Noroi: The Curse (2005)

"A documentary filmmaker explores seemingly unrelated paranormal incidents connected by the legend of an ancient demon called the 'kagutaba'."

Before I begin, I just have to point out that the Amazon affiliate link which I've used to display the DVD cover art (to the left) is wrong. "Noroi" is a Japanese horror movie not a Korean one. I know that won't matter to any of you who have the Amazon links blocked with Adblock Plus (which I'm sure is most of you since I never get any money), but I thought I'd point it out anyway.

You aren't going to need to buy "Noroi" if you want to watch it anyway. It's all over YouTube either in its entirety or in parts, and I even have the English subtitled version embedded above for your viewing pleasure. Be aware that it's nearly 2 hours long though so that "pleasure" might just turn into boredom and frustration if you are anything like me.

I settled down to watch this last night after what seems like years of people telling me that I had to see it and "it's the scariest film ever!". Obviously, I didn't have to see it and, to be honest, it wasn't the scariest film ever either.

Having looked up the names of the characters on the IMDb, I can tell you that chubby Jin Muraki played the paranormal investigator named Masafumi Kobayashi, ex-porn star Maria Takagi (who you really do need to do a Google image search on) played herself for all of a minute, and Marika Matsumoto also played herself in a role comparable to Sarah Greene from the BBC's "Ghostwatch" (1992).

I know you've never heard of any of these people and nor have I. We can all cut the pretence out straight away. Thus, the biggest thing that "Noroi" has in its favour is that it looks more like a real found footage movie (until near the end) simply because there are no recognisable faces in it for a Western audience.

Call me a pervert ("Hey, Dr Blood, you're a pervert!"), but I really enjoyed watching little Marika Matsumoto getting possessed by a demon and stuff. She was playing "herself" so I assume she's a known actress or TV personality in Japan. Strangely, considering Japan's internationally famous TV shows, she didn't come across as stupid and self-deprecating unlike how Western presenters always do. I liked her.

The paranormal investigator/journalist Kobayashi was a bit dour and I didn't warm to him at all. I really think he was the least credible character in the whole thing although, obviously, he wasn't more annoying that the crazy, tinfoil-wearing psychic, Mitsuo Hori (Satoru Jitsunashi), who completely overdid the comic relief.

Kobayashi's wife, Keiko (played by Miyoko Hanai), was far too pretty for him, and, without giving too much away, that marriage was destined to not last past the end of the film. There were some very good-looking women in this, for sure, even though most of them only had small roles.

As you will see for yourself, "Noroi" looked just like every other faux found footage movie complete with shakycam moments and bits where you wonder why they were still filming. It was done better than most until it jumped the shark with an almost "Trollhunter" moment 20 minutes before the end. Such silliness meant that it could never recover so, of course, the ending was then ruined by even more excesses.

"Noroi" dragged on far too long, had too many silly moments to be scary, and the whole "demon summoning" thing wasn't very interesting to me. I think it was unnecessarily complicated for something with a core plot which was so basic, and I don't recommend it at all.

Lake Mungo (2008)

"When a series of inexplicable supernatural events strikes their home, Russell (David Pledger) and June (Rosie Traynor) Palmer try to figure out exactly what is behind the tragic drowning death of Alice (Talia Zucker), their 16-year-old daughter."

Having seen quite a few people recommending "Lake Mungo" on Reddit over the last couple of weeks, I thought I'd better have a look at it myself before it got removed from Netflix even though I knew I was going to be disappointed.

Mockumentaries are a difficult thing to pull off as they either have to be done so well that you think that they are real documentaries or so ridiculously that they become parodies. "Lake Mungo", in spite of its amusing name, went for the straight approach but still lost me within the first twenty minutes. If it had been a comedy though, it would have lost me a lot sooner than that.

I didn't find it scary and it had the stilted timing of the BBC's "Ghostwatch" (1992) about it which made it feel even faker than it already was. It didn't fool me for a second, but if it was shown on regular TV and you accidentally flicked onto it, you might be sucked in a bit more.

The biggest problem for me was that the main characters were too calm and composed considering that they were supposed to be a grief stricken family. The acting wasn't completely awful, but I found it odd that there just wasn't a lot of emotion to it. Although the Australian uptalking occasionally made statements sound like questions, the performances bordered on being flat and bland.

There were more than a couple of genuinely creepy moments which were a lot better than either of the "Paranormal Activity" films, and the dead girl played by Talia Zucker from "Neighbours" (not that I'd admit to watching that anymore) was very attractive.

The slight twist in the middle with Alice's brother (Martin Sharpe) admitting to having set up some additional fakery almost led me to a completely different conclusion than what was apparently intended, and I couldn't let that idea go in spite of the further revelations which followed. I'm still not entirely sure about why Alice died, if it was murder or suicide, or who was involved even after watching the film twice over.

I'll give "Lake Mungo" credit for being quite a neat idea, but this is one of those times when I think that the rumoured remake could actually turn out to be better.

Trollhunter (2010)

(AKA Trolljegeren)



"A group of students investigate a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter."

Since everyone else is doing the "Blogger Zombie Walk" today, I thought I'd just be a total contrarian and review "Trollhunter" instead.

I actually watched this last weekend when it first appeared on Netflix but decided to wait until I'd seen it at least a couple of times over before seeing if I could write about it in a good way. "Trollhunter", you see, is yet another one of those "found footage" movies which I hate so much plus it's Norwegian.

Norway isn't exactly well known for its horror movies apart from the excellent "Fritt Vilt" (2006) and a couple of others which were not nearly as good, so I wasn't expecting a lot from "Trollhunter". However, I was generally quite pleasantly surprised.

Making allowances for the style of the film, the acting seemed to be pretty good. Obviously I don't understand Norwegian, so my assessment is only based on the actors' expressions rather than their delivery. Having said that, it's still supposed to be a wry comedy, but it undoubtedly comes across as a lot more serious to an only English-speaking audience, which is definitely a good thing.

After the unnecessary amount of overrating which "Dead Snow" (2009) got, I really thought that I was going to hate this horror-comedy just as much, but I actually got quite caught up in it and enjoyed it for what it was. Johanna Mørck, who was also in "Fritt Vilt II" (2008), really stole the show for me with her big-eyed, knowing looks at the camera.

Apart from Tomas Alf Larsen. who was Eirek in "Fritt Vilt" and "Fritt Vilt II", the rest of the cast seem to be complete unknowns in the horror genre. Otto Jespersen, who plays Hans the Trollhunter, is the best known to Norwegian audiences due to his comedy TV show, but it hasn't travelled outside of the country, so you'd be forgiven if you've never heard of any of these people before.

Glenn Erland Tosterud as Thomas had the most character development going on if only because he was in front of the camera more than anyone else. Although the titular hero is supposed to be the focus, he's a bit too dour to form any attachment to. Thomas' gleefulness is a lot more infectious, and he's the one that you want to care about more than the others.

As for the trolls themselves, they are very well done. Although they were meant to look somewhat silly and like something which Ray Harryhausen would have been very pleased with, they could be quite menacing at times. I've probably forgotten the names of some of them them but they include a three-headed Tosserlad, a Ringlefinch who lives under a bridge, Mountain Kings who fart a lot, and an enormous Jotnar whose spectacular appearance is given away on the DVD sleeve.

Writer/director André Øvredal alluded to fairytales while creating a whole new backstory to trolls which I found very clever. I also liked the camerawork which showed a lot of Norway. I'm not much of a traveller and should probably be ashamed to say that I've never had any great desire to visit Norway. It actually looks a lot like rural America in places only slightly less shit.

If you absolutely hated "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield" then you'll probably want to give "Trollhunter" a miss too. If you give it a chance though, you'll find that the Norwegians have actually succeeded where all the other "found footage" filmmakers have failed. It's just a pity that they didn't make any of it scary.

Episode 50 (2011)

"Experience the true terror of things that go bump in the dead of night in the blood-curdling Episode 50, one of this year’s most nerve-shredding, spine-chilling supernatural thrillers."

If you are a fan of all those stupid "Ghost Hunters" or "Most Haunted" TV series (which I refer to as "Bullshit or Not?" after watching "Amazon Women on the Moon" or some such crap years ago), then you'll probably thoroughly enjoy "Episode 50".

However, if you loathe badly made mockumentaries where no attempt is made to include the "found footage" cameraman as a character then you'll probably switch this off quite early on without even a second thought.

In the interest of providing at least one "true" ghost story film for my "Hallowe'en Countdown", I suffered through the appallingly wooden acting and two decent effects of this film just to have something to write about.

I didn't completely hate it but only because I just couldn't get into it enough to feel anything about it one way or another. The characters were just too poorly defined to care much about them and the haunting of whatever asylum it was supposed to be didn't really interest me all that much either. I've seen it all done on TV before but for real and even then it was boring.

If you like this kind of thing then I recommend "Paranormal Entity" (2009) from The Asylum (not "Paranormal Activity" or its sequel) instead. Why you would like this style of filmmaking though is something which I can't even begin to understand in the first place.

Blooded (2011)

"In October 2005, five young people were kidnapped in the Highlands of Scotland. Stripped and abandoned in the the wilderness, they were forced into a deadly game where the hunters became the hunted. Their ordeal was filmed by an extreme animal rights group as a warning to others: if you hunt... you're fair game. Combining dramatic reconstruction and compelling interviews with the survivors, BLOODED finally tells the full story behind one of the most extreme internet virals of modern times."

After being fooled back in the day by the viral marketing for "The Blair Witch Project", I immediately looked "Blooded" up on Wikipedia to see if any of the events depicted were based on reality or not. Even though I'd never heard anything about this happening in 2005 (and I was sure that it would have been all over the news if it had occurred), I still had a niggling doubt that I might have simply missed it especially as I don't pay much attention to the news anyway. As it turned out, "Blooded" was a mockumentary after all but, damn, it was a believable one.

It really doesn't matter if you are an animal rights activist or pro-hunting to enjoy "Blooded". Like a lot of people, I'm one of the hypocrites in the middle when it comes to this argument. I like eating meat but I'm against hunting for sport or any other cruelty to animals. If I was forced to choose a side, I'd give up eating meat and wearing leather shoes but it wouldn't be without some struggle. My cats eat meat so why shouldn't I? And if vegetarians love all the other animals so much, why do they eat all their food?

"Blooded" isn't about average people or pet owners though, it's about extremists. The animal rights group is as fictitious as the hunters involved but it doesn't mean that there aren't people out there that think the same way as they do. Whether or not they would actually be prepared to do something like this is open to speculation and that's where the horror element comes in. If certain people got pissed off enough with hunters, these events could happen and undoubtedly there'd be a few "innocent" victims along the way. The message of "Blooded" is pretty clear, stop hunting or one day this will happen and there's nothing you will be able to do about it.

Technically, "Blooded" is a fantastic film. Despite being low-budget, it has superb production values, great cinematography and an awesome soundtrack. Director Edward Boase and writer James Walker have done an excellent job with enough characterisation to really make you think about the grey areas of flawed human beings. God, I sound as bad as Harry Knowles with all this praise but I can't recommend "Blooded" highly enough without writing like a fanboy.

Even the acting is pretty good though I preferred the actors within the dramatisation to the ones pretending to be the real victims. I don't think I've ever seen a mockumentary done this way before. It's certainly an original twist on the usual cinéma vérité "found footage" nonsense that we've all come to hate over the years. With a running time of just under an hour and twenty minutes, "Blooded" is nicely paced and not a chore to sit through either.

The only thing that I would have changed is that Isabella Calthorpe who played the "real" Liv Scott was better looking than her dramatised version. I don't have anything against Cicely Tennant but, purely down to personal taste, I think the eyecandy would have worked better. Most people would choose a better looking actor to play themselves in a film of their life so it seemed a bit odd even though the entire thing is bogus. Maybe it was intentional as, now that I think about it more, all of the "real" victims were better looking than their doubles and weren't quite such good actors. All of the performances were fine but the actors in the "dramatisation" were a notch above in ability and credibility. Most people aren't as picky as me and probably wouldn't notice but, since I've mentioned it, they obviously will now.

If you want to see "Blooded" for yourself, check out the official website. You can watch the film "on demand" in various places and buy the DVD in the UK. It hasn't been released on DVD in America yet and will probably be ignored when it is released due to cultural and political differences. Although the thriller aspects and subject matter have a universal appeal, the events and characters depicted are something peculiar to British culture and that may be an impediment to sales. The cynic in me thinks that is probably why one of the characters is supposed to be an American.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed "Blooded". It gave me a few things to think about and was good wholesome entertainment. It's not really a horror movie though it does contain more horror elements than the average thriller. I liked the "realness" of it and I think you will too.