The Curse (2025) Review

Riko (Yukino Kaizu) is a receptionist at a hairdresser’s and whiles away her spare time, like many of us out there, by constantly checking her phone, liking memes and so on. When Riko spots Taiwanese friend Shufen (Tammy Lin) posting disturbing, threatening content, she doesn’t quite know how to deal with it so Riko’s friend Aira (Reika Ozeki) engages with the account and, for her trouble, is sent a video of a ritual in which she is being cursed. Soon after, odd things happen to Aira and her psychological state deteriorates. Can Riko solve the mystery before her pal – and everyone else she knows – dies horribly?

We’re back in Japanese supernatural territory once more and, yes, there is a creepy presence from the other side, complete with the de rigeur mane. There’s also technology involved in invoking the spirit but rather than some terrifying ghoul crawling out of your television, The Curse dives into the ongoing obsession with social media and provides a timely warning about putting every life event and comment out there for others to see.

While not venturing too far from the established template, writer/director Kenichi Ugana throws more than enough tricks of his own into the mix to keep matters interesting and fun. In the first half, there’s an emphasis on atmosphere and the fear of the unknown as characters take long wanders around locations that may or may not be home to something extremely nasty lurking around the corner. The jump scares are smartly rationed, as is the steadily trickle of information being discovered.

Those around Riko begin to display unsettling behaviour, or is it a distortion of reality being controlled by the spectral menace? Her investigation of Shufen’s unsettling Insta stories leads to a disturbing revelation about Shufen herself and the girl’s sister Huijun (Mimi Shao) and Riko’s ex-boyfriend Jiahao (Yu Teng Yang) are dragged into the border-crossing, escalating mayhem, leading to flashbacks, exorcism, much vomiting of blood and an unhinged final twenty minutes where our heroes find out that sometimes it’s better to keep your Facebook profile private.

Up to that crazy, climactic sequence, The Curse is generally more measured, saving its most gory shocks as sporadic punctuation to a careful, suspenseful approach. Quick warning for dog lovers; there’s no onscreen canine trauma but some post-mortem business will not sit well with you and might make you heave a little into the bargain. There’s also the familiar trope of someone pulling a long string of hair from their mouth which might be well worn by now but never fails to make me gag.

While this may often feel like a grab bag of J-Horror greatest hits, The Curse veers away from the traditional path at several points, which gives it an identity of its own while still more or less keeping to the rules of its mythology. The exorcism subplot blends the humorous and horrible, the rite being presided over by a bloke who makes sure he’s been paid upfront and essaying a good line in mumbo jumbo and interpretive dance before being confronted by the realisation that he could well be hopelessly out of his depth. It’s a warm-up for the payoff, which presents a logical way out for Ugana’s version of the Scooby gang before descending into a comedically extreme punch-up, machete violence and a grim but amusing final shot and post-credits piece of nonsense.

Arguably, The Curse may not be prime fodder for the purist and the fact that it doesn’t stick to a lane in terms of suggestion or gory violence who like their demons to leave a trail of terrified but artfully unblemished corpses. As daft as the resolution may be, it certainly left a (weirdly possessed?) smile on my face and the frequent winks to the conventions of this type of tale rarely get in the way of an often effective frightener. Pleasingly performed by a mostly young cast who play the increasingly outlandish proceedings absolutely straight, this may not be destined for the cult status of Ringu but it’s a suitably watchable update of the subgenre’s thematic elements for the TikTok age. Just watch what you post. You don’t know who – or what – might be watching.

Movie Rating:

The Curse trailer