footage films
And what we can learn from it
This is Noroi: The Curse
At the start of the film
We get a quick primer
A narrator introduces us to our protagonist
Horror writer and journalist Kobayashi
"He gathered accounts of strange occurrences..."
"In his pursuit of horrifying and unsolvable mysteries"
Footage of his books is shown
Along with photos and videos of his past investigations
Soon, we learn that after Kobayashi's last case
His house was caught on fire
His wife was burnt to death
And Kobayashi is... mysteriously missing
We'll be watching the unfinished film
Made by Kobayashi
Right off the bat
It's very different to your usual found footage fair
How does the Blair Witch Project start?
A quick text explains the situation
And the rest of the film is made entirely out of found footage
Cloverfield?
Same deal
Quick text primer
Rest of the film is all amateur footage
But Noroi includes b-roll footage
Scenes that are not part of the found video
We continue with Kobayashi into his first case
A case of where a family hears strange sound of crying babies
Babies, plural
Coming from their neighbor's house
As Kobayashi is about the enter the house
The film does a very professional sort of edits
Where the audio of the next shot
Leads the image by a few seconds
"The spooky voices you mentioned... What kind of voices were they?"
It is perhaps more apt to say that
Noroi isn't so much in a found footage format
As much as it is a documentary
And that's the brilliant part
I always find the found footage format lacking in immersion
If Paranormal Activity actually happened in real life
It would have been heavily edited
Spiced up with interviews and news footage
And other documentary flourishes
Fundamentally, I understand that
Real, raw footage like this
Just wouldn't appear in the cinema
The format is so synonymous with fiction
I have a hard time suspending my disbelief
But do you know what format I associate with reality?
Documentaries!
Noroi actually looks like something that would be in theatres
Or at least on TV
With all the aforementioned documentary flourishes
Steady camera showing clean but realistic footage
Excerpts from other TV shows and News
Interviews with professionals
It's condensed, it's edited
With no filler materials
We are so used to this format being non-fiction
When Noroi tells its story in the same way
It abused our habit
It hacks into our day to day experiences
Fooling our emotional brain into feeling that
What you are seeing
Is a true story
Now that's how you make it feel realistic
Before we go on
I'd like to take a minute to thank today's sponsor
Filmora
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After a fail negotiation with their mentally disturbed neighbor
Kobayashi has not choice but to leave
He then visits an audio expert
Who confirms that the soud coming from the neighbor's house
Is indeed the sound of crying babies
More than 5 babies...
Kobayashi revisits the family
Only to be told the neighbor has moved out
And the noises stopped
With the case seemingly ended
Kobayashi says goodbye one more time
The camera freezes
Zooms in
And a line of text telling us that
The family of two died 5 days later
In a car accident
Like in many documentaries
In this film, events happen in past-tense
"Sever days after your visit..."
"They moved out of that house."
Tell, don't show, is a bold choice
And the film utilizes it constantly
We see the family describe the sound of crying babies
We hear the family tell us the neighbor moved out
We hear a friend tell us that their co-worker died in a mass suicide
None of them we saw with our own eyes
Even when we do see something
Such as the demonic ritual
We see a recording of it
And had to be explained by a local historian
Kobayashi, and by extension, the audience
Is not there
This creates an interesting mood
Like everything is just a rumor
Some kind of hearsay
"You'd best stay away from her"
And through these hearsay
The film unsettles us
Most horror films create mood
By using terrors within our imagination
Seeing a killer standing in the distance
Watching someone getting killed
For the vast majority of us
These aren't something we will ever experienced
But many of us have heard news of those things
Death of someone
Such as your friend's coworker
Most of us haven't seen someone sleepwalks
But we have seen VIDEOS of someone sleepwalks
And so, Kobayashi only sees the video as well
It relates to our own experience again
We know exactly how those events make us feel
We have that emotion inside us already Real emotions
For real events that we experienced
So when the film mimics those experiences
It is bringing the real emotion out
Fooling us into thinking the film is real as well
Now that's not to say the film doesn't show anything
There are creepy neighbors
Creepy children
Creepy house with a messy front yard that looks abandoned
Dead animals
Children's drawing
Sick child with unknown ailments
Unreleased episode of TV
People screaming in pain
And many, many more
It shows plenty of disturbing things
And I love how small the things are
As you'd expect, most, if not all of these elements
Are all day to day experiences we all share
More importantly
They are all negative experiences
And they provide the main scare of the film
What are the elements you see used to convey horror?
Hunted by a monster in your dreams
Hunted by a monster after you had sex
Hunted by a monster while struggling with depression
Hunted by a monster in the dark if your mom has depression
The same way we know found footage films aren't real
We also know monsters are not real
So whenever they show up
We are being reminded that we are watching a movie
And so, Noroi opts to freak us out
Through much more mundane means
Car accidents
Sleepwalking
Or having a stroke
All possible in real life
But feels eerily cursed when happening in close successions
That "something is wrong" feeling
Now, the film does include other less believable elements
Early on, the film introduces this young girl
Who, supposedly, has psychic powers
But instead of showing Kobayashi meeting her in person
She was introduced through an excerpt of a variety show on TV
A film, within a film
It adds another layer of separation to this fact
A third-hand account, if you will
Making this girl and her ability feel even more distant
Like Chinese whipsers
The more distance a rumor travels
The more exaggerated it becomes
Thus justifying the supernatural elements
The film itself isn't fake
It's the TV show that's fake
Like all reality TV shows are
In fact, this segment sensationalize itself pretty hard
Making you question the show
Instead of the film
While keeping these horror elements realistic and distant
The film carefully arranges them
Gradually increasing the impact
At first, it's just baby noises
And then it's a disappeared child
And then it's sleepwalking
And then it's a demonic ritual
And then it's group suicide
The journey down the rabbit hole is slow and steady
Each increase in intensity is small
If you are willing the believe one
You are then primed to believe the thing that comes afterward
And by the time actual demonic curses appear
You are already primed to believe everything you see
Noroi is a unique horror experience
It may sound crazy to think a supernatural horror film is "realistic"
Indeed, in terms of "realism"
Noroi is nowhere near the top
But this film proves that
What is real
Isn't necessary what FEELS real
Can you persuade your audience that this is real?
Does your audience WANT to believe?
Most found footage movies failed to convince me
But Noroi did
Through the use of the documentary format
The realistic horror elements
And the unique investigative storytelling
The film builds itself up as something that
Requires very little suspension of disbelief from the audience
It engages with our day to day experiences
Uncover emotions that
Most of us don't realize we have
Let alone understand how powerful those emotions are
These emotions lurk in the back of my mind throughout the film
It is so creepy and strange
That, even in broad daylight
The imagery remains sinister
Watching Kobayashi walking around this cursed village
It really does feel like I'm walking in the hallway
Of my empty highschool at night again