A few days ago, an annual Chinese-language horror film finally came. Before
was launched, it was dubbed "the scariest movie in Taiwan's film history" and "the strongest horror movie in 2022", which made the audience's expectations explode.
But after it went online, its word of mouth dropped rapidly, and it even suffered a lot of infamy.
what is the quality of this movie? Where is it wrong?
今天，我们就来聊聊它——
咒
导演: 柯孟融
编剧: 柯孟融/ 张喆崴
主演: 蔡亘晏/ 黄歆庭/ 高英轩 / 林敬伦 温庆禹/ 彭海义/ 黄玲/ 宋燕旻
上映Date: 2022-07-08 (China Taiwan Network)
Length: 110 minutes
As early as last year, the trailer of "Curse" was released, which ignited expectations on the Internet.
In March this year, after it was released in Taiwan, China, it was rated as high as 8.1 by the audience.
But as it went online a few days ago, the current word-of-mouth has dropped to 6.8 points.
Strictly speaking, not bad for a horror film.
But compared with the high expectations of most viewers, this score is not satisfactory.
and it was given a low score, in addition to its own standard not in line with everyone's expectations, there is another important reason, that is, its presentation method made some viewers feel offended.
"unlucky" not only became a high-frequency word in Douban's short comment section, but also became a hot search on a certain platform.
In the end, even the leading actor had to come forward in person and responded to this statement in a teasing way.
Indeed, people with religious beliefs and will have a deeper sense of substitution when watching this movie.
Even if you are an atheist, the film’s gimmicks adapted from real events, its “pseudo-documentary” filming method, and the strange rituals and runes in the film will make you feel evil and scalp numb.
Next, I will illustrate the story in the film for you.
Reminder:
There are spoilers below and some scary pictures (processed), please watch carefully.
At the beginning of the film, the heroine Ruonan faces the camera and tells her own story.
Six years ago, she had violated a terrible taboo, and since then she has had bad luck.
The parents and relatives around her suffered misfortune and even died accidentally.
Now that six years have passed, Ruonan's life seems to be gradually returning to normal.
single, she picked up her daughter Duoduo from the foster care center and named her Chen Letong .
Ruonan taught her how to draw, recognize characters and write her own name. The mother and daughter lived a warm and happy life.
But the good times didn't last long. Soon after Ruonan picked up Dodo, strange things happened one after another.
For example, suddenly had a power outage at home, the refrigerator door opened by itself, the toilet automatically flushed and so on.
The most frightening thing is that Dodo's spirit also began to become abnormal. She claimed to have seen "bad things" (dirty things) in every corner of the house... in chaos.
She planned to move, but on the day the intermediary came to discuss related matters, another strange thing happened.
Duoduo seemed to be instigated by a mysterious force, and suddenly began to talk to herself.
While Ruonan was not paying attention, she walked up to the rooftop alone, picked up a sharp weapon and pried open a door on the top floor.
In this room, there are all kinds of Buddha statues believed by the people. After
Duoduo entered, she found an old-fashioned DV inside, and watched the content shot inside.
When Ruonan found Dodo, Dodo had finished watching the movie and suddenly became unwell. After
was sent to the hospital for treatment, it was already too late, Dodo was diagnosed with both legs were paralyzed .
Everything around Ruonan seems to be heading towards the worst direction...
Seeing this, I believe everyone will have doubts: what exactly was recorded in that DV? Why do people who read it bring bad luck and disaster?
This is actually the most important suspense throughout the film.
And the whole movie also tells us the taboo that Ruonan violated six years ago through interludes, which is the content captured on that DV.
Six years ago, Ruonan, his boyfriend A Dong, and his friend A Yuan jointly ran an adventure video account.
They often go to all kinds of weird places and take videos and upload them on the Internet.
On this day, they returned to A Dong’s hometown, wanting to shoot the local sacrifice folklore .
This is a small remote village, where the locals keep their own language and customs.
When Ruonan just arrived in the village, an old woman came to check and showed Ruonan his palm.
in a viewAfter the inspection, the old woman told Ruonan that the child in Ruonan's womb had been chosen by the Buddha's mother, and she wanted to dedicate the name to the Buddha's mother.
It turns out that in this village, the god they enshrine is called Buddha Mother.
Anyone who has worshiped the Buddha's mother must dedicate his name to the Buddha's mother. After that, he cannot call out his real name in the village.
Even people who have left the village come back every ten years to worship.
That night, all the people in the village started some kind of mysterious sacrificial ceremony.
Ruo Nan and his team found a little girl with runes written all over her body. This little girl claimed to be the one chosen by the Buddha's mother.
One of her ears was cut off and dedicated to the Buddha Mother to bless the whole village.
In addition, they also saw mysterious altars and bizarre bloodstains on the ceiling in the village.
The biggest mystery about this village is an underground passage that is said to be absolutely forbidden.
But Ruonan and the others did not give up and still came to this restricted area.
Because Ruo Nan was unwell and her lower body began to bleed, she could only wait outside, and A Dong and A Yuan entered the passageway with the DV.
After a while, Ah Yuan rushed out of the tunnel like crazy.
He became nervous and started talking to himself before jumping from a height and falling to his death.
And A Dong has been in the passage for a long time. When the people in the village found out and pulled A Dong out of the passage, he also died tragically.
After this incident, the expedition trio died tragically, and only Ruonan survived.
She put the DV that took pictures inside the tunnel on the top floor, and suppressed it with various Buddha statues.
She thought her life would gradually return to normal, but she didn't expect that after six years, strange things would happen again and again in her life.
That's why she tells the story of her experience to the camera at the beginning of the film.
And her purpose is to let everyone in front of the screen recite a certain spell with her, praying for her and Dodo and warding off disasters.
But is that really the case?
Is this set of incantations and gestures learned from the village really used for blessings?
As the plot progresses, the story reverses itself.
The person in charge of the foster care center Xie Qiming was very sympathetic when he learned what happened to Ruonan and Dodo.
He helped investigate the events of that year, repaired the damaged video in the DV, and went to consult a master in Yunnan.
Finally, he made a video to tell the truth:
It turns out that the Great Black Buddha Mother enshrined in that village is the God of Curse.
Anyone who has worshiped the Buddha Mother will be cursed and bring bad luck.
The only way to resolve it is to spread the curse and let more people share the impact of the bad luck.
The Great Black Buddha Mother is enshrined in that inaccessible tunnel, her face is the center of the curse, covered by a red cloth.
Anyone who sees its face will be cursed.
This is also the reason why A Dong and A Yuan, as well as the psychiatrists, policemen and others died back then.
After telling the truth, Xie Qiming also bumped his head in front of the camera and died.
Seeing this, we will find that Ruonan was cheated.
Because the spells and gestures she learned from the villagers were actually spreading curses rather than blessings.
But is that really the case? Is Ruonan really innocent?
As the plot progresses, we discover a deeper and more tingling conspiracy.
It turned out that six years ago, after Ruonan came back from the village, she went to the master for help.
In other words, she already knew the truth about the curse.
The Dodo she brought back was actually the child she conceived and gave birth to.
She has worked hard for so long just to play a big game of chess.
Here is a detail that can also be proved. In that DV, a scene after the accident between A Dong and A Yuan was recorded.
Ruo Nan, who was pregnant and had red lower body, was fed toad water by the little girl with runes on her body, and said a word to Ruo Nan.
Maybe at this moment, the child in Ruoan's womb was chosen by the Buddha's mother and signed some kind of contract.
In other words, this film presented from a first-person perspective is actually Ruo Nan's conspiracy from beginning to end.
She cultivated her image as a single mother, got people to watch her videos, gained sympathy, and then started to implement her plans.
was the only person who survived that year and signed a contract with the Buddha's mother. Her purpose was to involve more people and share the bad luck brought about by the curse.
The reason why she did this was not only for herself, but also for Dodo.
Because in the process of getting along with Dodo, she has developed a mother-daughter relationship, and she doesn't want her to be hurt more.
So at the end of the film, we can see Ruonan returning to the center of the curse.
She took a picture of the Buddha's mother's face and spread it to everyone who watched the video, in order to minimize the impact of the curse.
and thisThe first scene is also one of the most scalp-tingling and uncomfortable scenes in the whole film.
As a movie with the "adaptation of real events" gimmick, "Curse" actually has nothing to do with the original event.
It only uses the plot of "the upper body of the god" , and the story is completely new. All the religions, Buddha statues, mantras, etc. in the
film are created and designed by the main creative team, not from reality, so you don’t have to worry.
Of course, in order to achieve the frightening effect, the main creative team also took great pains.
They researched a lot of religions, folk customs, and images of Buddha statues in Southeast Asia and India before creating the image of the Great Black Buddha Mother.
More than 20 versions were designed just for the face of the Buddha mother, and the version similar to amethyst in the film was finally confirmed.
In fact, this also borrowed from the "empty fingers" and "lotus milk" that were popular on the Internet in the early years, in order to enhance the horror effect and arouse the psychological discomfort of the audience.
The last thing worth mentioning is the filming method of pseudo-documentary of "Curse".
It uses first-person and handheld photography to allow the audience to immerse themselves into the story, thereby enhancing their sense of substitution and achieving the effect of being on the scene with real ones.
This is not the first of its kind, there have been good films such as " Blair the Witch ", " Kunchiyan " and "The Evil" before.
On the basis of pseudo-documentary, "Curse" added a lot of delicately processed shots and angles in order to make up for the disadvantages of blurred shots and poor angles, but the sense of reality was reduced.
In addition, the editing is messy, the content of the feature film is deleted more, and the narrative chaos caused by back and forth insertions, etc., all led to the final decline in word-of-mouth.
But in general, "The Curse" can be regarded as a surprising Chinese-language horror film in recent years.
If you're an unbelieving horror fan, this movie is definitely worth a watch.
