Tragic protagonist Ruo-nan (Tsai Hsuan-yen, 蔡亘晏) asks the audience to memorize a symbol and repeat an ominous chant in the opening scene of Incantation (咒). It’s hard to resist the instructions whether you believe in folk religion or not, especially when she adds that reciting it silently works too.
The interactive element is not just a gimmick. It plays an unexpected part in the plot later on. Unfortunately, it is the only intriguing part of the film, which lacks a compelling story to ground the suspense. Incantation is mostly a run-of-the-mill found-footage horror flick that relies on hackneyed scare tactics, gore and stereotypical characters who arouse little sympathy.
The market for horror remains strong seven years after the overwhelming success of The Tag-Along (紅衣小女孩). Incantation, which explores the “uncharted territory” of local cults, touts itself as the “scariest Taiwanese film ever made.”
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Corp
This hype helped the film enjoy immense box office success, earning a nation-topping NT$23 million over its first three days in theaters. However, the devices and elements of this genre are getting a bit old, and every film seems to use more or less the same imagery and style choices. What’s really needed is a fresh and gripping tale, but Incantation fails to live up to its promise.
Horror films are not supposed to make complete sense, but in what world can someone snatch her daughter from child protection services, and in front of the police no less, and later bring her to hospital horribly malnourished and covered with putrid sores and syringe marks without any consequences? Even if poor Duoduo (Huang Hsin-ting, 黃歆庭) is really cursed, nobody questions Ruo-nan’s behavior or parenting. She’s even allowed to roam around the facilities where she causes even more harm.
This is just one of many inconsistencies that arise throughout the Incantation, starting with the tired premise. Six years prior to the film’s beginning, a pregnant Ruo-nan, her boyfriend A-tung and his brother A-yuan are running one of those “ghostbusters” YouTube channels that seem to appear in every other horror film these days. Their latest mission is to infiltrate a religious ritual hosted annually by the family of A-tung and A-yuan deep in the mountains. They also plan to sneak into a forbidden cave.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Corp
Of course, they act recklessly, defacing the temple’s gate with graffiti while smashing doors and sacred objects. It turns out that the clan is part of an evil cult that originated in Southeast Asia, and they have to carry out this grim ritual every year to prevent disaster.
The real-life events that the story supposedly draws from are far more spine-chilling than what happens in the movie. In 2005, a family of six in Kaohsiung reportedly became possessed by various deities and brutally tortured each other for a month while subsisting only on water mixed with charm ashes, leading to the death of the eldest daughter. It’s hard to see the connection between the movie and real-life events — except, perhaps, that religion can create illusions in the mind of believers.
It’s not entirely clear what happens to the clan after the YouTubers disrupt the ceremony. Ruo-nan survives since she didn’t enter the cave, although she brings great misfortune to anyone around her. Duoduo is placed in foster care after she is born, but after years of therapy, Ruo-nan is deemed well enough to take her daughter home.
The harrowing events of the first night — creepy voices, lights turning on and off, objects moving on their own and Duoduo acting possessed — should have been enough warning that the curse is still in effect, but Ruo-nan seems to pretend things are fine even as Duoduo’s condition rapidly deteriorates. Would this have happened if Ruo-nan left Duoduo in foster care, or is this all part of her plan to release the curse? The answer isn’t apparent.
Every Taiwanese movie seems to need a touching family moment, and despite her actions, Ruo-nan, along with Duoduo’s former foster father Chi-ming (Kao Ying-Hsuan, 高英軒), are portrayed as devoted parents who will go to any length to save the child and preserve her happiness.
Like the family in Kaohsiung, Ruo-nan is doing what she believes is the right thing, but this question of perception is lost in the muddled mix.
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo, speaking at the Reagan Defense Forum last week, said the US is confident it can defeat the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the Pacific, though its advantage is shrinking. Paparo warned that the PRC might launch a “war of necessity” even if it thinks it could not win, a wise observation. As I write, the PRC is carrying out naval and air exercises off its coast that are aimed at Taiwan and other nations threatened by PRC expansionism. A local defense official said that China’s military activity on Monday formed two “walls” east
The latest military exercises conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) last week did not follow the standard Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formula. The US and Taiwan also had different explanations for the war games. Previously the CCP would plan out their large-scale military exercises and wait for an opportunity to dupe the gullible into pinning the blame on someone else for “provoking” Beijing, the most famous being former house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Those military exercises could not possibly have been organized in the short lead time that it was known she was coming.
The world has been getting hotter for decades but a sudden and extraordinary surge in heat has sent the climate deeper into uncharted territory — and scientists are still trying to figure out why. Over the past two years, temperature records have been repeatedly shattered by a streak so persistent and puzzling it has tested the best-available scientific predictions about how the climate functions. Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming, and that natural climate variability can also influence temperatures one year to the next. But they are still debating what might have contributed to this
For the authorities that brought the Mountains to Sea National Greenway (山海圳國家綠道) into existence, the route is as much about culture as it is about hiking. Han culture dominates the coastal and agricultural flatlands of Tainan and Chiayi counties, but as the Greenway climbs along its Tribal Trail (原鄉之路) section, hikers pass through communities inhabited by members of the Tsou Indigenous community. Leaving Chiayi County’s Dapu Village (大埔), walkers follow Provincial Highway 3 to Dapu Bridge where a sign bearing the Tsou greeting “a veo veo yu” marks the point at which the Greenway turns off to follow Qingshan Industrial Road (青山產業道路)
RSS