Noroi: The Curse is one of those horror movies that opens so quietly that for the first twenty minutes or so, it feels like you stumbled across an old Japanese late-night TV special about something weird that probably has a completely normal explanation.
Found-footage horror has been done to death at this point, to the extent that you usually know the whole playbook before the opening credits finish – somebody finds a box of tapes, a group of idiots poke around somewhere they obviously shouldn’t, and everybody gets picked off in the dark.
Kōji Shiraishi takes a much slower, messier route here though, centering on Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal investigator piecing together a documentary out of seemingly unrelated incidents – strange noises coming from a neighbour’s house, a missing psychic girl, a bizarre shrine ritual, and a string of odd deaths. At first, none of it looks connected, right up until Kobayashi starts spotting overlapping names and symbols, and the whole thing snowballs into something way uglier.
I will admit up front that Noroi is extremely patient – almost two hours of interviews, archival TV clips, phone calls, and Kobayashi chasing one dead-end lead after another – so if you need a loud jump scare every ten minutes, you are probably going to bounce right off the opening half.
Stick with it, though, as that slow burn is exactly why it works so well. Instead of spoon-feeding you the plot, the movie dumps all the clues in front of you at the exact same pace Kobayashi finds them, so you end up trying to connect the dots yourself while every new interview makes the whole situation feel a little more off.
It also sidesteps the biggest headache with found-footage movies, which is wondering why on earth somebody is still holding a camera steady while a monster chases them down a hallway. Because Kobayashi is already making a documentary with a cameraman, the mix of formats – raw investigation footage, news broadcasts, variety show segments – actually makes sense.
Half the time it doesn’t even feel like you’re watching a horror movie trying to make you jump, because it feels like you’re watching real archival tapes where the people on screen have no clue how badly out of their depth they are.
It’s also a movie that shows very little. Most horror films can’t resist dragging shit into full lighting and explaining every rule of the curse by the third act, whereas Shiraishi leaves huge chunks of the Kagutaba mythology murky and lets your imagination fill in the blanks.
A weird background detail on a fuzzy tape, an unsettling conversation with a foil-wrapped psychic like Hori, or an offhand remark during an interview ends up feeling creepier than any demon could. There are plenty of names and threads to keep track of, as well and you will probably feel lost at points – mostly because Kobayashi and everyone around him are just as lost as you are.
Noroi: The Curse just lets a feeling of dread pile up until the final stretch hits like a brick. The pacing definitely won’t be for everyone, yet if you like slow-burn mysteries and found-footage horror that will stay in your head for days afterwards, it is still one of the best things the subgenre has ever produced.
More Asian horror reviews.
The East Palace (2026) Review: Ghosts, Curses and Palace Secrets
Leave a Reply