Noroi: The Curse (Japanese: ノロイ, Hepburn: Noroi) is a 2005 Japanese horror film directed by Kōji Shiraishi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Naoyuki Yokota. It stars Jin Muraki as a paranormal researcher investigating mysterious events for a documentary. It is presented as the finished documentary, using pseudo-documentary and found footage techniques. The cast also includes Marika Matsumoto as a fictionalized version of herself alongside Rio Kanno, Tomono Kuga, Satoru Jitsunashi with cameos from Japanese comedian duo Ungirls, former AV actress Maria Takagi, actor and director Dankan, late TV personality and former AV actress Ai Iijima, and author Hiroshi Aramata.
Noroi: The Curse was released in Japan on August 20, 2005, and has received limited distribution elsewhere. It garnered generally positive reviews, with critics commending the presentation, performances, atmosphere, and pacing.
Contents
Plot
Masafumi Kobayashi is a paranormal researcher who has produced a series of books and documentaries on supernatural activity around Japan. During the production of a documentary titled The Curse, Kobayashi disappeared after his house burnt down, and his wife Keiko was found dead in the ruins. The aforementioned documentary begins to play, shown mostly through the recordings of Kobayashi's cameraman, Miyajima.
A year and a half earlier, Kobayashi investigated a woman named Junko Ishii and her son after a neighbor heard the sound of crying babies coming from her house. Ishii soon moves away, and Kobayashi and Miyajima return to her former residence to find dead pigeons in the yard. Ishii's neighbor and her daughter died five days later in a mysterious car crash. Around the same time, Kana Yano, a girl who exhibits strong psychic abilities on a variety television program, disappears. Speaking to her parents, Kobayashi learns that a man named Mitsuo Hori visited Kana. Hori, an eccentric psychic, claims that the girl was taken by "ectoplasmic worms." Hori's obscure directions lead Kobayashi and Miyajima to observe a man named Osawa, who takes pigeons into his home in a nearby apartment block. Osawa is later reported missing.
