Incantation review: Taiwanese horror film is more confusing and disturbing than scary

Directed by Kevin Ko, the film has more gory elements than horror. The film is definitely not for light-hearted viewers. It stars Tsai Hsuan-yen, Huang Sin-ting, Kao Ying-hsuan, Sean Lin and RQ, among others.

Incantation/YouTube screengrab

Incantation

Story:

The story of the film revolves around a single mother, who is a ghostbuster. Six years ago, she breaks a taboo and gets cursed. And her young daughter now has to face the consequences of her actions.

Review:

The start of the film looks promising but as it progresses, you just want to close your eyes and not because it is scary but too disturbing and gory. The film, shot in a documentary style, urges the viewers to chant a mantra and help a single mother Ruo-nan, played by Tsai Hsuan-yen, to lift the curse that has fallen upon her six-year-old daughter. It is quite an unusual ask and hence, seems intriguing at first. 

The story then follows her speaking to a mental health professional about a curse after watching a video on camera. But it is brief. After proving her health state, she gets her daughter, Dodo back from the fostering system. Quite excited, she takes up a new house and decorates her house. But their happiness is short-lived. The daughter soon started getting haunted by some evil, whom she calls, 'baddie', which is only visible to her and not her mother. The film has montage editing with instances from the past and the present, which makes it even more confusing until the end of the film. The recording in the camera is often referred to, which is leading to a curse. The curse has the person viewing the camera recording kill himself or herself. 

There are several scenes in the film, which are left incomplete, causing further confusion and leaving the viewers more puzzled and with more questions in their minds. The scene of Ruo-nan and her daughter in the temple, trying to escape the Master who they visit to seek help is cut without finishing the scene, making us wonder how did the mother-daughter duo get away from there and reach the hospital. In a CCTV footage of the hospital room, Dodo is seen walking, holding an invisible entity's hands and bringing the death of another person into light, which is quite surprising too. As she walks away from her ward in presence of the hospital staff, nobody seems to notice her. 

The pace of the film is slow and the story drags so long that you tend to lose interest and also forget about finding out what was recorded in the camera. The recording is revealed at the end of the movie which shows what's inside the tunnel and how did one of their friends, Dong go crazy and kill himself. Yuan too gets killed and unlike the other ghost buster, he turns into a zombie and attacks Ruo-nan. The scene will just make you look away from the screen and/or nauseous. Even thinking about the scenes as I write the review makes me wanna puke.

Though it does not really have much new to offer in terms of how it is shot, the concept is quite interesting but could have been presented in a simpler manner for the audience who do not understand the cultural references. The film ends with Ruo-nan apologising to the viewers for lying about the mantra. The mantra is actually made to spell by people so that the impact of the curse is reduced. The more the people say out the spell, the lessen its impact. Ruo-nan enters the tunnel and tries to keep all the black magic things in order. She blindfolds herself before she reaches the deity, probably hoping that it would not make her go crazy as she wouldn't be seeing the deity herself. She apologises to the viewers for showing it to them so that the effect of the curse is reduced and ends up killing herself.

The slow pace of the narrative, gory scenes and confusing story, only make you wonder how the film went on to become the highest-grossing Taiwanese horror film this year upon its release in March 2022.  

Verdict:

The lead actor, Tsai Hsuan-yen says in the film it's a video that you would not want to watch. Well, it applies to the film too. It is a film that might not want to watch. The movie can be skipped even by the die-hard fans of horror films. 

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