J-Horror Uber Producer Taka Ichise Gets All Blair Witch-y With Noroi

Japanese producer Taka Ichise is nothing if not prolific and he's back on the scene with Noroi - The Curse, a film that cannibalizes a healthy number of previous Ichise productions and fuses them to a Blair Witch aesthetic. Which basically means it looks like it was shot for about five bucks. Read on for a full synopsis.

Noroi - The Curse Trailer (downloadable WMV)

When developers arrive to build a new dam, Shimokage Village is slated for destruction. Its inhabitants perform their mysterious demon ritual for the last time, but something goes horribly wrong…

Soon afterwards, Masafumi Kobayashi, a TV journalist with a fascination for documenting the paranormal, receives a letter from a woman describing strange noises coming from her neighbor’s house. He decides to introduce himself to the neighbor, Junko Ishi, the last woman to take part in the demon ritual.

A series of seemingly unconnected events occurs and Kobayashi manages to acquire video footage of it all: First, a little girl suddenly develops uncanny psychic powers and is kidnapped. Then, actress Marika Matsumoto visits a shrine rumored to be haunted and becomes possessed. Kobayashi interviews hospital employees who reveal a rumor that someone is stealing dead and aborted fetuses. Finally, a self proclaimed “super psychic” that Journalist Kobayashi frequently consults starts to lose his mind, covering himself and his house in tin foil and proclaiming that ectoplasmic worms are coming to eat us all.

A word that Kobayashi keeps coming across in his investigation is “Kagutaba.” He realizes all of the strange events are somehow connected to this name, and to Junko Ishi, the crazed participant in the ritual.

Kobayashi learns through a collector of ancient folklore of the demonic ritual to appease the demon Kagutaba, formerly performed in the now submerged village. He sets off to meet with the relocated residents, a superstitious group of people who all keep sickles hanging over their doors. He brings along the possessed actress and the insane psychic, drawing them all into a world of evil. In his quest to capture the identity of Kagutaba on video, Kobayashi will sacrifice everything and anyone.