Noroi: The Curse

nice movie. supernatural. demonic. ritualistic. was dragged on for too long, some unnecessary scenes. but I really like how it was made, filmed, and made me feel like I was actually with them.

creppy

I'm in 1:38:21 right now nearly end but still don't get it what the heck is this all about lots of unnecessary scenes this gives me boredom as F

Bon film !

Bon film !

This movie was extremely disappointing. I've just finished it and im still waiting for something to happen. Too much loose information, and almost none suspenseful or scary times... I though the reviews were somehow useful but this time, they are far from what I saw. Not recommended.

I don't know if these people who rated this movie high have really low standards or were on something. This movie was so frigging awful, I had to skip forward and even then it sucked. I want to go to Japan, find the all the people who were part of this heap of trash and kill them. Take tinfoil man out in a thunderstorm and have him struck by lightning and maybe then something scary would happen. Bums in the slums on New York act better and more convincingly than that moron. And that possessed girl, could she be anymore fake? There was a good possible explanation to each event that occurred in that stupid movie. Paranormal activity, at least I'd give a pity star to. Nothing convincing at all.

I've seen over a thousand horror movies, including a lot of B horror, but this has to be one of the stupidest horror movies I have ever seen - all of the characters in this movie are completely helpless and worthless and for this reason it is very hard to care about what's happening on the screen. Kobayashi is refusing to call the police for days, though he has clear leads about the missing girl, but the girls parents doesn't seem to care about her either, so that's fine, yeah? Also he has a problem of never letting go of his camera, it is a common problem with found-footage movies, but here it just goes far and beyond as Kobayashi refuses to stop filming even as he's being assaulted by a mad man and even after his wife has set herself on fire. ALSO he seems to want to adopt every abandoned person he comes across for whatever reason. But the biggest problem with the movie for me is the tin foil suit man - first, why is he being taken seriously and not institutionalized, when he is clearly completely insane and is a danger to himself and everyone around him, even after he assaults a woman on live TV? My suspension of disbelief was completely shattered, when the parents of the missing girl told Kobayashi, that she was talking to this man just before she disappeared and this somehow was overlooked by the police? They actually shown the news footage, saying that "the police have no leads on a missing girl" - what the actual hell? Even if you overlook all of the stupidity, you are left with a very low budget, extremely slow paced, boring and generic plot about demonic summoning and a curse, falling onto anyone, who tries to get involved or is even around it. I'd say - just go and re-watch The Blair Witch Project or even Paranormal Activity, stay away from this infuriating mess of a movie.

Suffice to say I have never seen a film quite like "Noroi". It is perhaps THE creepiest film I have ever watched. Note that I say "creepy", not "scary". There is nothing that will make you jump in this movie, but there is a level of terror and suspense you'll be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. Think "The Blair Witch Project", only stretched out through a longer runtime and a (much) more complex story. Much like "The Blair Witch Project", the movie is filmed mostly on camcorders and tries (though not nearly as relentlessly as "The Blair Witch Project") to pass itself off as a true story. Purporting to be last documentary of paranormal investigator Masafumi Kobayashi, the movie's real genius is in its construction. It begins with several, seemingly unrelated plot threads, each one kicked off by some mysterious, creepy event. Kobayashi records a bizarre EVP while investigating a reclusive woman's house, a young girl displays psychic powers on a television program, an actress goes into convulsions while investigating a haunted temple. The tension in the movie is maintained beautifully, rising at a steady pace throughout the entire film as bizarre, seemingly supernatural events begin happening to and around the characters. The real horror in the film comes from seeing how these events are all related, a realization the viewers will reach long before the characters, though the plot threads do eventually converge. A sense of rising horror pervades this entire movie, and by the time the climax rolls around the tension has built to such a screeching pitch it's almost unbearable. Combined with the fact that the last twenty minutes or so contain some of the most unsettling scenes I have ever seen, and you've got a cinematic punch that will stay with you for days. A couple points come off for one character's delirious overacting (although he does play something of a nutcase), but otherwise this movie's got it all. The only question is...are you ready for it?

"Noroi" is a suspenseful film that's meant to be more chilling than scary, and it has a very compelling string of concepts that drive the story. The filmmaking is quite well-executed, particularly in its portrayals of news events and in its occasional ominous, dilapidated sets. This film, however, is NOT the "scariest film from Japan" and it will NOT give you nightmares unless you scare extremely easily. The plot is NOT complex and instead relates a few completely random bad events that result from the titular curse (caused by a very generic demon). That said, you may still enjoy the atmosphere for its slow buildup of various foreboding events and images. The film portrays a documentary crew examining a series of mysterious, compelling events, and these are rather interesting in and of themselves--but the film ultimately connects only a few of them, and in a rather predictable way. For instance, the film never gives any interesting meaning to the pigeons or knots that always appear before disasters, and characters like the reclusive Mr. Osawa serve no purpose in the end. In addition, the film diminishes its scariest scenes by replaying them, sometimes multiple times and often in campy slow-motion. There is a general lack of subtlety to all the scares, as they are spelled out and presented in-your-face to eliminate all the possible thrill or excitement. Many people praise the final scene for being unsettling, but I found it very predictable; if you've been using your brain during the film, there isn't anything else you'd expect. The biggest flaw however is that, even by the very end of the film, we have no reason to care about any of the characters. The documentary-filmmaker protagonist is a bland "blank slate" guy with no sympathetic or even interesting traits. There is slightly more personality to the actress Marika, but she is also very passive and only serves to be a victim. This film has a few novel gimmicks that can entertain you, but its "story" is little more than a framing device for said gimmicks. As I said, though, the filmmaking is well done, so you can probably enjoy sitting through it unless you hate "found footage" flicks. If you're looking for a profound horror story that will make you think, though, this is far from it.