Are you scared after watching the Taiwanese movie "The Curse"? Many viewers who finally got a glimpse of it were annoyed by the "maliciousness" at the end. Originally just a bystander, wanting to watch a curse from a safe distance from the screen, but was finally told: you are part of it. It turned out that the director did not talk about martial arts and broke through the safe area of horror films. Not only did he tear down the fourth wall, but he also added many immersive interactive links to turn the film into a concert. It was the audience's devotion that made it happen.
If you're an agnostic horror fan too, stick to it until the end. This is a great opportunity to ask yourself, what are you looking for when you watch a horror movie? Feeling terrified after the movie, what are you afraid of?
There are also many types of horror films, and Ke Mengrong's "Curse" is a folk horror film. I would say, this type is the scariest. But the more frightening it is, the more I want to know why.
On the fringes of belief and unbelief, there is a god or spirit. Their intentions are unknown, their will is firm in what they do, and their true identities are kept secret. In the process of finding him, the protagonist of the film will collide with the beliefs rooted in the hearts of the local people. These two forces of unbelief and faith, of confrontation and surrender, exist simultaneously in the hearts of moviegoers. The process of watching the movie seems to be watching the inner battle. Whether the east wind overwhelms the west wind, or whether the east wind and the west wind combine to be swallowed up by a higher force, or invade other humans, will lead to a completely different viewing experience.
Folk horror movies are the most reflective of the heart. The closer the cultural background it shows is to the audience's own, the easier it is to get into the play. Asian directors are especially good at this. Last year's "Nambu" (Malaysia) and "Spiritual Medium" (Thailand/Korea) are excellent works that point to the mixed origins of local cultures. Earlier good films include "Twin Eyes" in Taiwan, China, "The Cry" in South Korea, "Zombie" in Hong Kong, China, and "Supernatural Curse" in Japan. Although "A Midsummer Night's Fright" (Sweden, 2019) takes place in a distant place, the primitive sacrificial culture behind the bloody massacre is like a leaf dropped in "The Golden Bough", which is similar to the shamanic sacrificial traditions that have existed in various human societies. Also in this pedigree.
In these stories, there is always a small group of people who guard a god or spirit. He is very ancient, and even in the hearts of the local believers, the name and origin have long since been dissolved into vague legends. The belief in this god is neither affiliated with several major religions, nor is it a cult, and goes straight to the blood of primitive religions.
The gods who receive offerings and sacrifices are inseparable from the local culture. He is the force that holds a group of people firmly on the ground, keeping them from exile in the drastic changes of modern society, at the cost of a promise of eternal service. The God of Bayan in the deep mountains in the northeastern region of Thailand ("Spiritual Medium"), the "Soul of Pots" ("Spiritual Curse") in Shimogamo Village, Nagano, Japan, and the suspected esoteric god "Big Black Goddess" ("The Great Black Goddess") imported from Southeast Asia. Mantra"), all such gods.
God is different from God. As long as God's will is installed in their hearts, Christians, Buddhists, Islamic and Jewish people can go about the world without any hindrance. Because the followers of cults have clear desires, whether they are seeking the afterlife, or seeking money and sex, or seeking a strict collective life and the sense of stability brought by a powerful "leader", the importance of the group and the leader is far more important than the local.
The gods in folk horror films are neither unique nor enough to be kept in mind. Cruel, domineering, and powerful, they are intimately bound up with the land and one's people, only demanding and inflicting punishment, rarely showing mercy. The "Soul of the Pot" needs to be subdued by the spell. Once the village is flooded and the sacrifices are suspended, his evil thoughts will intensify, and eventually gather in human form and flow into the world. The Big Black Buddha needs the offerings of teeth, hair, ears, goats, and names, and she wants freedom. The Chen family, who brought this belief to the deep mountains of Taiwan, was in danger before they could enjoy his quilt. They had to invite the Buddha's mother into the tunnel and sealed it with a mirror array and mud boys. The Buddha's mother, who is good at manipulating people's hearts, finally uses villagers and outsiders (the heroine Li Ruonan) to achieve her goals step by step.
The crowd guarding these gods is the first part of the film that makes people notice the anomaly. They seem normal, mostly simple villagers, and occasionally they turn into IT elites in modern society, making the amazing move of moving ancient temples into urban buildings ("Double Eyes"). As long as restricted areas are not involved, the guardians of these gods remain human. In "The Curse", when Adong and Aming took Ruo Nan back to their hometown to film the sacrificial ceremony, their uncle and other relatives were not malicious, and were as kind as ordinary elders. Although the villagers of Xialumao Village in "Spiritual Mantra" are wary of outsiders, they are not more wary of outsiders than in ancient villages, and the women hang their clothes outside as usual. Aunt Mei in "Zombie" is a kind-hearted mother-in-law. Because she was reluctant to give up her dead husband, she asked the unscrupulous ninth uncle to revive her, turning her into a zombie and killing the entire building. The woman who raises the little devil and lowers her head in "Southern Witch" is usually not scary, but seems to be just a mother who is sad because of the unexpected death of her son. In "The Medium", the family chosen to be possessed by the god Bayan, especially Aunt Nim, the medium of this generation, is an accessible, kind and firm person. People like her are often important figures of prestige and trust in a community.
Just because the Guardians are just ordinary people, unlike cultists who have been brainwashed and abandoned their human feelings, they are a buffer between the protagonist and the gods representing the audience's perspective. Since they are ordinary people, they usually live by labor, but they will also appear strange at certain moments and breed malice. Before seeing the real body of the deity, the villagers who were covered in runes in the sacrifices appeared in unison ("Curse"), which was enough to scare outsiders and the audience.
When the efforts of this group of people failed, the power of the gods spread out of the local corner and entered the realm of the civilized world, and the terrifying feeling began to climb the skin.
The reason for the failure may be due to the interruption of sacrifices. For example, the Xialumao Village in "Supernatural Mantra" was sunk to the bottom of the lake due to the construction of a reservoir, and the sacrifices were forced to be interrupted, forcing the "spirit of pots and pans" to find people who are willing to serve him again. Or angering the gods because the characters who should have believed in gods refused to believe in the gods. Min, a little girl who received modern education in "Spiritual Medium", refused to be possessed by the Bayan god, and eventually attracted evil spirits, and staged the end-time scene of all spirits manifesting together. Stepping into the restricted area, breaking the seal, and awakening the gods, such as the behavior of the ghost-breaking special team in "Curse", will also lead to disasters. There is also a more sinister setting: the "Japanese/ghosts" and shamans in "The Crying" are originally crotch molds. They had a clear purpose from the very beginning, intending to confuse the minds of the people on one side, smash modern civilization and Christian belief, and push the villagers back to the era of chaos and monsters.
The setting of "Double Eyes" is rather special. The two Taoists had to experience reincarnation - transcending the calamity before they could successfully cultivate immortals. They ignore the times, send believers to find people, push them into hell, and complete their ascension. They don't need to be woken up, and they don't need to be disturbed, and they're always moving towards their goals clearly. The scary thing is that the same immortal cultivation behavior has completely different interpretations in ancient and modern environments. In today's context, gods and ghosts have been driven away from the center of life, driven to dark corners and no longer appear easily. If you follow the principle of not appearing if you don't touch it, it's fine if the well water doesn't make the river water. "Double Eyes" breaks through this setting, allowing the ancient behavior of immortal cultivation to continue to be carried out exclusively in modern society.
The battle of the temples in the mansion slaughtered the police all over the place, and the visual spectacle transformed the inner landscape of the "unbelieving" modern people. People who live in the city and are far away from ghosts and gods, more or less, there is such a strange temple in the same room. Open the door, it is a dark and vast "letter". It follows another way of thinking, abandoning the present life, fearing the punishment from the gods, begging for his blessing, and even presumptuously wanting to become immortals and immortals, and look down on all beings side by side with the gods.
3
When belief only exists locally, even if the guardians who believe in these gods have failed or alienated, the audience can still watch the fire with great interest. Only when the defenders of modern civilization and traditional human relations—doctors, policemen, nursery aunts and superintendents, parents and parents, and clergymen serving the righteous gods—died, did the horror experience truly begin.
He is very close to us. Right and wrong, good and evil, and cause and effect depend on what man is to be a man, and none of them work for him. The old man in "The Monster of the Han River" once said that when a monster hurts humans, it should be eliminated decisively. But in folk-horror films, this simple and clear-cut old wisdom is doomed to fail. Because the protagonist (that is, us) is not facing a clear evil like the Han River monster, but invisible "bad" and many mysteries. Mysteries hold hands and feet, and people can't throw molotov cocktails, shoot sharp arrows, and duel with hurtful things. You must first crawl through the fog to find the answers to a series of questions - Excuse me, what god are you, where do you come from, and where do you think you are? What do you want and what can you do to get rid of your curse?
In this type of film, the protagonist needs to pursue these issues like a detective, fighting like a gladiator for a chance to return to normal life on the front line.
Suspense and fear mixed together. Although there are often characters such as religion/anthropology professors who provide clues, and the guardians or deities of the righteous/good gods help, most of the protagonists are still doomed.
Because they sometimes believe in the wrong God. Is Bayan God, regarded as a good god, really a good god? Was the subsequent hell scene because He was rejected and left, or was He simply an evil god who couldn’t invite all spirits to slaughter at his will? Sometimes I mistake God, and with the naked eyes of mortals, I finally go through hardships and think that I have gotten rid of the evil spirits. I did not expect that the orphans I adopted are the spiritual bodies of the "spirits of pots and pans". Sometimes I know the wrong person and think that the shaman who is saving people and fighting ghosts is actually the helper of ghosts. Sometimes it's just a big dream, and what Qian Xiaohao thinks is the evil way of Zombies is just an illusion before dying.
God's intent, not His face, is the ultimate mystery. All the gods ask for is to obtain a sacrifice, to perform a natural mission, or to do the devil's work as in The Cry. In order to achieve their goals, they need a medium. The human body becomes the container for the will of the gods. The gods are cunning and powerful. In the process of competing with humans for the container of the body, it is not the gods that are more frightening, but the people.
Regardless of the existence of gods, spirits, and ghosts, what we are terrified of is always the human nature and human destiny that appear with him.
"You tried so hard, but you still failed." The ending of "The Crying" is profoundly powerless. Just like the family tried their best to save Xianshu in "The Monster of the Han River", it was all people who were ruthlessly tricked by fate. Fan.
The hero Kobayashi Yawen of "Supernatural Curse" is a writer who interviews supernatural events. He is the most professional, most spiritual, and the least selfish seeker among the protagonists of folk horror films. He traced the clues like a detective, and was infinitely close to the real body of the "Soul of the Pot", and finally fell short. His failure was unexpectedly frustrating for the audience, because we had almost seen the film as a mystery movie. A calm detective like Kobayashi can always solve puzzles at the end and restore peace to the world. But we got it wrong, there's another power that doesn't spare even detectives with the aura of death avoidance.
Through the eyes of the gods, one can see all kinds of human nature.
People's revenge makes the woman in "Southern Witch" lower her head to her neighbor through the hands of a little devil.
When selfish desires are blazing, people will, like the cultivators and disciples in "Double Eyes", forget that they are human, and start killing without any scruples. They are the closest to cult believers, and there is only one belief in their hearts - becoming immortals. The ninth uncle who raised ghosts to continue his life in "Zombie" is also so vicious. Other people's lives are worthless, either removed as an obstacle, or like an alchemy material, only worthy of being thrown into the raging fire.
But more often, because of cowardice, fear of death or attachment to others, people indulge their self-interest to expand infinitely until they engulf their conscience and goodwill.
In other words, it is helping the tyrants. The audience is always gullible, believing in the protagonist's good intentions like a detective's halo. Sometimes this is indeed the case. Although the heroine Ayan in "Southern Witch" does not believe in ghosts and gods, in order to cure her husband's strange illness after being possessed by him, she went to the cave to worship the god of Xiangyu Mountain, hoping to receive the blessing of the goddess from Quanzhou. . In "Spiritual Medium", in order to protect her daughter, Noi, who took the initiative to ask good gods to be possessed to challenge evil spirits, although unfortunately failed to attract evil spirits, at least she had such intentions.
Once some movies overturn the default rule of "people's hearts are kind" and let the protagonist have a hurtful heart from the beginning, then the audience who has been advancing and retreating with the protagonist will not be able to linger.
What I'm talking about is not the "bad luck" that "Curse" makes many people angry. Li Ruonan's final confession is the most exquisite piece of the puzzle. With it, this story about "exorcism" and "blessing" is complete. The director deliberately knocked down the fourth wall, in order to invite you to enter the game, completely immersed in it, in order to deeply appreciate the complexity of human nature.
If the male is not a born bad person, anyone in that situation may make the same choice. When fear is too big and incomprehensible, people try to reduce it to something that can be understood and dealt with. For example, think of a curse as a constant and transferable entity. As long as you transfer it out and find someone to share it with, you can effectively reduce your share. For example, in the legend of "buying money for life", you think it is a windfall, but it may actually be someone else who deliberately stayed to "buy" your lifespan.
Only a very few people will be brave to the end like the yellow fire earth, sticking to the bottom line of being a human being in the temptation of immortality and the terrifying illusion. Huang Huotu is an idealized person, and Li Ruonan is just an ordinary person, even a rather brave person. After the death of her boyfriend and her parents, she searched for the truth of the big black Buddha by herself and tried all the methods to lift the curse. She once had love in her heart. Six years ago, she sincerely guarded the little girl who was sacrificed outside the tunnel, and she also wanted to save the "children" trapped in the tunnel. Later, it was found that all methods were fruitless. She voluntarily became an accomplice of the Buddha's mother, and deliberately let the people who helped her—the police officers from the police station, the psychiatrist, and Duoduo's adoptive father, social worker aunt, priest and priestess to send her to death. The moment when Li Ruonan completely "irritated" the audience happened at the end of the movie. She covered her eyes with a red cloth, reached out and untied the face covering of the Buddha, so that the audience, who was already frightened, was completely exposed to the unfathomable curse instead of the fictional "documentary audience" in the film.
Only then did we find out that we were deceived. Li Ruonan, who had been begging for help, had long decided to become a tool to release the Buddha and help her perform her mission (spread the curse). She also worked so hard, carefully planned the scam, took every step of the way, and even blindfolded her eyes at the last moment, begging the Buddha's mother to spare her life. She not only "worked so hard, but failed in the end", but also "became a bad person, hurt countless people, and still failed", which is even more tragic.
Her death was meaningless, rather humorous. Under the control of the Buddha's mother, Li Ruonan and Xie Qiming kowtowed to death as vigorously as Xie Qiming. But perhaps, Li Ruonan, who is as scheming as Mother Buddha, deceived us once again. She cheated to death, and reached an agreement with the mother of Buddha, in exchange for her own life in exchange for the widespread circulation of the film. Mother Buddha can control Xie Qiming to kowtow to pass the video, but she will never cut the video for later stage...
The charm of folk horror films goes beyond fear. It also has the usual effect of good literature and art - arousing awe of the unknowable, looking back at one's cultural roots, and perceiving the insignificance of man and the absurdity of his situation.
In "The Witch of the South" and "The Crying Voice", various folk beliefs use their bodies as containers to meet and fight each other on a small land. Some hurt people's lives, and some Purdue Cihang. "Spiritual Medium" invites dead plants, trees, birds and beasts to possess human beings, viciously displaying the grotesque scene of animism.
The collision of modern civilization and ancient beliefs is the most intense in "Double Eyes". The ancient beliefs of cruel and selfishness passed through modern civilization without squinting, leaving a breath of revival in the city where the lights never go out day and night.
The Japanese/ghosts, shamans, women in white, Christian priests, policemen and villagers in "The Crying" are the forces that have existed in this land, and still exist side by side. Christianity, Shintoism (not named), and shamanism are busy competing for people's hearts, but people's hearts are still distracted, and the incarnation of the devil can take advantage of it. The ancestral guardian power symbolized by the woman in white is misunderstood, and Zhong Jiu, the policeman who maintains order in the world, has his confidence in common sense and justice broken piece by piece.
Tragedy like this makes me chill. The fate of our predecessors overlaps with ours today, forcing us to re-examine our lives today: If everything I depend on is destroyed by a higher power, what will I become, a human being, a puppet of a god, or a demon?
If you're an agnostic horror fan too, stick to it until the end. This is a great opportunity to ask yourself, what are you looking for when you watch a horror movie? Feeling terrified after the movie, what are you afraid of?
There are also many types of horror films, and Ke Mengrong's "Curse" is a folk horror film. I would say, this type is the scariest. But the more frightening it is, the more I want to know why.
The Curse poster
The law of causality is a barrier that protects our peace of mind. If you believe it, you can be sure that bad things will not happen to you casually. Even if it falls, there is a reason to follow, or there is a way to resolve it. Folk horror films don't follow this security rule of finding order in a chaotic world. Here, although a civilized society is protected by modern technology, religion and state systems, people still retain the memory of animism in their hearts.On the fringes of belief and unbelief, there is a god or spirit. Their intentions are unknown, their will is firm in what they do, and their true identities are kept secret. In the process of finding him, the protagonist of the film will collide with the beliefs rooted in the hearts of the local people. These two forces of unbelief and faith, of confrontation and surrender, exist simultaneously in the hearts of moviegoers. The process of watching the movie seems to be watching the inner battle. Whether the east wind overwhelms the west wind, or whether the east wind and the west wind combine to be swallowed up by a higher force, or invade other humans, will lead to a completely different viewing experience.
Folk horror movies are the most reflective of the heart. The closer the cultural background it shows is to the audience's own, the easier it is to get into the play. Asian directors are especially good at this. Last year's "Nambu" (Malaysia) and "Spiritual Medium" (Thailand/Korea) are excellent works that point to the mixed origins of local cultures. Earlier good films include "Twin Eyes" in Taiwan, China, "The Cry" in South Korea, "Zombie" in Hong Kong, China, and "Supernatural Curse" in Japan. Although "A Midsummer Night's Fright" (Sweden, 2019) takes place in a distant place, the primitive sacrificial culture behind the bloody massacre is like a leaf dropped in "The Golden Bough", which is similar to the shamanic sacrificial traditions that have existed in various human societies. Also in this pedigree.
"Curse" stills
1In these stories, there is always a small group of people who guard a god or spirit. He is very ancient, and even in the hearts of the local believers, the name and origin have long since been dissolved into vague legends. The belief in this god is neither affiliated with several major religions, nor is it a cult, and goes straight to the blood of primitive religions.
The gods who receive offerings and sacrifices are inseparable from the local culture. He is the force that holds a group of people firmly on the ground, keeping them from exile in the drastic changes of modern society, at the cost of a promise of eternal service. The God of Bayan in the deep mountains in the northeastern region of Thailand ("Spiritual Medium"), the "Soul of Pots" ("Spiritual Curse") in Shimogamo Village, Nagano, Japan, and the suspected esoteric god "Big Black Goddess" ("The Great Black Goddess") imported from Southeast Asia. Mantra"), all such gods.
God is different from God. As long as God's will is installed in their hearts, Christians, Buddhists, Islamic and Jewish people can go about the world without any hindrance. Because the followers of cults have clear desires, whether they are seeking the afterlife, or seeking money and sex, or seeking a strict collective life and the sense of stability brought by a powerful "leader", the importance of the group and the leader is far more important than the local.
The gods in folk horror films are neither unique nor enough to be kept in mind. Cruel, domineering, and powerful, they are intimately bound up with the land and one's people, only demanding and inflicting punishment, rarely showing mercy. The "Soul of the Pot" needs to be subdued by the spell. Once the village is flooded and the sacrifices are suspended, his evil thoughts will intensify, and eventually gather in human form and flow into the world. The Big Black Buddha needs the offerings of teeth, hair, ears, goats, and names, and she wants freedom. The Chen family, who brought this belief to the deep mountains of Taiwan, was in danger before they could enjoy his quilt. They had to invite the Buddha's mother into the tunnel and sealed it with a mirror array and mud boys. The Buddha's mother, who is good at manipulating people's hearts, finally uses villagers and outsiders (the heroine Li Ruonan) to achieve her goals step by step.
The crowd guarding these gods is the first part of the film that makes people notice the anomaly. They seem normal, mostly simple villagers, and occasionally they turn into IT elites in modern society, making the amazing move of moving ancient temples into urban buildings ("Double Eyes"). As long as restricted areas are not involved, the guardians of these gods remain human. In "The Curse", when Adong and Aming took Ruo Nan back to their hometown to film the sacrificial ceremony, their uncle and other relatives were not malicious, and were as kind as ordinary elders. Although the villagers of Xialumao Village in "Spiritual Mantra" are wary of outsiders, they are not more wary of outsiders than in ancient villages, and the women hang their clothes outside as usual. Aunt Mei in "Zombie" is a kind-hearted mother-in-law. Because she was reluctant to give up her dead husband, she asked the unscrupulous ninth uncle to revive her, turning her into a zombie and killing the entire building. The woman who raises the little devil and lowers her head in "Southern Witch" is usually not scary, but seems to be just a mother who is sad because of the unexpected death of her son. In "The Medium", the family chosen to be possessed by the god Bayan, especially Aunt Nim, the medium of this generation, is an accessible, kind and firm person. People like her are often important figures of prestige and trust in a community.
Just because the Guardians are just ordinary people, unlike cultists who have been brainwashed and abandoned their human feelings, they are a buffer between the protagonist and the gods representing the audience's perspective. Since they are ordinary people, they usually live by labor, but they will also appear strange at certain moments and breed malice. Before seeing the real body of the deity, the villagers who were covered in runes in the sacrifices appeared in unison ("Curse"), which was enough to scare outsiders and the audience.
"Curse" stills
2When the efforts of this group of people failed, the power of the gods spread out of the local corner and entered the realm of the civilized world, and the terrifying feeling began to climb the skin.
The reason for the failure may be due to the interruption of sacrifices. For example, the Xialumao Village in "Supernatural Mantra" was sunk to the bottom of the lake due to the construction of a reservoir, and the sacrifices were forced to be interrupted, forcing the "spirit of pots and pans" to find people who are willing to serve him again. Or angering the gods because the characters who should have believed in gods refused to believe in the gods. Min, a little girl who received modern education in "Spiritual Medium", refused to be possessed by the Bayan god, and eventually attracted evil spirits, and staged the end-time scene of all spirits manifesting together. Stepping into the restricted area, breaking the seal, and awakening the gods, such as the behavior of the ghost-breaking special team in "Curse", will also lead to disasters. There is also a more sinister setting: the "Japanese/ghosts" and shamans in "The Crying" are originally crotch molds. They had a clear purpose from the very beginning, intending to confuse the minds of the people on one side, smash modern civilization and Christian belief, and push the villagers back to the era of chaos and monsters.
The setting of "Double Eyes" is rather special. The two Taoists had to experience reincarnation - transcending the calamity before they could successfully cultivate immortals. They ignore the times, send believers to find people, push them into hell, and complete their ascension. They don't need to be woken up, and they don't need to be disturbed, and they're always moving towards their goals clearly. The scary thing is that the same immortal cultivation behavior has completely different interpretations in ancient and modern environments. In today's context, gods and ghosts have been driven away from the center of life, driven to dark corners and no longer appear easily. If you follow the principle of not appearing if you don't touch it, it's fine if the well water doesn't make the river water. "Double Eyes" breaks through this setting, allowing the ancient behavior of immortal cultivation to continue to be carried out exclusively in modern society.
The battle of the temples in the mansion slaughtered the police all over the place, and the visual spectacle transformed the inner landscape of the "unbelieving" modern people. People who live in the city and are far away from ghosts and gods, more or less, there is such a strange temple in the same room. Open the door, it is a dark and vast "letter". It follows another way of thinking, abandoning the present life, fearing the punishment from the gods, begging for his blessing, and even presumptuously wanting to become immortals and immortals, and look down on all beings side by side with the gods.
3
When belief only exists locally, even if the guardians who believe in these gods have failed or alienated, the audience can still watch the fire with great interest. Only when the defenders of modern civilization and traditional human relations—doctors, policemen, nursery aunts and superintendents, parents and parents, and clergymen serving the righteous gods—died, did the horror experience truly begin.
He is very close to us. Right and wrong, good and evil, and cause and effect depend on what man is to be a man, and none of them work for him. The old man in "The Monster of the Han River" once said that when a monster hurts humans, it should be eliminated decisively. But in folk-horror films, this simple and clear-cut old wisdom is doomed to fail. Because the protagonist (that is, us) is not facing a clear evil like the Han River monster, but invisible "bad" and many mysteries. Mysteries hold hands and feet, and people can't throw molotov cocktails, shoot sharp arrows, and duel with hurtful things. You must first crawl through the fog to find the answers to a series of questions - Excuse me, what god are you, where do you come from, and where do you think you are? What do you want and what can you do to get rid of your curse?
In this type of film, the protagonist needs to pursue these issues like a detective, fighting like a gladiator for a chance to return to normal life on the front line.
Suspense and fear mixed together. Although there are often characters such as religion/anthropology professors who provide clues, and the guardians or deities of the righteous/good gods help, most of the protagonists are still doomed.
Because they sometimes believe in the wrong God. Is Bayan God, regarded as a good god, really a good god? Was the subsequent hell scene because He was rejected and left, or was He simply an evil god who couldn’t invite all spirits to slaughter at his will? Sometimes I mistake God, and with the naked eyes of mortals, I finally go through hardships and think that I have gotten rid of the evil spirits. I did not expect that the orphans I adopted are the spiritual bodies of the "spirits of pots and pans". Sometimes I know the wrong person and think that the shaman who is saving people and fighting ghosts is actually the helper of ghosts. Sometimes it's just a big dream, and what Qian Xiaohao thinks is the evil way of Zombies is just an illusion before dying.
God's intent, not His face, is the ultimate mystery. All the gods ask for is to obtain a sacrifice, to perform a natural mission, or to do the devil's work as in The Cry. In order to achieve their goals, they need a medium. The human body becomes the container for the will of the gods. The gods are cunning and powerful. In the process of competing with humans for the container of the body, it is not the gods that are more frightening, but the people.
"Curse" stills
4Regardless of the existence of gods, spirits, and ghosts, what we are terrified of is always the human nature and human destiny that appear with him.
"You tried so hard, but you still failed." The ending of "The Crying" is profoundly powerless. Just like the family tried their best to save Xianshu in "The Monster of the Han River", it was all people who were ruthlessly tricked by fate. Fan.
The hero Kobayashi Yawen of "Supernatural Curse" is a writer who interviews supernatural events. He is the most professional, most spiritual, and the least selfish seeker among the protagonists of folk horror films. He traced the clues like a detective, and was infinitely close to the real body of the "Soul of the Pot", and finally fell short. His failure was unexpectedly frustrating for the audience, because we had almost seen the film as a mystery movie. A calm detective like Kobayashi can always solve puzzles at the end and restore peace to the world. But we got it wrong, there's another power that doesn't spare even detectives with the aura of death avoidance.
Through the eyes of the gods, one can see all kinds of human nature.
People's revenge makes the woman in "Southern Witch" lower her head to her neighbor through the hands of a little devil.
When selfish desires are blazing, people will, like the cultivators and disciples in "Double Eyes", forget that they are human, and start killing without any scruples. They are the closest to cult believers, and there is only one belief in their hearts - becoming immortals. The ninth uncle who raised ghosts to continue his life in "Zombie" is also so vicious. Other people's lives are worthless, either removed as an obstacle, or like an alchemy material, only worthy of being thrown into the raging fire.
But more often, because of cowardice, fear of death or attachment to others, people indulge their self-interest to expand infinitely until they engulf their conscience and goodwill.
In other words, it is helping the tyrants. The audience is always gullible, believing in the protagonist's good intentions like a detective's halo. Sometimes this is indeed the case. Although the heroine Ayan in "Southern Witch" does not believe in ghosts and gods, in order to cure her husband's strange illness after being possessed by him, she went to the cave to worship the god of Xiangyu Mountain, hoping to receive the blessing of the goddess from Quanzhou. . In "Spiritual Medium", in order to protect her daughter, Noi, who took the initiative to ask good gods to be possessed to challenge evil spirits, although unfortunately failed to attract evil spirits, at least she had such intentions.
Once some movies overturn the default rule of "people's hearts are kind" and let the protagonist have a hurtful heart from the beginning, then the audience who has been advancing and retreating with the protagonist will not be able to linger.
What I'm talking about is not the "bad luck" that "Curse" makes many people angry. Li Ruonan's final confession is the most exquisite piece of the puzzle. With it, this story about "exorcism" and "blessing" is complete. The director deliberately knocked down the fourth wall, in order to invite you to enter the game, completely immersed in it, in order to deeply appreciate the complexity of human nature.
If the male is not a born bad person, anyone in that situation may make the same choice. When fear is too big and incomprehensible, people try to reduce it to something that can be understood and dealt with. For example, think of a curse as a constant and transferable entity. As long as you transfer it out and find someone to share it with, you can effectively reduce your share. For example, in the legend of "buying money for life", you think it is a windfall, but it may actually be someone else who deliberately stayed to "buy" your lifespan.
Only a very few people will be brave to the end like the yellow fire earth, sticking to the bottom line of being a human being in the temptation of immortality and the terrifying illusion. Huang Huotu is an idealized person, and Li Ruonan is just an ordinary person, even a rather brave person. After the death of her boyfriend and her parents, she searched for the truth of the big black Buddha by herself and tried all the methods to lift the curse. She once had love in her heart. Six years ago, she sincerely guarded the little girl who was sacrificed outside the tunnel, and she also wanted to save the "children" trapped in the tunnel. Later, it was found that all methods were fruitless. She voluntarily became an accomplice of the Buddha's mother, and deliberately let the people who helped her—the police officers from the police station, the psychiatrist, and Duoduo's adoptive father, social worker aunt, priest and priestess to send her to death. The moment when Li Ruonan completely "irritated" the audience happened at the end of the movie. She covered her eyes with a red cloth, reached out and untied the face covering of the Buddha, so that the audience, who was already frightened, was completely exposed to the unfathomable curse instead of the fictional "documentary audience" in the film.
Only then did we find out that we were deceived. Li Ruonan, who had been begging for help, had long decided to become a tool to release the Buddha and help her perform her mission (spread the curse). She also worked so hard, carefully planned the scam, took every step of the way, and even blindfolded her eyes at the last moment, begging the Buddha's mother to spare her life. She not only "worked so hard, but failed in the end", but also "became a bad person, hurt countless people, and still failed", which is even more tragic.
Her death was meaningless, rather humorous. Under the control of the Buddha's mother, Li Ruonan and Xie Qiming kowtowed to death as vigorously as Xie Qiming. But perhaps, Li Ruonan, who is as scheming as Mother Buddha, deceived us once again. She cheated to death, and reached an agreement with the mother of Buddha, in exchange for her own life in exchange for the widespread circulation of the film. Mother Buddha can control Xie Qiming to kowtow to pass the video, but she will never cut the video for later stage...
"Curse" stills
5The charm of folk horror films goes beyond fear. It also has the usual effect of good literature and art - arousing awe of the unknowable, looking back at one's cultural roots, and perceiving the insignificance of man and the absurdity of his situation.
In "The Witch of the South" and "The Crying Voice", various folk beliefs use their bodies as containers to meet and fight each other on a small land. Some hurt people's lives, and some Purdue Cihang. "Spiritual Medium" invites dead plants, trees, birds and beasts to possess human beings, viciously displaying the grotesque scene of animism.
The collision of modern civilization and ancient beliefs is the most intense in "Double Eyes". The ancient beliefs of cruel and selfishness passed through modern civilization without squinting, leaving a breath of revival in the city where the lights never go out day and night.
The Japanese/ghosts, shamans, women in white, Christian priests, policemen and villagers in "The Crying" are the forces that have existed in this land, and still exist side by side. Christianity, Shintoism (not named), and shamanism are busy competing for people's hearts, but people's hearts are still distracted, and the incarnation of the devil can take advantage of it. The ancestral guardian power symbolized by the woman in white is misunderstood, and Zhong Jiu, the policeman who maintains order in the world, has his confidence in common sense and justice broken piece by piece.
Tragedy like this makes me chill. The fate of our predecessors overlaps with ours today, forcing us to re-examine our lives today: If everything I depend on is destroyed by a higher power, what will I become, a human being, a puppet of a god, or a demon?
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