This movie has become an annual phenomenon in Taiwan Province. It has won the box office championship for four consecutive weeks under the epidemic. Not only has it achieved a high box office result of 38 million yuan, it is also the highest box office movie in Taiwan so far in 2

Has everyone watched Taiwan's latest horror movie "The Curse"?

This is a horror movie full of malice.

There is no ghost in the whole process, but it is scary to watch.

This movie has become an annual phenomenon in Taiwan Province. It has won the box office championship for four consecutive weeks under the epidemic. Not only has it achieved a high box office result of 38 million yuan, it is also the highest box office movie in Taiwan so far in 2022 (local Movie).

has more than 700,000 online viewers.

For a work that costs only about NT$30 million (approximately RMB 6.75 million), has achieved impressive results. The popularity of

videos continues to rise in the mainland. The "Big Black Buddha" in the

movie has also become another frightening image in Taiwanese horror movies after the little girl in red.

Many people said that after watching the movie, they felt as if they had been cursed, were troubled by troubles, and felt physically uncomfortable; some religious and folklore workers also warned against chanting incantations, making hand gestures, and other advice along with the movie.

There are many horror movie scenes in "The Curse".

And if you are a person with trypophobia or someone who is afraid of bugs, then I can only say that it is difficult to avoid this kind of scene. The dense scene mainly consists of runes written all over the body. At the end, the heroine is facing the opponent with runes all over her body. While talking to the camera, a bunch of black bugs that I couldn't tell whether they were caterpillars or earthworms appeared from time to time, and were even spit out. In this process,

is not only full of brainwashing gestures and mottos, but also paired with some sound effects and scenes. The large number of appearances made the audience very impressed.

Until you "think" this is a blessing, there is another reversal, which is quite a surprise.

After reading this, if you look back at the so-called "blessings" at the beginning, you will feel very thoughtful and frightened. But you won't be able to bear to blame the heroine who is deeply "cursed" because she is just a good mother who loves her daughter from the beginning to the end.

The film tells the story of a heroine who encounters strange things after entering a forbidden area. In order to prove that she is not mentally ill, she uses a camera to record every move of her life, but the truth is even more horrifying.

combines folklore and customs with supernatural phenomena, and then shoots them in a "mock documentary" way. Last year's " Psychic Medium " and Taiwan's previous " Female Ghost Bridge " have reached unprecedented heights. "Curse" can be said to be It is a new classic of horror movies and mockumentaries.

The setting of "The Curse" is similar to that of "The Medium", but of course it is not as watchable as that work.

But "The Medium" is about the collapse of faith, while "The Curse" is about making the audience build faith in the movie.

In contrast, "Curse" has more intriguing topics.

As a pseudo-documentary, the most important thing is to make things realistic and resonate with the audience. This plot of "encountering ghosts in the city" has actually been played before in "Paranormal Activity: Ghost Records".

"The Curse" is not just about scaring the audience, but it is about building the audience's faith through the picture and causing it to collapse.

Not only do you have to believe that the things in the movie are true, but you also achieve an immersive experience of interacting with the protagonist. You can chant spells together, make gestures together, read the pictures together, and use your brain to control everything together. There is no need for excessive horror scenes, just relying on stillness, The picture with only text forces the audience to concentrate on reading the picture until the final shocking moment.

Compared with "cry", which is also a popular horror movie in Taiwan this year, "The Curse" actually does not have many scary scenes, but because of this uneasy atmosphere it creates a strong and weird feeling, without excessive scary scenes. Makes the audience restless.

However, if you look at the whole story, "The Curse" is actually a mockumentary about success and failure!

"The Curse" uses the technique of pseudo-documentary, and I have to say that the atmosphere creation in the first half is really good.

However, in the second half, a large number of cinematic shots slowly penetrated, and even the soundtrack appeared, suddenly pulling the audience out of the immersive experience.

In addition, the plot deliberately disrupted the timing, and excessive editing also distorted "The Curse", making it a failure of the pseudo-documentary.

"Mock documentaries" can often make use of this illusion that is both true and false, attracting viewers to attend like a "viral pyramid scheme", and even cause viewers to experience "post-viewing phobia" due to a large number of specious interpretations.

"Mock documentaries" often turn into bad films due to low-cost production, and it takes some effort to break through.

This kind of subject matter has already been preceded by the terrifying and profound "Crying" last year. It is probably difficult for newcomers to surpass it with a pseudo-documentary. "The Curse" uses another way to attract the audience.

"The Curse" was inspired by a real incident in Kaohsiung where a family of six were attacked by an evil spirit. In the incident, a superstitious family mistakenly believed that an evil spirit was involved and attacked them collectively. It was eventually judged to be a collective psychotic delusion.

"The Curse" indeed has the on-the-spot horror experience of a pseudo-documentary. The film uses a large number of interactive scenes, including memorizing symbols and silently reciting the mantra "Fire Buddha Xiu Yi, Heart Sa Mo", allowing the audience to immerse themselves in the scene and experience the feeling of a ceremony. Director

may also know that he can no longer make works such as " Midnight Ring " or "Blair Witch", so he turned to create a new immersive experience in such works.

From the beginning of the film, "Spell" requires the audience to recite incantations, break through the four walls to interact with the audience, and conduct various experiments together like playing games. It uses extremely weird scenes to immerse the audience into this experiment. In the sex "game", go together to bless the protagonist.

The sentence "The fire Buddha cultivates one, the heart is silent" appears from time to time in various tones, whether it is a plain drama or a compact plot, it will continue to appear.

This ensures that the audience constantly remembers and understands in different environments, and even makes gestures with the protagonist. The middle section of

reaches an almost "altar" style, allowing the audience to experience this alternative method of blessing.

"The Curse" constantly uses all kinds of weird pictures in its presentation - both the idea and expression are a bit like "The Ring", either with text or just images, and a large number of still pictures appear from time to time, constantly using various... A way to control the audience's brain, and finally expressed it in a single word, asking the audience's brain to gradually ingrain the sense of terror into their mind, and I have to ask you if you remember it...

During the movie watching, do you think there is a ghost suddenly coming to you? Jump, but the movie continues to control your mind. When you start to "believe" in this supernatural event, "The Curse" makes a surprising and major twist, which may have shocked you.

But the director didn't stop and forced the audience to look directly at the source of the most horror.

"The Medium" uses a super serious and sophisticated documentary method to shoot a pseudo-documentary, making it both terrifying and in-depth. It looks directly at the other side of faith. "The Curse" requires the audience to experience and feel this sense of terror , believe and build faith simultaneously with the heroine, build a faith in just two hours, and successfully push the pseudo-documentary technique to another peak. It is an unprecedented new experience.

Do you believe in blessings?

The sentence mentioned at the beginning of "The Curse", coupled with the operation arrangement of "Thoughts can change the world", through questions and psychological guidance, allow the audience to enter the immersion mode before watching the movie, causing uneasiness, uncertainty, and denial. His inner state, he doubted whether the plot of the movie was real and whether it was about to happen.

Many film critics discuss the mysterious religious beliefs in "The Curse" and mostly define them in terms of "evil spirits" - plots such as making large amounts of money, attending secret gatherings, and even being threatened after leaving. The blessing at the beginning of

, who would have known that at the end of the story, it would be discovered that this so-called blessing was actually a curse full of malice, and anyone who touched it would not be able to escape death.

Ruonan, who was pregnant at that time, had already asked the monk for help, knowing that her daughter could not escape, and all this was her plan.

If the man wants the curse to be spread along with the video, his daughter will have a chance to escape by spreading the curse. When the sound of "Fire Buddha Xiuyi, Heart Sa Moo" sounds, the curse will begin.

In order to prevent himself from seeing the face of the Buddha, he covered his eyes so that the audience could see it. It was full of malice.

In order to save himself, he sacrificed his daughter, and in order to save his daughter, he sacrificed the public. All this will only become apparent to the audience after things are gradually restored.

Although maternal love was finally aroused after getting along with Duoduo, Ruonan's evil thoughts did not stop.

Compared with the scares of ordinary horror movies, this terrifying mentality is even more terrifying.

Ruonan's behavior and the director's malicious story line made me go from being a little angry to feeling the love of a mother who would do whatever it takes to protect her child. It's actually a little touching and a little excusable?

The audience was stirred up with waves of complex emotions. The sense of presence, realism, and immersive ghost film really challenged the new heights of Taiwanese horror films.

But despite this experimental approach, "The Curse" is equally frightening.

is also like "The Medium", there are not many real scare points, and the moments when they appear also have their effect.

In addition to the hypnotic images, whether it is encountering evil spirits at home or encountering evil spirits in the countryside, the images are equally powerful and frightening. The most successful method of

's "mock documentary" is to use a lot of suspicion and suspicion to create an "invisible, more shocking" method.

A large number of flashing and looming strange scenes also make the audience more and more chilling as they watch.

Like "The Medium", "The Curse" also seems to be a hopeless story the more you watch it. All the characters eventually die tragically in various weird ways, and gradually get straight to the fear and pleasure of being buried, which can also arouse the viewer. The deepest sense of terror.

But it is worth mentioning that "The Curse" is a real urban horror story. To some extent, it can be watched on a mobile phone or in front of a movie. Watching the heroine at home holding a camera to find the source of the vision will give you a stronger sense of immersion. .

The purpose of "mock documentary" is to let the audience experience and accept all these horrific truths together.

"Curse" has a hypnotic technique that easily draws the audience into the game, and then uses a large number of subjective perspectives, such as visions in the countryside and scenes of the hero and heroine trapped in the barrier. Even though there are no scary scenes, it uses Leading the audience into the drama in a plain way.

In the first half of the film, you may feel that "The Curse" has no content to speak of. This method finally increases the power of terror until the final explosive moment, creating a new vision of pseudo-documentary.

As for the whole film, the art style is really realistic and gives you an immersive feeling. The realism of

mockumentary is brought to the scenes of palaces and temples, with religious beliefs as the main axis. The story is so real that it seems to be happening around us, coupled with the way of shooting and editing and .

Although the camera is very shaky, it does not affect the smoothness of the story connection. The audience enters the character from a more three-dimensional perspective. After watching it, you will really feel like you are cursed when you think about it!

At the end of the movie, the audience watching the movie in front of the screen is brought into Ruonan's consciousness dimension, and they jointly bear the karma caused by Ruonan.

These mixed contents successfully build up the complex inner feelings of the audience, making the fear continue to deepen during the movie viewing process, and it will not go away for a long time even after the movie ends.

"The Curse" successfully brought back the fearful atmosphere of "The Ring" back then, and became a hot topic.

So the question is, can "The Curse" really be regarded as the scariest movie in Taiwanese history?

personally feels that it is "too exaggerated" and it is really over-praised!

Both "The Little Girl in Red" are more impressive than "The Curse", but this is also defeated by the design of the pseudo-documentary.

Even though the plot of "Curse" tries its best to make the audience believe it all, and invites the audience to discover the secret together in an almost hypnotic way, "Curse" uses too many cinematic techniques, and has all kinds of editing, Computer stunts and even a somewhat provocative soundtrack.

No matter how hard it tries to tell the audience how real it is, commercial film editing techniques make it difficult for "The Curse" to maintain the realistic style of mockumentary.

A large number of hard-to-appear selfie shots in the middle of the film distort the film.

Obviously the audience has been immersed in a super scary real selfie in the first half, but there are too many movie-style shots in the second half, which makes the audience unexpectedly get out of the drama and find it difficult to feel the authenticity.

The packaging behind "The Curse" is a contradictory family story. From the ending paragraph of the film, we can know that this is also a film made for my daughter. However, the setting is inherently paradoxical, and it is also excessively film-level editing. It has a sensational effect, telling a family story, and the middle part will also make the audience laugh, knowing that they are watching a movie. From this point of view,

is far behind the same type of "Psychic Medium".

The most typical method of " mockumentary " is to make the audience see reality, which is inseparable from the self-filming of a group of mentally retarded people in distress.

Then this movie was found, exactly the one you are watching, without any editing or anything like that.

Therefore, "pseudo-documentaries" often show life segments that are unnecessary for the main plot, and are generally advanced in a chronological manner.

"The Curse" is presented in the form of a pseudo-documentary, but it fails because the plot is too cinematic. Even though the setting is edited by the heroine herself to achieve the effect of the ending, the whole film constantly jumps between two time and space, which makes The plot is loose and confusing. There are even too many jumps in the middle section of

. Every time at a critical moment, the plot is cleverly edited to create suspense.

also frustrated the audience, slowed down the pace, and occasionally made the show boring.

In fact, I can also understand that "Curse" intentionally uses this chaotic atmosphere to create an almost realistic effect.

However, excessive jumping out and revealing the horror plot at the very beginning made the movie distorted .

Due to the innate editing settings, there are a lot of insignificant clips in the middle of "The Curse". It is not like "The Medium" where almost every line of dialogue and every scene has its own profound meaning.

makes it undecided between the pros and cons of pseudo-documentary, which really makes it pale.

Therefore, "The Curse" did not reach the heights praised by the evaluation of "Taiwan's No. 1 Film History", and various interpretations seemed to "exaggerate too much" in the early stage and even "fall too miserably."

In fact, the horror color rendered in the film is strong enough, but the failure lies in the indecision between the film and the pseudo-documentary setting.

This makes it difficult for viewers who like movies and mock documentaries to have a satisfactory feeling, and it also makes the shortcomings of mock documentaries fully exposed.

Aside from this point, "The Curse" adds hypnosis and game-playing techniques that break the four walls into the pseudo-documentary, revealing a large number of strange and inexplicable images, reaching the final abyss of terror, which indeed gives the pseudo-documentary a whole new dimension The gameplay, even if it occasionally fades in the middle, will still make you shudder after watching it.

Horror movie fans may find it a pity that they cannot experience this collective hypnosis in the theater.

But watching it in front of the computer, and then looking around the environment close to you, constantly thinking about the mantra in your mind, and being restless, is still the success of "The Mantra". If I were asked to rate

, I would still give it an 8.

here also hopes that Taiwanese horror movies will get better and better in the future.

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