Incantation (2022)

Episode 423, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, this week, uh, I got to pick our selection, and I thought we would dive back into some foreign films. I think the last time we did a foreign movie, it was an older movie. And so I was, uh, out and about, I think on some forums or something, reading about people s- asking, “What is the…

What are the freakiest movies you’ve seen? What are the movies that were so unsettling when you left them, and, and, you know, you couldn’t stop thinking about them?” And this movie that we’re doing today, Incantation, came up several times, and people were like, “Oh yeah, that one really unsettled me. I, I, I found it a hard watch,” or, “It really stuck with me after for a while.”

And I’d never heard of it before. It’s a Taiwanese film. It was from 2022, and it’s a found footage horror movie. You could call it folk horror, body horror, that kind of thing. And so I thought, yeah, this would be kind of a fun thing to put out there. It’s available on Netflix. I think it was distributed by Netflix after it became such a huge hit in Taiwan.

In fact, I think to date it’s the highest grossing Taiwanese horror film, and in 2022 was the highest grossing Taiwanese film. 

Craig: Wow. 

Todd: Yeah. It made, I think, five-point-something million dollars on a one- about a $1.2 million budget. So, uh, yeah. It’s on Netflix in case you wanna see it after we’re done talking about it.

Obviously, this is my first time seeing it. I know you, Craig, like to sometimes just watch the dubbed version, and there was a dubbed version available. I’m curious to know if you- that’s the one you watched, or if you watched it in its original language. 

Craig: No, I did watch the dubbed version. I didn’t even realize that there was an option.

That’s just, when I selected it on Netflix, that’s what happened- Just what came up. Yeah … it was the dubbed version. Yeah. And the dub is just okay. Like, it’s not bad, but it’s not great either. Yeah. It’s just okay. 

Todd: I ended up watching that too. 

Craig: Did you? Yeah. There, there were times when I wondered, and of course I’ll never know, but I wondered if some things were kind of lost in translation.

Some things felt a little bit strange. But beyond that, no, I had never even heard of it And I’m less inclined to watch foreign films than I used to be, and I think some of it just has to do with getting older and my attention span is less than it- … once was, or, or my focus isn’t as good as it once was.

But I usually, especially with something that was as successful as this, I’ve usually at least heard of it, and I don’t think that I’ve heard of this. And it was interesting. I found it hard to follow at times. It was an interesting premise and kind of, I don’t wanna call it a gimmick even though I really do kind of think it’s a gimmick, i- in that it’s, it’s found footage, I guess you would…

I mean, it is, it’s found footage. But the person, the main character of the movie who’s doing most of the filming, and it’s not like this has never happened before, but she breaks the fourth wall and addresses you, the audience- Right. 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: on a, on a semi-regular basis And I thought that was interesting and something you don’t, or I haven’t seen a lot.

So there’s some interesting stuff going on here. I don’t know. What, I mean, did you have any expectations going in or- 

Todd: Yeah, no. I had no expectations going in. You know, I, I… Well, part of why I picked it, when I learned it was a found footage movie, I thought you might enjoy it because I know you like found footage quite a bit.

Craig: I like it fine. 

Todd: Yeah, and I’ve warmed up to it considerably over the years. You know, there’s been… This one is almost found footage in disguise because the fact that it’s being filmed with cameras and things, I, you almost forget that it is- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: because they’re using camera angles from so many different potential sources.

Like, it’s almost like somebody went through and cut together the CCTV footage from the hospital and whatever security camera might have been in the corner of this room and- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: and it’s all pretty seamlessly presented. And the found footage element of it itself, I don’t think it’s… It’s not as gimmicky as it often is.

They’re not playing a lot of games with it like they often do where that’s just kind of a front and center c- notion. You know? Someone’s running around with a video camera and they, they’re swinging the camera this way, and they’re swinging the camera that way and, and you know, they’re… It’s all shaky and all this.

Like, this just isn’t like that, and I, I liked that about it. 

Craig: Well, it, it approaches it in, you know, at least a somewhat clever way. 

Todd: Sometimes. 

Craig: Like, the, the main character, when she’s shooting footage, she’s framing it that she’s shooting, like, a video diary for her daughter. Like, she’s, she’s saving things for posterity.

So, like, sh- it’s not like she’s just running around with a camera for no reason. Yeah. At least according to her, it’s like she’s trying to record things for posterity. And then we also jump back in time to when she, this main character, used to be, like, oh, gosh, a ghost hunter. G- I, I think they call them ghost busters.

That’s the translation or whatever. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But, you know, just one of those internet or cable television shows where people with handheld cameras and some lighting and sound equipment go around and, like, look at old scary places and- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: so there’s, there, there’s reason to have that footage as well. So, a- and, and like you said, they do make use of, like, CCTV and, and security footage and that kind of stuff, which- You know?

I don’t know who we’re supposed to believe edited this movie and put it together for us. Right. They had a lot of access. 

Todd: They did. I, I- Well, by the end of it, if you want to watch this movie, you should probably watch it before we start talking about it, because the movie bounces around a lot in sequence, right?

There’s, there’s a lot of- Mm-hmm … what you said, like flashback. It’s very book-ended, and it, it turns out to be more of a purpose than just video diary for her daughter. In fact, by the end of the movie, the notion is kind of that she has tricked us, the audience, and I thought that element of it was pretty clever.

And I imagine that superstitious people are probably the most freaked out by it. You know, I… When people talked about online about how they, they left the movie very unsettled and they, and they felt freaked out, I think that what this director does that I haven’t seen too much in other movies is that he brings the audience into the situation.

This woman not implicates us, but brings us into it and makes us a participant in this, uh, curse or whatever that’s happening. And I’ll bet if you’re particularly freaked out about this, if you, if you imagine this is real or you’re just particularly superstitious, you could feel, like, pretty unsettled by that at the end.

Craig: I’m not particularly suspicious, but I also felt like I knew what the movie was doing from the beginning. Now, I, I- Hmm … when, again, when the main character addresses us at the end and reveals, you know, something that she had been keeping secret, I thought that it was effective, but I wasn’t particularly surprised.

Right, right. And I, and I thought that because it’s… I don’t remember specifically how it starts out. I think it starts out with some old home movies, I don’t even, in black and white. I don’t even remember- But then just some very strange imagery, almost like optical illusions. Like at first it was a Ferris wheel, and there is a voiceover that tells you, it’s this main character, I believe her name was Rowan.

Is that her name? 

Todd: Ronan. Ronan, yeah, Ronan, is probably the easiest way to say it. Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Her voiceover tells us that your mind can manipulate what you see. A- and I’ve seen these types of things before. You know, it’s like an optical illusion type of thing. Like, are the stairs going up or down? Or, you know, and, uh, she, she, the Ferris wheel.

And I don’t know if they manipulated the video or if it was just my mind. I think it could be either, because I’ve seen optical illusions before. But yes, I saw the Ferris wheel spinning one way, and then I saw it spinning the other. And then it showed video of a moving train, and it’s like d- you know, depending on how your brain interprets it, the train could be going either way.

And I, I could see that too, and I was like, “I see what you’re doing here.” 

Todd: But 

Craig: even more so when at some point some sort of symbol came up, and it came up with a very prominent sound cue. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And when I say symbol, I don’t know if it’s a letter or, or what. This is- 

Todd: It’s definitely… No, it’s just kinda some, some symbol.

It’s, it’s definitely not in Chinese or anything like that. 

Craig: Okay. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But, you know, it, it’s, it’s just red on a black screen, and I, I think that there’s, like, some chanting or, like, throat singing behind it, and she says, “Okay, I need you to chant something with me.” I, I was like, “I… No.” 

Todd: I’m not doing that shit.

Craig: I’ve, I’ve, I’ve seen people fall for this trick a million times. We’ve 

Todd: seen enough horror 

Craig: movies. Absolutely not. 

Todd: Yeah. She- Yeah … and she says, “Stare at it until you memorize it.” 

Craig: Yeah. And, and, a- honestly, like, she kind of, she, she does it several times throughout the movie, and in the end it becomes very intense, and she asks to do it again.

And, like, they even have, the version that I watched and that I assumed you watched, had the translation of what you were chanting on the screen. Mm-hmm Was mostly just kind of like a stream of consciousness of words, but it didn’t sound great and- Though, though I am not suspicious, I was like, “I am not going to sit here and stare at this and listen.”

Like, I don’t, I don’t know if it’s real. Like- Oh. Yeah, okay. I, I, I, I f- I felt like I knew what… Ultimately we were going to be told we had been tricked into doing something that we shouldn’t have done. Yeah. I knew that. 

Todd: Ah. 

Craig: And so I wasn’t going to fall for it. Gotcha. And I didn’t. I looked away. 

Todd: Good for you.

You, you’re safe. You’re safe from the curse. Well, I like how the movie set us up that way, so we knew this was gonna be this kind of film, and it directly brought us into, like, “We are asking something of you. We want you to do this.” And then I like how the movie kept my interest by not going in chronological order.

I think the next thing we see is a girl, a little girl on a bed, and she’s got sores or something all over her body, and she looks like she’s in pain and, and it’s lit with just, like, a flashlight, I think the light from the camera. And it’s like the bed opens up to show us all of her sores and everything, and as she turns over she lets out almost a scream, and it’s almost like she has rows of teeth inside there.

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: The camera kind of goes in on that. So you also get a little bit of a preview for what’s to come. It’s all pretty unsettling. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And she pretty much I think almost outright says, you know, “This is about a curse on my six-year-old daughter. Here’s how things kinda went down.” And some of it is also interview, and I guess it’s her interviewing.

I’m not quite sure who’s the one who’s interviewing this man at the foster home. It’s, like, a man who runs a little, a foster home, almost like a one-man foster center or something like that. 

Craig: I, yeah, I mean, I guess it’s her. I guess it’s… Uh. I guess. But she’s on camera, so it can’t be her. Who is- 

Todd: I don’t know.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t 

Todd: know. But she, she’s coming to pick up her, what we, we learn slowly is that she’s coming to pick up her daughter, but we also learn that she hasn’t seen her daughter in probably that, her whole life- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: because she’s been in a mental institution. And so we don’t know why. We don’t know if her daughter was taken from her or what the deal is at first.

Later we learn that she gave her up voluntarily to protect her from this curse. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: But right now we know nothing about this. And, you know, i- at first I thought, and, and, and even as the girl is talking to this man, she calls him Daddy. And I’m like, “Oh, is this somehow her dad?” But then later he reveals that she just liked to call him Daddy because she was the only father figure in his life, and he kind of liked that.

And that ends up being an interesting character element that is really important to be set up for later. Because later on in the movie, he makes a choice that I think would be very hard to believe if it weren’t for everything that kind of came before it about, you know, this guy’s sort of emotional attachment to this girl and to the idea of being a dad, and that he wanted to be a dad and he couldn’t be a dad because of, he was unable to have children.

So this stuff is really layered out in a clever and I think really smart way early in the movie, things like this, so that later on it makes sense, it’s believable, it doesn’t catch you by surprise. You know, it’s just really good about setting things up and, and fulfilling those, getting a payoff for every single bit.

I thought that the construction of the movie was really smart and really clever. Th- just the way that things were parceled out between what happened in the past and bouncing back to what hap- what’s happening now, I found that kept my interest. But I get… I g- I’m getting the sense that you got a little bored with it.

Craig: It wasn’t that I was bored. I… There was just a lot going on. Like, you know, all of the stuff you just said, we also get, I believe, and correct me if I’m wrong, some history, like, I feel like Ronan’s history was tragic, too. Like, she… Wasn’t she in a terrible car accident in which both of her parents were killed?

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And we see that in very graphic fashion. It’s wild. And, and we see that she witnessed it all And, you know, then your, everything that you said, and then she takes the, the daughter’s name is Dodo, Toto? 

Todd: Yeah, they call it Dodo in the movie, but I think in Chinese it would sound more like Duoduo. 

Craig: Okay.

Well, I’m not gonna try that. No, 

Todd: that’s fine. Dodo is an unfortunate translation, but yeah, Dodo is kinda what you read and what you hear. 

Craig: She take, she takes her home and, you know, kind of spooky things happen, like a window breaks and there’s a bug, a big bug or something. And y- you can tell, it’s kinda one of those, it’s, it’s very classic for found footage movies where somebody just leaves a camera.

Like, they walk away from the camera, and then something that they weren’t trying to capture is captured. Yeah. And in this case, the mom walks away to investigate the broken window, and so the camera just remains in frame on Dodo, and she looks up. Something out of frame and above her has caught her attention.

And so you know there’s something weird and supernatural going on, and the power goes out, and there’s spilled milk in the fridge, and then somebody’s turning the light off and on. Like, there’s all kinds of weird things. And then- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: Toto’s in bed, but then she’s not anymore, and she’s outside chanting, and she looks like the lady from Ju-On for a minute.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And there was so much going on. And then it cuts to six or seven years back. It was difficult for me to follow. 

Todd: Okay. 

Craig: Yeah. I just wasn’t, sh- I- I’m like, “What is happening? I don’t know what is happening.” 

Todd: To be honest with you, that whole bit, and I think it’s all in pretty much one shot after a point, because it’s this mom carrying the camera around.

And the reason she’s carrying the camera around is because it’s her only light source. So we’ve seen that before in found footage movies, right? Yeah. They’re using the camera as a light source, so that’s a clever way of getting us to see everything she’s seeing. Justifying it, 

Craig: yeah, 

Todd: mm-hmm. Yeah. And she’s going through, and although I think it’s an impressive long one-shot sequence where a lotta creepy shit happens- 

Craig: Yeah

Todd: there is nothing here we haven’t seen before. I mean, not a single thing we haven’t seen before. The girl disappears, then just- 

Craig: It’s just spooky. Yeah, 

Todd: right. It’s spooky stuff. Spooky stuff. And so I don’t think that really spooked me so mu- I mean, there were moments of it where I’m like, “Oh, that’s creepy,” but…

And I was like, “Okay, where is this going?” And then you’re right, it cuts back to six years earlier where she, the mother, who, Ronan, is with her buddies doing this, this show, I guess. They’re doing their drive out to… One of them is a member of a family who has this tunnel that they’re not supposed to go into.

It’s like a tunnel in the mountains that they’re not supposed to go into, and it’s got all this lore behind it or whatever, and they’re gonna get to the bottom of it. So when they drive through to this Very desolate place. This, uh, not, not desolate, but it’s, it’s up in the mountains. It’s in the woods and- It, 

Craig: I didn’t under- it was weird.

I didn’t, it, it, it felt like a compound. Like- 

Todd: Yeah. I, I don’t 

Craig: know … like they had like a big, a big metal, they had to drive through a big metal gate and then the guys that approached them apparently was the uncle of one of them But it was all very shady. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It felt very shady. And they immediately said, “You didn’t tell us you were bringing a girl.

She’s gotta go.” Like- 

Todd: Yeah, it’s only the family … 

Craig: for real. She’s gotta go. Yeah. And on the way there, they had to pull over so she could throw up, so you know what that means. 

Todd: I know. I thought that immediately. How many times have we said that, right? God. 

Craig: She doesn’t know it yet, I don’t think, but she’s pregnant.

Todd: Yeah. And, and so they’re, they’re doing all this weird stuff to prepare for this ritual, and this old creepy old lady talks to that uncle. And after the talk, it seems like the uncle’s okay with bringing her here. I assume it’s because- Well, 

Craig: the old lady, the old lady looks at her hand. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I, I don’t know why.

Todd: I think that was her way of discovering that she was pregnant through some mystical- I guess … folky way- Okay … or whatever like that. All right. So she’s like, “Okay, she can stay because she’s pregnant.” One wouldn’t know why that would make a difference, but apparently it does. And there’s all kinds of weird stuff happening, right?

Like, they’re preparing for this ritual that presumably one of these boys is going to participate in, but he doesn’t know anything about it. 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: And oh my God, there’s, like, a whole bunch of shit, right? There’s weird candles. They go into this room that they’re shoot out of where somebody’s having, like, long runes drawn all over their back, this young girl.

There’s this old lady, and these people are chanting and all this stuff, and they go to sleep, and then they decide they’re gonna kinda break out and go further up the hill, up the mountain, which isn’t far, to this little shrine where there’s a doorway that leads into a tunnel into the m- mountains that is locked and has symbols on it and has a altar in front of it.

And this girl who was covered with runes is laying there, almost like she’s a sacrifice or something. None of it’s really explained, which is part of the coolness of it. You know, it’s just this weird esoteric folk ritual that we’re not supposed to know all the details about, but it seems pretty terrifying and creepy and serious.

And we’ve been told already that there’s a deity that she has released that is now a problem, and she’s trying to keep the curse off of her daughter. So, like, she’s literally told us this as the audience, uh, you know, in that fourth wall breaking before this. So we kinda know where all this is going. We know we’re seeing the flashback to that incident that incited this whole deal.

What I can’t get over is how they find this girl and they’re like, “Oh my God, we need to take her away.” I’m like, “Don’t. She’s obviously important. They know what they’re doing.” “Don’t move it. Come on.” And then this guy just goes ape shit. He’s like, “I’m gonna go in that tunnel,” and he kicks that door in.

Utterly disrespectful. Making tons of noise, and it’s like he’s determined to get to the bottom of this, and he kicks that door in and it, it… There’s, like, multiple layers to the door. There’s a mirror involved somehow. And the girl Ronin is like, “Don’t, don’t.” Like, “Stop.” Like, “Let’s just take this girl back.

We need to leave. We need to leave.” And they’re like, “No, no, no, we’re going into the tunnel.” And so those two go into the tunnel, and of course, minutes later one of them comes out screaming and then wandering around in the woods. And the other one doesn’t come out immediately, but we see later that he gets pulled out by the villagers, and he meets an interesting fate.

I 

Craig: don’t remember any of that. 

Todd: You don’t? 

Craig: Like, I… Like, I’m scanning through my notes and, like, I’ve got lots of drama about the little girl and… Gosh, I don’t remember if I missed that part and didn’t take notes because- 

Todd: Oh, God … 

Craig: are you talking about, like… Are you talking about at the very end? ‘Cause I remember the video of what happened in the tunnel- 

Todd: Cuts

Craig: doesn’t come up until, like, the very, very end. 

Todd: I guess I’m- Right … I’m cutting to… Yeah, in my mind I’m cutting to what hap- you know, the, the rest of it that we see later. But you’re right, initially we don’t get to see the tunnel, we don’t get to see what happened inside. We don’t get to see anything. But I’m pretty sure- 

Craig: You could be right.

Todd: I’m- We see his body get carried out, because there’s all kinds of weirdness, and they’re t- kind of trying to leave, and all the villagers are now standing around, and their bodies are covered in runes. They’re, they almost look like zombies. They’re chanting some things, and a body gets hoisted up. A body is burning like an effigy, except I think it’s, it’s this guy’s body.

It’s burning inside- Yeah … one of their altars, and then is pulled up on a giant pole outside the place. W- did that… Was that later? 

Craig: Yeah, I do remember that. I, I- Oof … don’t remember. I- 

Todd: God … 

Craig: I do remember when they, you know, like, when they were driving in there, it was like they were on a loop or something. Like, they kept driving- That was later

by the same pole. 

Todd: That was when they go to return. 

Craig: S- and sometimes there was, like, a burning guy up on the top of that. I remember that. 

Todd: That was a f- yeah. 

Craig: Gosh. I… If all that stuff happened, h- e- literally in my notes I have, “Something about a tunnel, worms.” So I, I think that everything that you just said, I encapsulated in something about a tunnel.

I don’t know. 

Todd: Maybe, yeah. And, 

Craig: and maybe we’re jumping back in time because, or back and forth in time because the movie is. Like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: it’s not all in sequence, so you’ve really got two different timelines going on, and it jumps back and forth. Again, found it a little difficult to keep up with. But Dodo is going through all…

I, I don’t know. Like, she bites a kid at school, and she’s screaming in the night and saying, you know, she sees a baddie, or at least that’s the way that they translated it- Mm-hmm … on the ceiling, and it won’t leave. And there’s this… Some, for some reason, I don’t know why, but there’s video footage of her at school And it’s like a slow-mo replay of her in the hallway and you see like ghost arms reaching out for her head.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It’s obviously establishing that there’s something going on with her, there’s something bad, and it’s also trying to kind of establish this relationship between her and the mom. And, and she says to the mom at one point, you know, there’s cute stuff where she’s got this cute bunny and that’s like her comfort thing or whatever.

But at one point her mom’s putting her to bed and she says, “Did you throw me away because you were scared of monsters like me?” 

Todd: Ugh. 

Craig: And it’s, you know, then of course later as this poor mom is doing everything that she can, maybe not using her- the best judgment, but still- … 

Todd: doing 

Craig: the best that she can to save this poor little girl.

It did, I mean I, I, I feel like For me, this part where we’re slowly seeing Dodo fall under the influence of this bad thing, it established enough for the emotional payoff at the end. Like, it was, you felt for this mom, and the girl. She was also- the little girl who plays Dodo is just adorable 

Todd: She is. What did you think of the relationship between the mom and, and Dodo, and how that was, you know, established and played out?

Craig: I don’t know. It was interesting. I liked the part where, you know, some weird stuff has been happening. For, for whatever reason, that foster dad is still kind of involved. I don’t remember exactly when this was, but there’s a part where he is alone in the car with her, and I, I think- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: that he’s a little bit concerned about the mom’s behavior, like she’s behaving erratically.

And he says to the little girl, “Do you like your mom?” And she says, “Yeah.” And he says, “Well, isn’t she a little weird?” And he- and she says, “Well, yeah, but she’s still my mom.” 

Todd: Yeah, that’s a moment. 

Craig: And, and, uh, you know, the, the mom abandoned her as a baby, but you find out why, and it was in an effort to protect her.

And ultimately she kind of abandons her again, but again, only in an effort to protect her, like- 

Todd: Well, does she abandon her? I think she’s… Well, she’s trying to get help for her, right? This part y- you’re talking about is when the social workers come because they’re worried about the girl and they’re gonna take her away.

So the mom sneaks her out and has got her in the car, and the mom’s gotta run down to get some things. And then, and there’s like a small posse of people out looking for her, and he’s one of them, and he’s the one who finds the car and sits in and, and there. And, and that’s when he makes this decision I was alluding to earlier because Mom then po- you know, jumps out down the street with all the bags and things that she needs and is coming back to the car just about the time that the cops notice that she’s there, and they’re starting to chase after her.

So she comes up to the car, and this guy’s gotta make a choice. He’s like, “Am I gonna go with the social… You know, am I gonna protect this girl by taking her away from her mother, or am I gonna help Mom, you know, take the girl away?” And ultimately he decides, “Get in the car. I’m gonna drive away with you.”

And that’s what happens. And I, I found that a poignant moment for him- 

Craig: Sure … 

Todd: as well as for this relationship between the mom and the daughter, and the daughter who loves her mom. I think it’s really important for this movie to establish a s- a good relationship between mother and daughter And I think it does a pretty good job of it.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: There’s only so much it can do after a daughter starts getting sick and she’s down for the count. You know? She can’t really- 

Craig: Well, right. And it, it, it… See, and again, I, I really… Everything, you, you can tell that everything is connected. She was pregnant when they were investigating this place and, you know, they…

Before it, we even see it happen, or, or maybe not, because you said that you saw parts of it, but we know that they committed some sort of sacrilege. Now she didn’t go in the tunnel, the mom didn’t. 

Todd: Correct. 

Craig: But they keep referring, you know, that she had committed some sac- I don’t know if it was just because she was there or because she was there and she was pregnant and she shouldn’t have been.

I don’t know. But you know it’s all connected, but there are parts that are still kind of unclear to me because the daughter starts getting sick. Who was that woman that she took her to that- looked at her and said, “Here, I’ll put this leaf in her mouth, but then don’t feed her for a week.” Who was that?

Todd: That was a priest and his wife at a temple. She took them to this temple to try- t- took her to this temple to try to lift the curse, you know, using magic and whatnot instead of… You know, she’d been at the hospital before that. And yeah, so it’s the priest and her wife doing, doing this ritual. Remember they even had the videotape.

Because it was interesting. She said to us, I believe, “Even the video of this tunnel is cursed. Like, if you look at it- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: you’ll be cursed, too.” So they even bundled up the video camera that she used to shoot it with, or that they used to shoot it with, up in, like, all these kind of like, uh, runes and charms and things like that, and had it on the altar, and they had the girl there.

And you’re right, they’re putting the leaf in the girl’s mouth. And the woman says to her, “Yeah, do- do- don’t let her eat for seven days.” And she’s like, “How in the world can I, can I ask a child not to eat for seven days?” And she’s like, “Look, we’re– my husband and I are putting our life on the line for you, so, you know, you better do what we say.”

And eventually, her condition gets so bad that she feels bad and she feeds her a little canned pineapple. And then, of course, that makes things worse. 

Craig: See, and, uh, all, and all of that was very difficult to watch. Mm. We’ve talked about it a million times. I, you know, I talk about it, uh, in my class when we talk about horror stuff.

Like, l- little kids in peril and jeopardy just is more emotionally charged than- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: dumb 20-somethings. You know, you don’t care about, about little 

Todd: kids. 20, 20-something-year-old assholes, like they usually are. 

Craig: Right. Exactly. I mean- Right. Who cares? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But you see a little kid, and especially, you know, this, this is brutal.

I’m actually surprised, you said it had, like, a $1.2 million budget. I mean, that’s, that’s a lot of money for me. But in terms of budget, that’s pretty low, and it doesn’t look cheap. 

Todd: No. 

Craig: There’s body horror going on here that is really unsettling, especially when you’re looking at the body of a child. 

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: It was, it was rough to watch. 

Todd: I think that’s where a lot of the power of the movie comes from, is that all this is happening to this child and this mother. You know, the movie remind- uh, for some reason I kept getting flashes to, um, When Evil Lurks, I think that’s, that the one? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Uh-huh. Right. Where, where it’s just like the main character just keeps making bad choices, and they obviously they don’t want to, but they’re just in the situation, and they’re constantly doing the thing that other peoples are telling them not to do.

I mean, obviously from the get-go of disturbing the spirit or whatever it is inside this tunnel, although she didn’t go in the tunnel, and she did tell them, you know, “Don’t go in the tunnel.” Still, now she subjected her unborn daughter to this curse, so then she gave her daughter away to keep her from the curse, but she couldn’t help but later, six years, thinking, “Maybe it’s okay.

Maybe I can bring her back.” And that sets it off, and then this woman tells her not to eat the things, and, you know, she does. So it’s like, it’s like she’s constantly making poor judgment calls, even in the face of being told by these experts not to do these things. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: On the other hand, you look at this girl, you know, and how are you not gonna wanna feed this girl, right?

Like, she is- Right. 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: she is a mess of a girl. And God, like What they had to put this little actress through. I mean, I’m, I’m just impressed with the acting of this little girl and, and, 

Craig: and- Yeah, she does a good job … 

Todd: she does a great job. But oh, my heart goes out to this mom. It really does, and I think that her- the sympathy only builds as it goes through the movie, and that’s a key component to the whole thing is if we don’t feel sympathy for this mom, if we can’t put ourselves in her position and think, “God, you know what?

Even though these are really stupid moves and you’ve been told not to do that, you dumbass,” I kind of can’t imagine maybe I wouldn’t do the same thing if I were there too and that were my kid, you know? 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: So it’s a, there’s a, there’s a tension there that makes it compelling. On the one hand you’re like, “No, no, no, don’t do that.”

On the other hand you’re like, “Yeah, but you gotta do that, so ugh, what’s gonna happen? Ugh.” 

Craig: Yeah, and I, I’m, I’m not sure to what extent she knows exactly what’s going on, but she, I mean, she, she kind of knows that it has to be connected to what happened. And I did, I, I just found it in my notes. This is when it cuts to that stuff that you talked about where we see, you know, back with the ghost hunters, all the weird people like chanting and praying and old men in their underwear covered in script, and they hear weird things, and the one guy comes out screaming.

All that stuff that you said- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … and, 

Craig: uh, in, in my notes I said, “I don’t know what I’m seeing.” I, I, I, I didn’t know what I was looking at. 

Todd: Well, I’ll tell you what I thought I was looking at. What I thought I was looking at was they had dragged, uh, the, the father, the guy who didn’t voluntarily come out of the tunnel, out of the tunnel.

He had a big bandage over his face. Something was up with his face, and the other friend is wandering around in the woods saying things like, “Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me.” And he’s freaking out, but he seems completely mentally gone. And then as she’s kind of trying to get her bearings, she goes back in and sees that they have now created some ritual which almost seems to be to undo the damage that happened.

I mean, one of the people in there slaps her face, right? And this ritual, these people are chanting, they’re, they’ve got their bodies down, and there is a body, there is somebody burning. 

Craig: Yeah. Like, 

Todd: literally on fire, and I’m pretty sure that was the father who they pulled out of the- 

Craig: Maybe. 

Todd: Yeah, like, he was like, had to be sacrificed or something.

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: the- And he’s pulled up on a huge pole. 

Craig: And then does, does he drop? Like, uh- 

Todd: Yes … 

Craig: I have, like, Ghostbuster guy falls from the sky. 

Todd: That’s the other guy. 

Craig: And he’s dead. 

Todd: He’s the one who drops, yeah. But just after we see the, the other dude, the father completely on fire, his body on fire up, up high- Yeah … on the, on the pole.

So it’s, it’s freaky shit. 

Craig: It, it, but then it cuts back to the mom and the foster dad coming back to the temple. Now, why are they coming back there? And, and, and this is the part where, like, they keep passing the same spot over and over, and they try to get out. But then, uh, uh, God, my notes just remind me how this movie is so weird.

Like- 

Todd: Hmm … 

Craig: that’s never explained, the fact that they keep, it, like they’re on a loop. Like, they keep passing the same spot. Yeah. And then, and then when they stop and they try to back out, the car dies, and then something jumps on the roof of their car. 

Todd: And is banging on it, and they have to recite the prayer over and over and over and over again in order to make it stop.

I don’t 

Craig: know what’s going on. 

Todd: It’s like whatever’s happening, they have no idea, but everything seems to lead back to when they recite these verses over and over and over and over again that they’ve been given, that we were told to recite at the beginning of the movie, that at, at least once or twice later in the movie we’re told to recite or at least we have to watch, you know, on the screen in text form.

It seems to make the thing go away. The dad’s been doing his own research because he had been, um, s- yeah, the, the quote, unquote- The foster dad … yeah, the foster dad- Yeah … had been doing his o- own research. He was trying to recover data from the camera, and he- Yeah … ’cause he wanted to see the whole tunnel video.

Eventually we get to see the tunnel video. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And again, we’ve already been told that just watching this video curses you. So- Uh-huh … it’s kind of an audience torture moment, I suppose, to say, “Now, here’s the whole video in its entirety.” Sh- she says it, right? She s- looking at the camera and is like, “Now I’m gonna show you the whole video in its entirety.”

Craig: Mm. 

Todd: And she has gone also to talk to a monk out in the middle of nowhere in mainland China, in the Yunnan region, which by the way, I was there this last summer. Not at the monk’s house. I was in pleasanter places, but- 

Craig: I 

Todd: knew what they were talking about. A- and yeah, and they, and, and, and this monk s- you know, she reports that this monk says to her that this is a blessing, that these, these verses are a blessing.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: She cuts the video of the monk talking just before he says, “This is,” and then she goes, “So the monk went on to tell me this was a blessing,” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, 

Craig: blah. Uh-huh. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s significant. All of this kind of, like, comes together. The, the footage of the tunnel is interesting. It’s like, uh, it, it goes into 

Craig: a- Well, when, when the foster dad watches it, like, I don’t know how much of it we see, but when he watches it, he starts chanting and then he smashes his head down on the keyboard- Yes

until presumably he’s dead. And I think he’s, like, on… Is he on webcam? I feel like she sees him- Yeah … doing it. 

Todd: Again, something we’ve seen before, right? W- I can’t remember how many movies we’ve seen this where a person is possessed or something like that just smashes their head repeatedly against something until they’re dead.

But this movie really takes it far, like, a lot. This is a motif. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah. 

Todd: And I have to think it’s kinda related to when we’re in the tunnel, we see this ul- ultimately this deity is in there. And apparently most of the money in this movie went into making this deity statue and, and all this atmosphere, like, really, really good.

And it’s cool. It looks like kind of a Buddha statue, but it’s weird ’cause all the arms are detached and they’re suspended from the, with, with- Mm-hmm, 

Craig: mm-hmm … with… 

Todd: And one hand is holding what looks like a severed head, and the face is covered And somebody says, uh, at some point that the face has to be covered because it, you know, can’t be looked at 

Craig: That’s where its power lies or something.

Right. Uh-huh. 

Todd: And of course, the camera goes right up to it eventually, and they pull the thing off, and it, it’s like a big hole. It almost looks like an endless tunnel. 

Craig: Yeah, that’s the very end. 

Todd: That is at the very end that we see that. 

Craig: Dodo’s in real bad shape. Like, she’s covered in these oozing sores and stuff, and like you said, the mom tries to give her a little bit of food because she’s starving to death.

But then when she throws that up and there’s, like, worms and stuff, she takes her back to the priest and his wife, but they, I guess, have been affected by the curse and- 

Todd: Yeah. I think be- from, from feeding her. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, because, right, because she fed her. And I think the priest is dead when she gets there, and, and the wife is, like, ripping at her own flesh on her scalp and stuff.

It’s really disgusting. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And then at the end of that, Dodo floats to the ceiling- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: for some reason and drops to the floor. Then, you know, she asks us to chant with her again, and we do or don’t, whatever. And then, and then she watches the tunnel video. I- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: a- a- and, and you, you talked about, like, th- they eventually…

The last thing that they get to, like, it’s this… It, it feels like a first-person shooter video game- 

Todd: Yeah. … 

Craig: when they’re walking through these tunnels. 

Todd: Good point. ‘

Craig: Cause it’s dark, and it’s only lit by the, you know, the light of their cameras. And so you can’t really tell exactly what’s going on. But it’s also really eerie, like, there’s mirrors everywhere and little…

I don’t, I don’t think they were Buddha statues. They looked like, like babies pointing in different directions and stuff. And yes, you know, eventually they have to go through, you know, they have to move some big mirror to get to that thing that you talked about, that shrine or whatever it is. The guy who’s in front, who’s right in front of it, turns around to his friend and says, “Here, hold my camera.”

All, all we’re seeing is the guy in front’s back. 

Todd: Mm. 

Craig: But, uh, he, we see that he takes away the, the cover over the face, and at this point we don’t see it. Ultimately, when we do see it, it’s really weird. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But at this point we don’t, but he goes nuts. 

Todd: And he smashes his face as well against, uh, the, the altar or the wall or something like that.

Yeah. 

Craig: Well, yeah. I mean, but, but e- but even before that, like, all of the mirrors shatter on their own and, like- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: it’s, it’s chaos and Guy, you know, when all that’s over, the guy with the camera is looking for his friend and he, he finds him, but he smashes his head against the wall. But he smashes his face against the wall, but again, we’re seeing him from the back.

And when he turns around, it doesn’t, to me… This happened very quickly, so maybe I didn’t see it correctly. But when he turned around, we’ve seen people having smashed their face against the wall before. Like you said, it’s a motif. When this guy turned around, his face looked different. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It, 

Todd: it did. 

Craig: It, it almost was kind of, it was like featureless except for it seemed maybe to be covered in those same festering sores that On Dodo 

Todd: Mm-hmm

Craig: it, it was very, very quick. Uh, it was very fast. I don’t know, but whatever. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So that’s, that’s we found out, yeah. 

Todd: I think ultimately by the end of this, here’s what I think is going on. I think that the mother, Ronan, thinks that she’s gotta basically sacrifice herself in some way to this deity. 

Craig: But again, she doesn’t reveal that yet.

Like- 

Todd: No … 

Craig: the- at this point- 

Todd: She tells us … 

Craig: she’s still manipulating us. She- Yes … she tells us. It goes back to her and she seems very depressed, and she gets herself a puppy, okay? And then she drops all of Dodo’s stuff off at the hospital, and she’s talking to the camera, but we see that she’s beginning to be covered in those letters or, or characters.

Eventually she’s completely, but for a while her face isn’t covered. Eventually it is. But w- as she’s addressing the camera, instead of addressing us, for a moment she’s addressing the daughter and she says, you know, “Mommy won’t hurt you anymore. Promise me that you’ll forget your name and you’ll forget about me.”

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And then she goes back… S- so I, I think that she’s trying to make herself look like she’s m- you know, sacrificing her relationship with her daughter for her daughter’s better good so that we will empathize with her, so that when she goes back to the tunnel… This part was hilarious to me. She goes back to the tunnel, and she’s completely covered in the symbols at this point.

She tidies up. I just thought that was so funny. Like, like she, like she picks things up and puts them in what is clearly the, their appropriate place, and she asks us again to recite with her, and that was when that weird computer- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: like a computer wallpaper or, or screensaver that’s just tons and tons of these characters, and tells us to chant.

And, and I, I have in my notes, “Weird computer screen hypnosis or whatever.” Like, I’m not- Yeah … looking at that. I am not doing it. And then immediately after comes the twist that we’ve already spoiled, but here’s where she just tells us outright. She says, “Forgive me, I lied to you.” 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Um, “And now I’m gonna show you the truth.”

Todd: Yeah. She says that priest that she visited, and she continues to play the video, that revealed basically that that- is a malevolent entity brought from Southeast Asia to Yunnan, and that that thing is not a blessing, it’s a curse. And submitting your name with the incantation signifies your agreement to carry the curse.

But the more people that chant this, the more it dilutes the curse. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: So the curse kind of spreads, and it sort of lightens the burden on everybody in a way, and they’ll have fewer and fewer misfortunes. And so it’s her way of trying to save her daughter, was trying to get us all across the world, you know, to chant this curse.

Not only do we help her daughter out, but we’re encouraging the curse on ourselves at the same time. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: So- Right … I thought that was a fun bit, you know? I liked that. I thought it was cool. I’m not sure I’ve ever quite seen this concept in a movie before. Have you? 

Craig: Well, I mean, it- So overtly, maybe not? I don’t- I- Y- Yeah, I mean, you’ve heard of, you know, cursed films and, I mean, even to some extent, The Ring.

Like, I, I think that we were meant to feel very uneasy about actually watching the tape ourselves. 

Todd: Right. Right. That was close, yeah. 

Craig: The, you know, th- that movie doesn’t break the fourth wall and address us directly, and I do think that It’s, it’s clever. I, I didn’t necessarily exactly see… I, I, I couldn’t have explained to you why, but I had the feeling from the very beginning this isn’t right.

Like, like- … you never, you never read the cursed thing, you know? Yeah. Right You never chant, you never chant something out loud, ever. Right. It, it never ends well. So I, I anticipated that. The n- the notion of her doing it out of desperation because it’s the only way, and she says this directly, “It’s, it’s the only way that I can hopefully, maybe lift some of this burden from my daughter.”

I, I, I like that as a, a plot device. 

Todd: Yeah. And, 

Craig: and I, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s clever. I’m, I’m not really sure… You know, I don’t understand really the ins and outs of it, but that’s okay. It’s a curse. I, I, that, that’s fine. I’m not really sure why at this point she needs to… I mean, she, she blindfolds herself.

I also don’t under- oh, don’t understand this. She blindfolds herself and then removes the thing. 

Todd: That’s for us, though. 

Craig: Yeah, right. And, and so the camera sees, and instead of it being anything that looks like the rest of this shrine, which basically looks like a, you know, a, a statue of sorts, it’s almost just kind of like a gaping cavern.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like a, like an infinite tunnel and, and, uh- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: I’m not sure why, because if she’s blindfolded… She beats her face against the wall or something- Yeah, she becomes possessed … until she’s dead too. 

Todd: I guess. Well, I think that’s meant to finalize the curse on us, because isn’t it said that, you know, you’re not supposed to look at that face?

If you look at the face, then you’re cursed. And so- Sure, okay … she was exposing that for us so that we would join the curse, basically. 

Craig: Gotcha. 

Todd: Yeah, yeah. And, and, and everything’s sort of laid out interestingly. Like sh- there’s, there’s a few blocks of hair that are on the- 

Craig: Mm-hmm … 

Todd: altar. And I noticed when we first saw it way, way back in the original video, there seemed to be a gap.

You know, there was a spot where it seemed like a lock of hair was missing. And of course, she fills that in with a lock of her own hair. And she does a similar thing with her tooth, where there were some little pieces of paper with, like, t- teeth that looked like they fell out or were pulled out on them.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And she adds her tooth and paper to that thing. It, it again, it gives you this sense that this is going to be an ongoing thing because she’s just really fulfilling a thing that was always ready for her. 

Craig: She also cut off some girl’s ear at some point. 

Todd: Yeah, she- 

Craig: That was weird. 

Todd: That was we- I don’t get that either, but she had to wa- she had to put that down there, too.

Craig: Yeah, it was, like, part of the sacrifice. I don’t know. I don’t even… And I don’t know who that girl was. They were like, “Yeah, we found some middle school girl all covered- … in these weird symbols.” And then- Right … and then she cuts her ear off and the… I don’t know. There’s a lot going on. And also, the ending is very bleak.

The very last thing we see is just some very sweet video before all of this happened, home video of Toto before she’s sick and she, you know, she’s sweet and, and playful and it… And that’s where it ends. Of course, we don’t know what happens to her, but- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: a lot of these movies, you said this is a, a Tai- Is this a Taiwanese?

Todd: Yep, Taiwanese movie. Yep, mm-hmm. 

Craig: We’ve done a couple of Korean films. It, they, they always, they, gosh, they seem bleak. Like- 

Todd: Right? 

Craig: And I, and I think that’s just because I see so many American movies, and I think American movies either try to end with some hint of optimism or irony or humor. And these 

Todd: God, 

Craig: they just, they just really s- they just seem really bleak.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It’s 

Todd: so true. It’s so true. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and there’s a lot going on, and I, I think that I would probably pick up on a lot more on a second or maybe even third watch. I, I, I’m not gonna watch it again, but there’s, there’s a lot to unpack. I’m not sure that I ultimately fully understood everything, but I’m okay with that.

Like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: it was still, you know, at- atmospherically it was intense and suspenseful and frightening, and, and I enjoyed that. You know, the storytelling was interesting. It wasn’t… Though there were elements of it that were somewhat stereotypical, for the most part it was pretty original in its storytelling and the, the various elements of the story.

I can see why it was popular and well-received. I, I, I get it. 

Todd: I think the whole movie in some sense is a bit of a rit- a ritual in that way. Even if you go to church or something, uh, you know, y- there are all these rituals, and you don’t really understand it all. Sure, sure. You don’t know the history. You don’t know why you’re lighting the candles at this time.

You don’t know why there are five candles on the altar, or why the priest is saying this particular thing or whatever. You could probably research it and find it all out and go back in history to, to what it’s all supposed to mean and where it’s supposed, what it’s supposed to signify and where it started, but ultimately you’re just kinda thrown into it as a kid and you just go with it, you know?

And I feel like- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: that is kinda what this movie expects of us too, and it hints at a deeper, more rich, complicated situation here with this deity that, uh, shouldn’t have been with, you know? Yeah, right. Like, this was too much for anyone to understand, and these Ghostbuster kids come in. They’re just gonna literally kick the door down on this thing and go in and try to bust it out- 

Craig: Right

Todd: and everybody paid the price, you know? And I think that’s what a lot of- Right. 

Craig: I mean, if, if, if there’s a whole, like, monastery of monks specifically guarding this tunnel and saying, “Don’t go in there,” don’t go in there. Like, come on. Have some respect. People just don’t have any sense. 

Todd: Right. And I feel like, I feel like from the, the movies we’ve seen and some others, you know, that seems to be a general thread through, like, the Thai horror films and the Taiwanese, uh, just the Southeast Asian or the Asian horror films in general.

It’s just like, you know what? There’s this bad shit. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: You don’t understand it. You don’t mess with it. Stay away from 

Craig: it. 

Todd: If you mess with it- Yeah … you, there’s no happy ending at all for anyone. 

Craig: Right, 

Todd: right. You know? Whereas the, the American horror movie’s always like, yeah, people still mess with this stuff, but in the end somehow somebody prevails or somebody’s able to put it down for a few more years.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And the Asian movies are just like, “Nah, that, that’s just-” Nope. “Nope, this is above your pay grade.” That’s 

Craig: what you get. We told you. 

Todd: Exactly. Now we got your daughter. Oh, well, thank you, uh, everyone for listening to this. And again, if you wanna see this movie, it’s on Netflix. It’s been there for years, and, uh, and I think it’s worth a watch.

I would definitely- Yeah … recommend this movie if, if what we’ve talked about interests you, if this kind of folk horror and, and also, you know, this exo- I would say exotic Asian horror stuff, the, the religious stuff that you’re probably not terribly familiar with and all that. If all this really interests you, it’s something com- completely different and unique.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And I would recommend it. Well, thank you so much again for listening, and if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can join us on patreon.com/chainsawpodcast, and for five bucks a month, get inside access to our episodes far before we release them to the general public these days.

We have a book club back there that’s going strong. We’re back into the young adult stuff, and we’ve got unedited versions of what we do here. We’ve got, uh, some minisodes of things we put up there, just our general thoughts and reviews. Just a nice little community going on back there. Also, you can just find us on our website, chainsawhorror.com, or Google Two Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast, and you’ll be able to leave us a comment anywhere you want and let us know what you thought.

Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.