# Noroi: The Curse (ノロイ)
**Noroi: The Curse** (*Noroi*, ノロイ) is a 2005 Japanese found-footage horror film directed by Koji Shiraishi, presented as the final documentary of a paranormal journalist who vanishes after investigating a series of seemingly unrelated supernatural events that converge on an ancient demon named Kagutaba.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/) • [2](https://time.com/6960996/the-tk-best-religious-horror-movies-of-all-time/) It was released in Japan on August 20, 2005, runs 115 minutes, and was distributed by Xanadeux.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/) Although little seen at first, it has developed a strong cult following and is frequently discussed among the most respected found-footage horror films.[3](https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3609693/shudders-noroi-curse-earn-reputation-scariest-found-footage-horror/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writers | Directed by Koji Shiraishi; screenplay by Shiraishi and Naoyuki Yokota[4](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000136-I1970586434868857102) |
| Producer | Takashige Ichise, producer of the *Ring* and *Ju-on* series[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/) |
| Release | August 20, 2005 (Japan); 115 minutes; distributed by Xanadeux; rated PG-12[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/) • [5](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/322818) |
| Premise | A documentary by paranormal journalist Masafumi Kobayashi (Jin Muraki), completed just before his house burned down on April 12, 2004, his wife was found dead in the ruins, and he disappeared[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/) |
| Central antagonist | Kagutaba, an ancient demon tied to an abandoned Shinto shrine and a village ritual[2](https://time.com/6960996/the-tk-best-religious-horror-movies-of-all-time/) |
| Reception | Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 73% (3 reviews) with 1,000+ audience ratings; IMDb 6.8; AlloCiné 3.0/5 from 96 ratings[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/noroi-the-curse?cmp=fandangoathome_ratingsandreviews_audiencescore) • [7](https://www.taste.io/movies/noroi-the-curse) • [8](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-223258/critiques/spectateurs/recentes/) |
## Spoilers
### Premise and structure
The film opens with a warning that the video documentary it presents is "deemed too disturbing for public viewing."[9](https://www.gq.com/story/noroi-the-curse-cult-horror-film) The framing story is established at the outset: on April 12, 2004, the home of Masafumi Kobayashi, a writer who reported on strange phenomena and published them as books and video works, burned to the ground. His wife Keiko's burned body was found in the ruins; Kobayashi himself has never been found. He had just completed his latest video work, *Noroi*, which collected the strange events and psychic phenomena he had covered over the previous year and a half.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/)
Kobayashi's documentary weaves together several initially disconnected threads: a housewife's report of a baby crying in a neighboring house occupied by the recluse Junko Ishii (Tomono Kuga), whose recorded voice analysis revealed multiple infants' cries; an eleven-year-old girl, Kana Yano (Rio Kanno), who demonstrated clairvoyance and materialization on a psychic-phenomena television program and then vanished, leaving a note reading "help me"; a canceled variety-show segment in which the actress Marika Matsumoto, visiting a famous haunted shrine with the comedy duo Ungirls, collapsed screaming, with a mysterious figure visible on the recording tape; and a self-styled psychic, Mitsuo Hori, whose house was entirely covered in aluminum foil and flyers warning of "curse radio waves" and "spirit worms."[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/) • [10](https://bloody-disgusting.com/reviews/3961750/kinki-review-the-director-of-noroi-returns-with-another-found-footage-triumph-nyaff-2026/) Kobayashi comes to believe the word "Kagutaba" is the key to the mystery, leading to a strange festival tradition from a village now submerged under a dam and an ancient demon seeking resurrection.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/) • [11](https://www2.hp-ez.com/hp/cinemanpo/page146)
## The found-footage method
**A polished documentary, not raw footage.** Unlike most found-footage films, which present raw recordings by doomed amateurs, *Noroi* is introduced as a mostly completed documentary crafted by an experienced journalist, edited and scored like a conventional program for a mass audience.[9](https://www.gq.com/story/noroi-the-curse-cult-horror-film) The documentary itself is a patchwork of sources: Kobayashi's own handheld investigations, 16mm reels from 1978, news excerpts, television offcuts, and surveillance footage, with the picture quality, editing style, and on-screen text changing between them to create the sense of a broadcast record being examined after the fact.[12](https://projectedfigures.com/2021/04/11/noroi-the-curse-noroi-2005/) • [13](https://cula.jp/2024/10/20/noroi-story-cast-introduction/) The only conventional "found footage" arrives at the end, in a video cassette coda that could not have formed part of Kobayashi's polished documentary.[12](https://projectedfigures.com/2021/04/11/noroi-the-curse-noroi-2005/)
This construction distinguishes it from contemporaries: a PhD thesis on [Japanese horror](https://www.edgepedia.org/japanese-horror) cinema describes it as differing from other found-footage films of its time on account of its patchwork construction.[14](https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/19053/Thesis-Connor-McMorran-complete-version.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=2) Critics have repeatedly singled out its realism. A [Bloody Disgusting](https://www.edgepedia.org/bloody-disgusting) review of Shiraishi's later film *Kinki* calls *Noroi* a "masterful descent into WTF-ery" whose faux-documentary pulls together various sources that unite in horror by its conclusion, driven by a procedural investigation toward a Lovecraftian revelation.[10](https://bloody-disgusting.com/reviews/3961750/kinki-review-the-director-of-noroi-returns-with-another-found-footage-triumph-nyaff-2026/) A Cinapse review quoted on Rotten Tomatoes states that "Noroi's sense of realism may be unmatched in found footage."[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/noroi-the-curse?cmp=fandangoathome_ratingsandreviews_audiencescore)
## Production and cast
The film was produced by Takashige Ichise, one of the producers who carried Japanese horror to international audiences through the *Ring* and *Ju-on* series, and directed by Koji Shiraishi, who had worked on numerous occult video productions.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/) • [5](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/322818) Jin Muraki plays Kobayashi, with Marika Matsumoto, Rio Kanno, Tomono Kuga, Satoru Jitsunashi, the comedy duo Ungirls, Hiroshi Aramata, Ai Iijima, Maria Takagi, and Dankan in the cast.[7](https://www.taste.io/movies/noroi-the-curse) • [5](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/322818) • [13](https://cula.jp/2024/10/20/noroi-story-cast-introduction/) Several performers appear as themselves or under their own public personas, part of the film's blurring of fiction and reality; a promotional "Noroi haunted house" event was even held before release, and the fictional Kobayashi was given a blog, a publisher, and a book, details later cited as deliberate fabrications.[15](https://eiga.fandom.com/ja/wiki/%E3%83%8E%E3%83%AD%E3%82%A4)
## Reception and influence
**Cult status.** The film was poorly received on its original Japanese theatrical release; one Japanese reviewer who saw it in 2005 recalls that it was heavily panned at the time and that the handheld camerawork induced a lingering headache when viewed from the front rows.[16](https://eastend55.jpn.org/screen5/z5-143-nro.html) Its reputation grew later and largely abroad. Bloody Disgusting notes that it developed a strong cult following despite being difficult to find for many years, with no proper physical release in the United States until it became a Shudder streaming exclusive in 2020.[3](https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3609693/shudders-noroi-curse-earn-reputation-scariest-found-footage-horror/) GQ's Scott Meslow called it "a genuinely terrifying hidden gem" that defies convention.[9](https://www.gq.com/story/noroi-the-curse-cult-horror-film) TIME included it in a 2024 list of the best religious horror movies.[2](https://time.com/6960996/the-tk-best-religious-horror-movies-of-all-time/)
Aggregated scores reflect a divide between enthusiasts and detractors. Rotten Tomatoes carries a 73% Tomatometer from only three critic reviews alongside more than 1,000 audience ratings.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/noroi-the-curse?cmp=fandangoathome_ratingsandreviews_audiencescore) IMDb users rate it 6.8 and Taste users 7.0 based on 223 ratings, with "complex" and "dark" the dominant descriptors.[7](https://www.taste.io/movies/noroi-the-curse) French AlloCiné users average 3.0 of 5 from 96 ratings, where admirers praise its immersive realism and restraint, despite some footage directly showing supernatural manifestations, while detractors find it slow and overlong.[8](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-223258/critiques/spectateurs/recentes/) • [20](https://horrorobsessive.com/2020/10/15/shudders-noroi-the-curse-favors-mounting-dread-over-overt-scares/) The Japanese database eiga.com shows 3.6 of 5 from 19 reviews.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/)
**Influence.** The film's faux-documentary method has been credited as unusually thorough for its time, with its influence visible in later works.[17](https://filmarks.com/movies/33977/vod) A Taiwanese academic paper on the 2022 film *Incantation* (咒) states that the work most deeply influencing it was Shiraishi's 2005 *Noroi*, which likewise centers on a village curse and moves its camera ever closer to the supernatural center.[18](https://www.csat.org.tw/userfiles/Cultural%20Studies%20Quarterly%20no.186.pdf) Shiraishi returned to the same style in later films such as *Occult* (2009) and the *Kowasugi!* series, and a Japanese retrospective describes *Noroi* as the completed prototype of his signature combination of occult horror and fake documentary.[11](https://www2.hp-ez.com/hp/cinemanpo/page146)
## Availability
Distribution has been irregular. As of April 2026, no major Japanese subscription service carried the film; U-NEXT had streamed it in the past but ended that availability, and the mail-order DVD rental service TSUTAYA DISCAS was reported as the only reliable way to watch it in Japan.[19](https://ac-milan7.heteml.net/noroi-where-watch/) In the United States it has streamed on Shudder and AMC+ and been available for rent or purchase on Fandango.[3](https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3609693/shudders-noroi-curse-earn-reputation-scariest-found-footage-horror/) • [6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/noroi-the-curse?cmp=fandangoathome_ratingsandreviews_audiencescore) A premium edition DVD with a 79-minute bonus disc was released in Japan by Geneon Entertainment in January 2006.[4](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000136-I1970586434868857102)
## References
1. [ノロイ : 作品情報・キャスト・あらすじ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/41297/)
2. [The 15 Best Religious Horror Movies, TIME](https://time.com/6960996/the-tk-best-religious-horror-movies-of-all-time/)
3. [Does Shudder's 'Noroi: The Curse' Earn Its Reputation as the Scariest Found Footage Horror Film?, Bloody Disgusting (Meagan Navarro, 2020)](https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3609693/shudders-noroi-curse-earn-reputation-scariest-found-footage-horror/)
4. [ノロイ プレミアム・エディション, NDLサーチ, National Diet Library](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000136-I1970586434868857102)
5. [ノロイ, allcinema](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/322818)
6. [Noroi: The Curse, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/noroi-the-curse?cmp=fandangoathome_ratingsandreviews_audiencescore)
7. [Noroi: The Curse (2005), Taste](https://www.taste.io/movies/noroi-the-curse)
8. [Critiques du film Noroi : The Curse, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-223258/critiques/spectateurs/recentes/)
9. [Noroi: The Curse Is a Genuinely Terrifying Hidden Gem, GQ (Scott Meslow, 2020)](https://www.gq.com/story/noroi-the-curse-cult-horror-film)
10. ['Kinki' Review: The Director of 'Noroi' Returns With Another Found Footage Triumph, Bloody Disgusting (Rob Hunter, 2026)](https://bloody-disgusting.com/reviews/3961750/kinki-review-the-director-of-noroi-returns-with-another-found-footage-triumph-nyaff-2026/)
11. [第146回『ノロイ』, 浮気なシネ漫歩](https://www2.hp-ez.com/hp/cinemanpo/page146)
12. [Noroi: The Curse (Noroi) (2005), Projected Figures](https://projectedfigures.com/2021/04/11/noroi-the-curse-noroi-2005/)
13. [映画『ノロイ』解説, cula](https://cula.jp/2024/10/20/noroi-story-cast-introduction/)
14. [Connor McMorran, PhD Thesis, University of St Andrews](https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/19053/Thesis-Connor-McMorran-complete-version.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=2)
15. [ノロイ, 映画ペディア (Fandom)](https://eiga.fandom.com/ja/wiki/%E3%83%8E%E3%83%AD%E3%82%A4)
16. [ノロイ（2005年）, Eastend55 review](https://eastend55.jpn.org/screen5/z5-143-nro.html)
17. [ノロイの動画配信サービス・視聴方法まとめ, Filmarks映画](https://filmarks.com/movies/33977/vod)
18. [文化研究季刊 第186期, Cultural Studies Quarterly no.186](https://www.csat.org.tw/userfiles/Cultural%20Studies%20Quarterly%20no.186.pdf)
19. [映画『ノロイ』の配信状況は？, vodのへや](https://ac-milan7.heteml.net/noroi-where-watch/)
20. [Noroi: The Curse Favors Mounting Dread Over Overt Scares - Horror Obsessive](https://horrorobsessive.com/2020/10/15/shudders-noroi-the-curse-favors-mounting-dread-over-overt-scares/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Found footage horror films*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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