#Subverting Found Footage: The Uncanny Realism of ‘Noroi: The Curse’

Mockumentary > Found Footage

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Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video that explores a preferred alternative to the found footage subgenre of horror films.

Found footage is one of those subgenres that you either love or you hate. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s one of those sub-genres that’s tricky to pull off because, in addition to being a storytelling device, found footage uses a hyperspecific, alienating visual format.

Over-enthusiastic shaky cam is nauseating. Amateur filmmakers are rarely, well, good with cameras. And jump-scares abound. All these criticisms are legitimate. But Accented Cinema appears to have cracked the code on why, exactly, found footage rubs so many people the wrong way.

Ironically, there is something inauthentic about found footage.

Offering 2005’s mockumentary Noroi: The Curse up as a counterexample, the video below underlines how horror mockumentaries have what found footage wants. Namely: a visual language that imparts authenticity and allows us to suspend our disbelief. Because Noroi frames itself as a documentary, its “found” aspects are bolstered with formal elements and b-roll that sells us on this footage being nonfiction. As a result, the film’s rabbit hole of escalating paranormal events is immersive, uncomfortable, and eerily cursed.

Watch “Noroi: Realistic J-Horror“:

Who made this?

This video was created by Accented Cinema, a Canadian-based YouTube video essay series with a focus on foreign cinema. You can subscribe to Accented on Cinema for bi-weekly uploads here. You can follow them on Twitter here.

More Videos Like This

Here’s The Queue favorite Ryan Hollinger on another horror-mockumentary: The Bay, a film about an infection spiraling out of control due to the mass corruption of elected officials. Sound familiar?
Another sample of Accented Cinema’s horror content: why Hong Kong’s most iconic contemporary horror film, The Eye, is a gateway to Chinese superstition
Here’s Cinema Nippon singing the praises of Noroi
If you feel a bit shaky when it comes to J-Horror, never fear: Accented Cinema has a two-part breakdown on the genre (part 1; part 2)
Related, here’s One Hundred Years of Cinema with a short history of Japanese Horror
My favorite found-footage horror film is 2007’s [REC]. Even though my Spanish is rusty, I get a kick out of this 18-minute behind-the-scenes documentary because seeing Javier Botet in the cold light of day head to toe in prosthetics is more than worth the price of admission
Now here’s The Take with something really scary: why The Blair Witch Project predicted YouTube

Related Topics: Horror, Noroi: The Curse, The Queue

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