I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with found footage horror, because when it does actually work, it can be one of the most effective ways of making a horror film, but when it doesn’t, it really doesn’t, and there seems to be about fifty where somebody spends ninety minutes filming their friends walking around while you sit there wondering why nobody has simply put the camera down.
Incantation is thankfully one of the better ones – directed by Kevin Ko and released in 2022, this Taiwanese horror film takes the familiar found footage setup and mixes it with curses, religious rituals, creepy symbols and a whole load of supernatural nastiness.
So, Is Incantation Actually Scary?
Yes, although I’d say it’s more unsettling than relentlessly terrifying, and that’s probably why I liked it., as while there are some proper scare attempts here, Incantation also doesn’t spend its entire runtime desperately trying to make you jump every five minutes, but what it does attempt to do is create this increasingly uncomfortable feeling that something is very, very wrong.
A lot of that comes from the religious and ritualistic elements, as there’s something inherently creepy about watching people performing rituals when you don’t fully understand what they’re doing or, more importantly, what they’ve unleashed by doing it, and the film takes advantage of that uncertainty quite well, where it gradually pick up pieces of information and makes you realise that the situation is much worse than it initially appeared.
That’s where I think Incantation works particularly well because the horror feels like something that is spreading rather than something that simply appears whenever the director needs a scare, and there’s an almost infectious quality to it, and once the film starts involving the viewer directly, things become even more uncomfortable.
I also really liked the sound design here, featuring plenty of whispers, chants, strange noises and distorted recordings throughout the film, and sometimes the sound is more effective than whatever is actually on screen.
I’m always a fan of horror that understands you don’t need to show me something for me to be worried about what’s standing just outside the camera frame, and this film does that very well indeed.
Found Footage That Doesn’t Make Me Want to Throw the Camera
Now, I’ve seen enough found footage films where the characters continue recording absolutely everything despite being chased by something that clearly wants to murder them, and after a while you just start questioning their basic decision-making skills, but thankfully, Incantation makes much better use of the format.
The footage comes from different sources and different periods, so it doesn’t constantly feel like the characters are carrying a camera around simply because the audience needs to see what’s happening – there are home videos, recordings connected to the investigation and other pieces of footage that gradually come together, which gives the film a much more convincing quality and makes it feel like you’re watching fragments of something that has already happened rather than simply watching a conventional horror film with a shaky camera filter slapped over it.
There are also scenes here where the camera doesn’t give you a perfect view of what’s happening, and I found those moments much more effective than the ones where everything is conveniently framed, so when something moves at the edge of the picture or you hear something happening somewhere outside the shot, you’re forced to fill in the gaps yourself, and your imagination is considerably more creative when it comes to frightening me than most CGI departments, so that’s always a good thing.
There’s Something Really Wrong With This Curse
The supernatural mythology is where Incantation really starts to separate itself from the average found footage horror film for me, as the curse isn’t just some generic ghost that appears whenever somebody walks into a dark room, there’s a whole system of beliefs, rituals and symbols surrounding it, and the film gradually reveals how dangerous that system actually is.
I also liked the fact that the mythology feels bigger than the characters, too, because there’s a sense that they’re dealing with something they don’t completely understand, and that makes their attempts to control it feel increasingly desperate, and the film also does something quite clever with the idea of belief.
It isn’t simply asking you to believe that a supernatural entity exists, it starts playing with the audience’s willingness to participate in the film’s mythology, which can feel fairly uncomfortable when you’re sitting there watching it.
One of the stranger things though about Incantation is the way it tries to involve the audience directly in the curse, and the film essentially asks the viewer to participate, featuring repeated symbols and instructions that make you feel like you’re not simply watching what happened to these characters but somehow becoming involved yourself.
There is always a risk with this sort of thing that a horror film will basically point at the audience and say, “Look! You’re part of the story! Be scared now!” and I’m not sure that’s particularly effective, even if Incantation doesn’t rely entirely on that gimmick, and to be fair, it does fit the wider theme of the film rather than feeling like something somebody came up with during a marketing meeting.
I still wouldn’t say it completely blew me away, but I thought it was a clever way of making a familiar found footage film feel slightly different, even if I felt it probably didn’t really need it.
The Characters Are Actually Worth Caring About
Another reason the film works is that the central emotional story isn’t completely swallowed by the supernatural stuff like so many similiar films – Ronan’s relationship with her daughter gives the horror an actual emotional centre, and the film is particularly interested in guilt and consequences, which gives the supernatural events more weight.
I also liked that the characters aren’t completely oblivious to what’s happening around them, and while obviously, there are moments where people make decisions that I wouldn’t necessarily make, because otherwise we wouldn’t have a horror movie, but the film doesn’t constantly rely on characters being spectacularly stupid to move the story forward – that’s a low bar, admittedly, but you’d be amazed how many horror films manage to trip over it.
The Film Gets Much Better As It Goes On
The second half is where Incantation really starts turning the screws though, where the atmosphere becomes more oppressive, the supernatural elements become more prominent and the film starts throwing increasingly disturbing imagery at you.
I preferred the first half in some ways because I liked the mystery and uncertainty, but the escalation does work incredibly well, so by this point, you’ve spent enough time understanding the curse and the characters’ situation that the increasingly horrific events actually mean something.
There’s also some properly good imagery here, i’s not necessarily extreme gore for the sake of gore, but there are enough unpleasant moments to make it clear that the film isn’t interested in keeping things particularly comfortable, and the final stretch is especially effective because everything feels like it’s closing in, becoming increasingly frantic, but there’s still enough mystery surrounding what’s happening to stop it from becoming just another supernatural action sequence.
The Story Gets a Little Complicated
This is probably my biggest criticism, and while I liked the mythology, I didn’t always love the way it was explained, as there are points where Incantation gets so wrapped up in its own supernatural rules that I personally found it hard to keep track of everything rather than simply enjoying the horror, because the film has a lot of information to get across, and occasionally you can feel it working quite hard to make sure the audience understands exactly what is going on..
The pacing isn’t perfect either, as the film takes its time establishing everything and then becomes considerably more frantic later on, so I can understand why some people might find the first half slow.
I didn’t mind the slower sections myself because I enjoyed the atmosphere, but I can definitely see this being a film where somebody watching purely for scares might start checking how much runtime is left.
Don’t do that, because Incantation understands the psychological side of horror, and although it does have its jump scares, it’s more about the atmosphere, with a real sense of dread underneath everything, but if you’re into found footage horror, supernatural curses, or Asian horror in general, I’d definitely recommend giving Incantation a go, just don’t blame me if you start looking at every weird symbol on your wall a little differently afterwards.
More Asian horror reviews.
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