The YouTube Ghost Hunters That Broke Religious Taboo, Incantation Review

Incantation (咒 | Zhou) is a Taiwanese supernatural found-footage horror film written by Che-Wei Chang and Kevin Ko and directed by Kevin Ko.

The film follows Li Ronan (Hsuan-yen Tsai), a young woman who was cursed after she and two friends broke a religious taboo. Six years later, Li Ronan must now protect her young daughter from the curse as it threatens to take hold of them.

Plot/Story

The plot was well done. It strategically used the audience as a vital part of the story right from the beginning without the audience ever truly realising it. This continued to be vital throughout the film. However, it was used so subtly that I had forgotten about it by the time the finale came. The plot twist that followed was made even better by reminding me of how involved I was and how shockingly I had forgotten and played along.

Incantation also kept a very up-to-date feel with the inclusion of YouTube; it made the existence of the footage more believable. YouTube didn’t hold a massive part of the film, it was added in, and all the footage from then on was explained as home footage and stuff recorded for YouTube. It made the experience more immersive and with the times.

The story as a whole was very well done. It kept the suspense where it needed to be and wasn’t afraid of slowing down at parts to let the audience’s thoughts run wild with what-ifs.

Attraction

What first caught my attention on this was the name.

Horror films always have strange or enticing names, but something about this pulled me in. Along with the image I first saw of the hand symbol.

I wasn’t sure how good it would be. Found footage films are normally a hit or miss since you can get something very atmospheric and truly terrifying or something half-arsed and meh. However, Incantation lived up to my initial curiosity.

And the best part is that an incantation is prevalent throughout the film and is a key part of the plot. This isn’t a film where the name of it is something loosely related. It is such a strong, key theme throughout the film.

Theme

Incantation nailed the found footage theme! Between the filming, cuts and editing to the audio and atmosphere, everything lived up to your classic found footage horror.

There are many found footage films, and all of them try to root themselves in our world as best they can. It makes the experience more memorable. That’s always the goal.

Incantation nailed it; adding social media makes it all that much better. It rooted the film in the here and now more.

Acting

The acting in this film was brilliant. The cast did exceptionally well, especially the wee girl playing Dodo (Sin-Ting Huang) and Hsuan-yen Tsai (who portrayed Li Ruo-nan). Both shared the most screen time together and were the two that the story mainly followed. They were brilliant at their roles.

There were a couple of points where I could see how much the cast put into their performance. Truly well done.

Dialogue

Since this film was in Chinese Mandarin (and Hokkien, according to IMDB), I couldn’t understand the spoken dialogue. So, unfortunately, I was solely relying on the subtitles.

However, I never noticed anything to complain about with the subtitles. Everything matched up nicely with the speech, and there were no points where the subtitles weren’t present with the speech. Even for the parts where the audience was more heavily involved with the experience, romanised versions of the words were added as subtitles to allow non-Chinese speaking audiences to join in.

The subtitles themselves also match the situation. At no point did I read them and think, “that doesn’t seem right?” It flowed lovely all throughout the film and never once pulled me from the viewing experience.

Cinematography

The cinematography matched wonderfully with the theme all the way through. True to found footage horror, the camera angles matched depending on the character/cast member holding the camera, and the style matched the time and camera.

The use of multiple cameras in one scene was also something I appreciated. The film used the current technology available and utilised it to its best degree to keep a steady flow in the film without needing a sudden camera malfunction to explain cuts.

Editing

The editing was amazing! So, in terms of editing, most of the cuts were used to cut out wasted time during home videos simply. Like, those moments of “Ghost’s Caught On Camera” videos on YouTube where the person is standing trying to move or stand quietly. Since I pretty much live off these videos, Incantation matched them very well.

The editing gave the film a rushed and panicked throw-together, which matched with Li Ruo-nan (the main character), who canonically would be the one editing everything together. Even the parts where the editing is clearly methodically planned fit with Ruo-nan and her storyline.

The mashy editing and time-hopping added to the feeling of unease throughout the film. Every time the audience felt like they had a handle on the story and situation, they were taken to another place and time to experience something else.

Soundtrack

There wasn’t much of a musical soundtrack since this genre doesn’t typically have one. However, the atmospheric audio and additional audio were terrific. There are several sections of the film where chanting occurs. This was amazing! A genuinely horrific feeling seeped through the telly and crawled all over my skin. It made me feel like this was one of those things that you shouldn’t listen to, but it was so amazing. There was nothing stopping me from taking in every ounce of sound, every syllable.

Pacing

Incantation was good for pacing. The film instantly threw the audience into the mayhem that it is. There was no slow build to what was happening or introduction of characters. It was, “here we are in the middle of Li Ruo-nan’s problems, good luck!”

Nothing felt too rushed and brushed over or dragged out. Even the sections where there was a long period of ‘not much’ were still paced well. Those times didn’t feel like it was dragging – they fitted right and built suspense.

Did I enjoy it?

Yes. It was a well-made film, and while watching it, I never thought about picking up my phone or found my mind wandering. I was fully present and engaged with the film.