Noroi: The Curse

A Japanese found-footage horror film. It opens with a statement: the documentary maker Masafumi Kobayashi was investigating supernatural events and disappeared. What remains of his recordings is this film. Kobayashi starts with something small: a woman complains about the sound of babies crying from her neighbour's house. Then other cases attach themselves. An actress on a television programme says something on a shoot that is not her own, a girl disappears, a man walks around permanently wrapped in aluminium foil. The method is to build the connection slowly. Events that look separate are gradually tied to a single old rite. The film runs close to two hours and the tension rises slowly. The form is exactly that of a television documentary: narration, archive footage, interviews and amateur recordings. So the frightening moments are not showy either; most sit in the background, easy to miss if you are not watching. Koji Shiraishi directed. It was recognised late outside Japan and became one of the most-cited examples of its genre over time. Among the best in its genre for anyone who likes found footage and horror that builds slowly. For a viewer expecting fast horror, the film is long and its first half is almost entirely investigation.