[Film Review] Incantation (2022)

Good luck. Drive safe. Fingers crossed. 

Well wishes and blessings are not only culturally expected, but are expressed without a second thought, even by those who don’t believe in any form of divine energy. Even your average Atheist will still slip out a ‘bless you’ upon hearing a sneeze. Consciously or not, we believe that words have power, can shape the world around us and influence actions and outcomes. But when the intention behind our words becomes malevolent, is the magic in the meaning less potent - or more so?

Kevin Ko’s spiritually horrific found footage mockumentary has taken its native Taiwan by storm (and loosely based on a ‘true’ story), winning big at the Taipei Film Festival and being heralded by many as ‘the scariest Taiwanese film of all time’. High praise indeed considering it was released internationally on Netflix just a few months after Rob Jabbaz’ controversial Taipei-set The Sadness hit streaming and divided horror fans clean down the middle with its gore and extreme scenes.

Incantation opens with a plea for the viewers: chant the following phrase along with protagonist Li Ronan (Hsuan-yen Tsai), who describes the words as a blessing that will assist her in helping her daughter who has been cursed. For those who don’t speak Mandarin, the chant is helpfully spelled out in English as follows:

HOU-HO-XIU-YI, SI-SEI-WU-MA

The titular incantation is referred back to multiple times, each time hypnotically influencing the viewer to join in its rhythmic chant. It’s a hugely effective device that demands audience participation, pulling us deeper and deeper into the mythos - until it’s too late to escape. 

Incantation’s found footage reasoning is justified throughout in appropriate, if sometimes not particularly imaginative ways. Ronan, her boyfriend Dom (Sean Lin) and his brother Yuan (Wen Ching-Yu) are paranormal vloggers, hoping to snatch some big viewing figures by exploring the ‘Tunnel That Must Not Be Entered’ at Dom and Yuan’s mysterious family compound. In an act of supreme stupidity only seen in horror movies, the trio enter the tunnel and unleash a malicious deity known as Mother Buddha, intent on wreaking terror upon all those whose are aware of her existence and her of theirs - including the unborn baby currently gestating inside Ronan. Six years later, Ronan must save her daughter Dodo (Huang Hsin-ting) from Mother Buddha’s malicious wrath as it creeps ever closer to consuming everyone Ronan has ever known or loved.

Mother Buddha’s curse manifests in a series of gradually escalating and unsettling events - violent acts of suicide, mysterious bugs, demonic apparitions and some truly nauseating body horror in the form of trypophobic skin lesions – all of which are captured variously on CCTV, dash cams, and even a hidden camera inside Dodo’s stuffed bunny. Incantation’s dedication to creatively presenting footage is admirable, however the choice to present it alongside a non-diegetic score feels somewhat distracting, even in mockumentary form. While the score itself is an effectively scary chorus of droning, blaring dread, its usage suggests a lack of confidence with the material to speak for itself and scare its audience without aural cues. 

Incantation has been compared favourably to Koji Shirashi’s Noroi, as well as Banjong Pisanthanakun’s The Medium, both being remarkably effective found footage folk horror from across the Asian continent. So saturated is the genre with Christian tradition (from The Exorcist to The Conjuring), that to see a religious horror that explores Buddhism - albeit fictional aspects of the ancient religion- is a welcome and refreshing change of pace that the Western horror world could do with far more exposure to.

What sets Incantation apart from many other found footage movies (the aforementioned pair not included) is its surprisingly emotional heart, bolstered by spectacular performances from Tsai and the adorable Sin-Ting Huang in the role of Dodo, effortlessly embodying a magnitude of powerful emotion much larger than her tiny frame. Kao Ying-Hsuan also tugs on the heart strings in the role of Ming, a sympathetic and kind foster carer whose dedication to saving Dodo definitely wins him Horror Father of the Year.

When the truth about Mother Buddha’s curse is revealed and the film escalates into a race against time to save Dodo from the hereditary jinx, it is up to us as viewers to once again heed Ronan’s impassioned plea and recite the ancient chant – as we finally learn just how far a mother will go to save her child.

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