Let me start with this. If you watch "The Curse" because you like the atmosphere of horror movies and are keen on the trembling feeling of being scared, then you are very suitable to watch this movie.
In terms of "Taiwan's No. 1 Horror Film in 2022", I would give this film 9 points.
If you are someone who attaches great importance to the plot structure and logic of the movie, then you are welcome to continue reading this article.
Because, frankly speaking, I don’t need to watch every scene of this movie thoroughly. Even if I remove the content that I don’t dare to watch, there are still many points that I am full of doubts about (or to put it bluntly, I just want to complain).
This film is shot using an immersive pseudo-documentary method, so the entire process is narrated from the perspective of various parties’ self-portraits or monitors.
Only some content related to spells will be interspersed separately.
There is nothing wrong with this technique in terms of narrative, but the camera is really too shaky!
Later on, I was so dizzy that I had to look away. It's really uncomfortable to watch movies on a big screen.
may have something to do with my poor sense of balance. Let’s not go into details for now, let’s go back to the plot first.
First of all, the first groove appears in the first minute or two of the whole movie, and it is a super big groove.
It starts with the words of the heroine Ruonan. She first mentions the "blessings" that ordinary people use in daily life, such as happy birthday and wishing you a big prize. Then she shows you two animations, one of which is spinning. of a hand-drawn Ferris wheel, and another of a moving train in a station.
Ruonan's general idea is: We try to control the direction of the picture in our minds. Whichever way you think, it will turn, because the human brain can change the world. This is the magic of "curse".
But this is not a matter of our brains changing the picture, but a visual problem!
These are two very typical cases of optical illusion. If this phenomenon really needs to be paired with a literary statement, it should be something like "the way the world looks like will show different results according to your subjective interpretation." That's right.
That doesn’t matter. Maybe what the director wants to express is just a concept. Although the way of presentation is not appropriate, we can at least grasp his spirit-if he really wants to show some spirit.
Then the problem comes: this theme of "spirit can change the world" has no impact at all on the subsequent plot.
So I feel that the plot at the beginning is very abrupt and has no connection with the rest of the story.
The plot synopsis of "Curse" is very simple: the heroine Ruo Nan established a ghost hunting channel with her boyfriend and her boyfriend's brother six years ago to get rid of superstition.
In order to "fight counterfeiting", the three of them went to the mountains deep in their boyfriend's hometown and pretended to join in the worship. In fact, they wanted to laugh at the nonsense of this belief.
After the results arrived, I discovered: It turns out that this belief is true!
The two men who broke into the forbidden area died tragically. Ruonan, who was discovered to be pregnant on the way, survived without actually entering the forbidden area due to morning sickness; but the psychic mother-in-law who served the evil god "Black Buddha Mother" previously stated that Ruonan and the unborn daughter had been " "Remember" is the person of Buddha Mother .
After returning home from the shock, Ruo Nan went crazy, so he gave his daughter up for adoption. It was not until six years later that she overcame her mental disorder and thought she had escaped the curse of the Buddha Mother, so she reapplied for custody. But after her daughter returned home, she began to appear possessed by evil spirits, so Ruonan launched an operation to save her.
When I first saw this plot, I felt that it still had a lot of potential for filming and shaping. The technique of the
movie is to intersperse the scenes 6 years ago and 6 years later, and the plots of both sides are pushed forward at the same time.
The movie is called "Curse". At the beginning, the two visual animations are also used to convey the linkage between the curse and "the spirit changes the world". From the beginning of the film, Ruonan keeps showing the audience a rune (also a curse), and The audience is asked to chant a mantra that sounds like in Sanskrit and in pronunciation.
There is nothing wrong with the above designs, but the plot gradually does not fit in with the basic logic of this design.
First of all, during the visit to the shrine 6 years ago, Ruo Nan's personality was as follows: an urban woman, not believing in ghosts and gods, kind (insisting on helping the girl who was forced to become a sacrifice), and seemed to be destined to the Buddha Mother - originally she was attracted by the man. The elders on the side refused to be excluded from the worship procession, but the spiritual medium ’s mother-in-law agreed after reading her palm prints.
Then during the worship process, the names of three people in the group were written on the talisman paper and were taken away.
The psychic mother-in-law said: From now on, you can no longer use this real name, including Ruonan’s daughter.
Then something extremely scary happened in this deep mountain (it was really scary, mainly because the sound was so loud that it felt even scarier). Ruonan saw his boyfriend’s brother die tragically with his own eyes, and his boyfriend never came out again. Ruonan was extremely frightened. They didn't pursue the case, they just picked up the camera they brought into the forbidden area and ran away.
However, the key parts of the recorded content are full of glitches and noise (a must for ghost movies), so Ruonan has never been sure what happened to his boyfriend.
Ruonan then escaped and asked for help, but everyone who wanted to help her died, including the police.
The strange thing is that Ruonan, a person who almost passed by the Buddha Mother, has been living well, and so has her daughter.
A very simple explanation is: if the man and his daughter have been named as their own by the Buddha Mother, and they have not directly offended the Buddha Mother; but they seriously offended the Buddha Mother by stepping into the forbidden area, so the boyfriend's brother will die, but Ruonan happened to be named but did not violate the bottom line of the Buddha Mother's taboo.
Now, let me ask you, does Ruonan believe in the existence of the Mother Buddha?
As an atheist (judging from her social account), she should have to surrender at this point, right? She was so scared that she even sent her daughter away. It would be weird to say that she persisted in not believing.
But there are parts of the plot that I can't quite understand.
She completely failed to follow the instructions of her psychic mother-in-law, and continued to use her real name, and then seemed to be okay; apparently she also returned to normal for a long time before she took her daughter home (otherwise she would not have been able to take her daughter home) go home).
But this name issue caused me a lot of doubts, because in the past scenes, I especially shot the scene of the man's name on the talisman paper. I always thought that this would have an impact on the subsequent plot, but... it didn't appear at all.
Then the question of whether Ruonan believed in the Buddha or not kept coming up: after his daughter Duoduo was entangled, she kept mumbling to herself: I don’t want to think about it, so I won’t be afraid.
Again I thought this would be the focus of the film, for example she would teach Duoduo to use willpower to keep the evil god away, or in the end she would use her own will to resolutely deny the existence of the Buddha and make things turn around.
combines the very crooked "spiritual theory of changing the world" in the title of the film, and this direction is very reasonable.
But in the end, Ruonan's "Don't think about it" was repeated two or three times, but in the end it had no impact on the plot.
How casually does “Don’t Think” relate to the plot?
She said at home that it was okay not to think about it, but on the other side, she opened a shrine for the Buddha Mother on the top floor of her new home, and there were offerings in it. I wonder why she didn't think about it? Could it be that the Buddha Mother used her power to open it? (Definitely not, because when Duoduo ran up, Ruonan's reaction clearly knew that there was something upstairs)
On the first day Duoduo returned home, there was a sudden power outage at home. As a result, the first thing she did as a mother was not She quickly ran to see her daughter, but she first began to suspect that the Buddha Mother was "following her" again; and then according to common sense at this time, a normal person would at least check to see if the electrical box had tripped, right? No, she took the camera and looked everywhere first Clues to supernatural events.
Why? Because she already believed from the bottom of her heart that it must be the mother of Buddha.
At the beginning of the play, a message was immediately placed: the audience should respond to the theme of "curse". I help recite the sentence for a long time and remember a rune.
The final ending unfolds. Of course, this mantra is a cover, and the people who follow it are actually helping to share the disaster.
The director probably wants to use this mantra to return. Linked to the "language blessing" power discussed at the beginning of the film, this idea has been used in many film and television novels; but probably because of the embarrassment to the audience, Ruonan just asked everyone to repeat it in their hearts through the camera
But, here we are. At the end, the plot takes a turn for the worse.
It turns out that the mantra is not a word of blessing at all, but a word to share the suffering.
Here is a concept that is not in line with ordinary folk customs and religions: in the previous plot, Ruonan and the others submitted their real names when they visited the shrine. , which is indeed in line with the views of many beliefs and rituals.
The ancients valued names. In a way, they believed that names gave each individual their uniqueness and existence.
For example, there is someone named "Xiao Ming" today. Each word originally has its own meaning, and it makes no sense when combined together. But when it becomes a name, it represents the person "Xiao Ming"; if there is no name, then he is just a member of the crowd, not a unique existence. .
Continuing this idea, the ancients believed that language and words themselves have magic power, because they represent people's thoughts.
Therefore, the old people often warn that "trouble comes from the mouth", because even if it is just said casually, it is a person's malicious intention. Expression.
So in the movie, Ruonan keeps tempting everyone to recite the weird mantra, which is logically reasonable, but it is better to think about it for the sake of the audience's feelings. In fact, it is not in line with this principle, just like if someone changes his name by fortune telling, If you just change the name on the ID card , but your family and friends still call you by your old name, then the name change is in vain, because only the words that are actually used and shaped are meaningful.
But even ignoring the director's expediency, there are still big holes in the design of the spell.
The message at the beginning of the film is as follows: The human heart (brain) can change reality; then Ruonan murmurs to himself at home: Don't think about it, you won't be afraid, again emphasizing the importance of thoughts (although it has nothing to do with the plot later);
Come again During the visit, the psychic mother-in-law took away their name talisman and asked them not to use it again (although they still used it); later on, Ruonan kept asking everyone to think of the mantra, so that everyone could pray for blessings with their thoughts.
So it should be interpreted like this: human will is very important and can be strengthened through written language.
I guess there is a line hidden in the plot: the foster father drives Ruonan and his daughter into the mountains, and is attacked by the Buddha Mother on the way. Ruonan chants a mantra fiercely, and because the situation is too scary, the host father follows him, so in the end the foster father is there Yunnan died, and his death was similar to that of Ruonan at the end. He should have shared Duoduo's injustice.
And the essence of the mantra, "Misfortune and fortune depend on each other, life and death are famous" is even more puzzling: Why is life and death famous? The power of names was completely forgotten in the second half of the film. Ruonan's name was not used, but the name of the foster father, who was an ordinary person and could be used, was not revealed at all. Even the divine name of the Buddha's mother was not mentioned at all. come out.
What is the name of life and death? Could it be that the name of the person who chants the curse will be taken away?
This film was originally very scary and terrifying, and it originally made me worry that I would not be able to sleep at night, but because of these various logical contradictions, I quickly overturned its horror.
I speculate that these settings may be to gather together at the end, allowing the director to bury a hidden ending: So did Duoduo escape?
The last scene shows Duoduo smiling and talking to the camera. The original injuries caused by the Buddha Mother seem to have been cured.
Ruonan died tragically after returning to the forbidden area (in addition, he abducted the audience and recited the spell to disperse the injustice a hundred times), which seems to have successfully saved his daughter from the bad luck.
But, I don't think that's true.
The following is my reasoning based on my imagination, for your reference only.
In the middle, Ruonan took Duoduo to find Master Aqing for help, but Master Aqing was eventually killed by Ruonan due to a moment of weakness, leaving his wife Aqing's sad live solo performance to die tragically for their mother and daughter to watch.
Before her death, Mrs. Aqing told Duoduo bitterly: You are like this because your mother sacrificed you to the devil when she was pregnant. The statement
brings a lot of room for imagination to the final ending of Duoduo.
When I visited the shrine six years ago, the psychic mother-in-law did tell Ruonan that her daughter would also become the mother of the Buddha, and that she should remember to submit the name after picking it up. Other things that I think are very suspicious are: at the entrance to the forbidden area, if the man suddenly bleeds heavily, judging from the fact that she should have been pregnant for only two or three months at most, that amount of bleeding would normally lead to a miscarriage; but the sacrificial sister gave her a drink There was a jar of something, Ruonan seemed to feel better after drinking it; then the scene was muted, and then she asked her sister a few words and suddenly became excited, the sister who was offering the sacrifice burst into tears, and the jar was broken in the subsequent scene.
What is that thing?
Although my sister received help from Ruo Nan, the interaction between the two was pretty good, and they probably didn't want to harm her.
But this sister is not an ordinary person. She would let Ruonan feed the toads with her hair and she thought it was funny. The tribesmen also thought it was normal to cut off her ears and draw talismans on her body.
My guess is this: if the man’s pregnancy was known to the Buddha’s mother when he submitted the name talisman, Duoduo would be forced to dedicate it; then the boyfriend would take Duoduo’s name while he was still nearby, and she would be Buddha Mother knew about it and strengthened Duoduo's destiny. In front of the forbidden area, Ruonan was supposed to have a miscarriage due to excessive fright. In order to help her, the sister of the sacrifice gave her something to drink that contained the Buddha Mother's magic. This could indeed use evil magic to save the fetus, but it also made the Buddha Mother and Duo Duo suffer. A connection was created, so Duoduo could clearly see the monsters around him and talk to them directly, but no one else, including Ruonan, could see them.
And Ruonan should be well aware of this, so he sent Duoduo away out of fear. Although the superficial reason was because of mental illness, Ruonan himself should know very well that it was not the case.
It was not until 6 years later that Ruonan did not encounter anything strange again. He believed that the curse should be lifted, so he began to reapply for custody and take Duoduo home.
Note here that Duoduo almost never uses her real name "Chen Letong" in the whole film. It was given by her biological father before she met her death in the mountains. But almost everyone only called her Duoduo, including kindergarten teachers and volunteers. Only Ruo Nan took her to write when she was practicing drawing.
Since there is no similarity between the characters Duoduo and Chen Letong, I can’t help but think that this may be because her real name has been dedicated to the Buddha Mother. According to the instructions of the psychic mother-in-law, Ruonan usually only uses a small child for his daughter. Because of the name. But Ruonan himself still uses his real name.
So I doubt that she has completely dedicated her daughter to her as Mrs. Aqing said.
Perhaps because of too much fear, Ruonan once really decided to sacrifice his unborn daughter to save his own peace. Because he didn’t want this to happen before his eyes, he simply let his daughter be fostered. Ruonan secretly opened a god house on the roof of his new home. The altar is the evidence.
What she originally thought might be that she would inherit the worship of her boyfriend's family in the mountains at that time, and then offer Duoduo to her, so that she could barely live a peaceful life like the family in the mountains before.
As for why Duoduo has been fine for six years, but the sacrifice sister only died now, it may be because the Buddha Mother likes children. When the sacrifice sister was still a child, the Buddha Mother did not need Duoduo for the time being. If the man is safe, the Buddha Mother also wants her. Reserve the way to get Duoduo in the future.
As the sacrifice sister grew up, Duoduo returned to Ruonan, the medium who could contact the Buddha Mother, so the incident was triggered.
At this time, all the original believers in the mountains are dead, and the Buddha Mother also needs new girl sacrifices.
But it may be a change caused by time, or it may be the burst of maternal love after getting together for real (in the self-reported video, Ruonan expressed that his love for his daughter only appeared suddenly later, unlike other mothers who showed up after seeing ultrasound photos). Ruonan regrets it. He was unwilling to let his daughter continue to live under the control of the Buddha Mother (after all, the sacrificial sister also died tragically).
The origin of this idea is that Ruonan personally taught Duoduo to write her real name "Chen Letong", maybe because she wanted to get rid of the original curse and get her real name back. In order to intimidate Ruonan, Buddha Mother directly contacted Duoduo and made her fall seriously ill.
In order to let his daughter survive at least, Ruonan maliciously spread the curse to spread the effect, and he returned to the forbidden place to accept the punishment of the Buddha Mother and die. But she should also know that Duoduo cannot be fine because of her sacrifice, so she goes to great lengths, even plotting against her foster father to spread the curse.
If the real ending is like this, then the director’s original setting makes sense.
But even if things are really as I speculated, frankly speaking, I have a hard time agreeing that this movie is a good movie.
Horror movies often have this problem, that is, they are really scary and scary, but what do they want to express?
is like a comedy. If it is really funny, but you are not touched at all after watching it and forget about it within a few days, then you will be laughed at as a guava film.
If horror movies were really scary, they would be nothing more than cannon fodder for large-scale productions.
From "Curse", I didn't get a very specific idea of what the director wanted to express beyond horror: the spirit did not change into the world, the will did not control fear, the logic of the spell did not make sense, and the love of father and mother did not succeed in fighting evil spirits. (Three seconds of silence for the foster father), I didn’t even feel how much Ruonan loved her daughter - after all, she was the one who didn’t think about her daughter until more than five minutes when the power was out.
And as a person who set up a cult altar upstairs, she would also ask kindergarten children to stand in place for ten minutes and imagined that she would really not be discovered by running around; when all kinds of strange things started to happen at home, she actually dared to let I also find it quite strange that my daughter sleeps alone.
Maybe it’s because of this that Ruonan’s confession before the end of the movie didn’t move me at all. "Oh, she loves her daughter so much, she is willing to sacrifice herself for her daughter." None of these, her motherly love is very exaggerated. I did feel that she was working very hard to "fight against evil spirits", but I never felt that this was a mother's effort. It leaves nothing but goosebumps in the end, and endless sympathy for the foster dad.
So what exactly is the movie trying to discuss? Is it family affection, faith, don’t believe in evil even when it’s okay, or is it the value of being able to trick others into taking the blame when necessary?
In recent years, due to the popularity of "Little Girl in Red ", horror films seem to have become the path chosen by many directors. For example, the popularity of the romance film "Blue Door" triggered a series of works that explore love.
But horror films are originally a very dangerous field. They have to be scary and logical at the same time.
However, human fear is originally caused by supernatural events that do not conform to normal logic. However, if there is no logic at all, the audience will be "excited" very quickly, so it often takes more than half of the page just to present enough convincing; finally Movies may bring enough excitement, but there is often very little left.
So even Hollywood often overturns in this film type.
"The Curse" can be said to be a high-quality work from Taiwan as a horror movie, but as a movie, it may be difficult to become a lasting and deep work. Although the overall performance of the actors was very good and the overall atmosphere was successfully created, after walking out of the theater, I was only left with an empty feeling of "I just got shocked."
This is actually very different from "Two Eyes" or even the same type of "Psychic Medium".
