The main reason I started my free trial of Shudder was to check out a film my brother had mentioned on his blog, Hell House, LLC. It's a found footage movie that, rather just present it as a raw stream of the footage as filmed, instead is edited and presented like a documentary that has gotten a hold of the footage later, which has a few extra advantages. That one is pretty good, and I recommend you check out it, if not on Shudder then on one of the other streaming services it's on, like Prime if you have it. However, what I want to talk about is another film along those lines, a Japanese one from 2005, thus just before the real flood of found footage films began, called Noroi: The Curse.
In 2004, journalist Masafumi Kobayashi, who made a bunch of Fortean documentaries, had just finished an edit to the film of his latest investigation, when mere days later, disaster struck; his house burned down, his wife inside was killed, and Kobayashi himself vanished. The main film takes the form of an introduction to this story, Kobayashi's documentary in full, and a coda, which reveals a last significant piece of evidence. The investigation follows several different strands, that all seem to be separate at first, but have surprising links. Points like a girl psychic making a human hair appear out of nowhere, and a mother and daughter hearing babies crying from a house with no infants, begin to coalesce to reveal a tale of suicide, kidnapping, ancient rituals, insanity, and far, far worse!
In many ways, what Noroi does is tap into a style of horror writing that can be familiar to those that have read their M.R. James or H.P. Lovecraft; a slow documenting of various disparate facts and sources, coming together to reveal a greater evil. One of the things that found footage movies have trouble with is the question of "who is editing this stuff together"? Bad ones will have you scratching your head wondering answers to questions like "how did they get stuff shot on film back from the moon?" (That's an actual example BTW!) The format of this one though does mean that they can answer that question; these are lots of bits of footage (and not all from the same source; clips from other TV shows are used) gathered together over the course of months, like the many documents and correspondences that form the narrative of Bram Stoker's Dracula for example. What's more, being a documentary means that the footage can jump back a bit, be replayed to reveal some new facts, or shown again in a new context. It even allows for a bit of exposition in ways traditional found footage can't do so well. For instance, a nasty fate befalls some witnesses early on, which we find out about because of a caption on-screen, rather than, say, contriving a way for the characters to be filming while the radio reports what's happened, or something like that. It even has a few Japanese celebrities as themselves, in some very natural ways; that even includes the main female lead, Marika Matsumoto, who's a reasonably well known actress (she's done a lot of anime and video-game voice work). Guess that makes this a little less Blair Witch Project, a lot more like Ghostwatch.
This even deals with that age old bugbear of found footage; "why are you filming this?", with a very simple answer; Kobayashi is a journalist, that's his job, to get this stuff on the record. Now there are a couple of slightly contrived moments of this (including unfortunately the ending), but given how good the things those scenes reveal are, and for having pretty much no "queasycam" camerawork in the rest of it, I'm willing to let those go. What's more, the film sidesteps an even bigger issue bad American horror can have; revealing way too much. While by the end we can get a very good sense of the main thread and thrust of the story, there are a lot of side details along the way that don't get neatly tied-up to. For instance, there's a part where a lot of people are found dead, a couple of whom we've seen before and know to be connected to the case. However, it doesn't waste time going into who all the other people were, and what precisely they have to do with what's going on. Nothing kills this type of horror stone dead than needless explanations and tying it all down to ultra-specific lore. Perfect example in the found footage field; look at how chilling the first Paranormal Activity was in how all we knew of the demon was that it wanted Katie, and then compare that to the cavalcade of bullshit that was the backstory revealed across the sequels (including The Marked Ones finding a way to ruin one of the first's most chilling scenes).
Of course, the big question is, does it deliver the scares? Oh absolutely, but a very specific J-Horror type. This definitely is more of a slow burner, like the original Ring. There aren't many traditional jump scares, but there are some sudden reveals, though what it reveals is always something shocking, no spring-loaded-cats or the like in here. This is far more about building dread, early on by making you ask the question "where is this all going?", then later by revealing just how big what's happening actually is. It also wisely avoids showing too much of the more horrific elements directly on screen; there's one utterly chilling and grotesque point mentioned towards the end that gets raised, and thankfully the film doesn't go into any of the specific mechanics of how this was done, leaving it entirely to one's imagination. Now the film isn't perfect; as I hinted at above, the ending is a bit shakey, in that it's the most traditionally "found footage-ish". However, I can't see any other natural way the final punchline of the story could be done, what gets revealed makes the contrivance worth it. Besides, you have two seconds to name a found footage movie where there ending was by far the best part. Times up, that's what I thought.
Noroi is currently a Shudder exclusive; honestly, it's worth going for the free trial on the site just for that one alone, anything other fun ones you see are a bonus. BTW, this is does feature another film from director Kôji Shiraishi as an exclusive too; Sadako vs. Kayako, which is basically Japan's answer to Freddy vs. Jason, where the ghosts from Ring and Ju-On: The Grudge do battle. Spoiler: it's not nearly as good as Noroi. Other Shudder ones that are worth your time though are the aforementioned Hell House LLC, Found Footage 3D (a Scream-ish comedic take on the concept), and the Cold Prey movies (Norwegian slashers; 1 and 2 are a lot of fun!). But definitely make Noroi your priority, it's been overlooked and underseen in the West for far too long, it's time to correct that. Be sure to watch it in optimum conditions; best screen you have, lights all off and curtains drawn, it will be something to stick with you forever.
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