TL;DR: The Curse gives old-school Japanese ghost horror a modern social media makeover, and while it never reaches the level of the classics it's borrowing from, it still delivers enough creepy moments, and weird energy to make it an entertaining enough watch.
Plot
Riko, a beauty salon receptionist, notices her friend Shu-fen's strange social media posts, and as horrific deaths occur, she travels to Taiwan and unravels community horrors and desire with her ex and Shu-fen's sister.
A Love Letter to Classic J-Horror
The Curse definitely feels like it was made by someone who has spent a lot of time watching a lot of the classic Japanese horror films and decided those movies deserved another shot with a modern twist, and that's not a criticism either, where the atmosphere is very much in that early 2000s Japanese horror lane.
It also deserves credit for updating the formula without completely abandoning it, where social media replaces cursed videotapes this time around, and if someone made Ring today, it probably wouldn't involve VHS tapes anymore either, because horror always adapts to whatever people are obsessed with, and phones have become just as dangerous in horror movies as creepy wells used to be.
Japanese Scares With Humor?
This movie is at its best when it simply lets the horror and scares just happen instead of when it is trying too hard, and there are several scenes where the ghost appears somewhere in the background, and those moments worked better for me than the more louder jump scare attempts, you know, that classic Asian horror movies vibe, and I loved seeing it again.
The gore is also nicely done, and while it isn't trying to compete with Terrifier or anything like that, but there are some wonderfully nasty moments scattered throughout, featuring a few scenes that are gross enough to satisfy the gore hound in you.
And while the film wants to be genuinely creepy, we also get scenes where somebody will react in such an odd way that it becomes unintentionally hilarious, while other moments feel completely intentional and meant to make you laugh, with the movie leaning into dark comedy before switching straight back into horror again - sometimes that combination works really well. while other times, though, it feels like the movie accidentally trips over its own feet.
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The Pacing Starts Strong, Then Slows Down
The first half kept me interested almost the entire time, because everything moves at a nice pace, the mystery keeps building, and there's enough happening to stop things from becoming repetitive, but later on, though, the movie starts taking its sweet time.
There are quite a few scenes that don't really add much besides stretching out the runtime. and it sometimes feels like the movie is killing time before it gets to the next scary scene, and the frustrating part is that whenever the horror finally kicks back in, it's usually really enjoyable, which makes the slower sections stand out even more because you know the movie is capable of being much more entertaining.
But my biggest problems with The Curse is that it never seems interested in explaining how anything actually works, and while normally I'm perfectly happy with horror leaving some mysteries unanswered, especially Ghost movies which don't need instruction manuals, but they do need consistency.
The Curse introduces ideas that seem important, then seems to ignore them later whenever it's convenient - rules appear, disappear, and occasionally feel like they're changing from one scene to the next - and by the final act, you stop trying to understand how the curse operated because the movie didn't seem particularly interested either.
That hurts the suspense because good supernatural horror usually creates rules that make the danger feel believable, so once those rules disappear, it starts feeling like absolutely anything can happen simply because the script needs it to, and that's a shame because the movie builds so much tension early on that it deserves a stronger payoff.
Horror Characters Continue Making Terrible Decisions
Let's be honest, horror wouldn't exist if people always made smart decisions, so if everybody immediately left haunted houses, called the police, or sprinted away from creepy noises, half the genre would disappear overnight, and The Curse waso different.
Some characters react to life-threatening situations by standing completely still while staring at whatever nightmare is unfolding in front of them, while others somehow ignore problems that absolutely should have everybody panicking - it's one of those movies where common sense quietly packs its bags and leaves halfway through, but the funny thing is that I still enjoyed watching it because these moments become entertaining in their own right.
But despite that, the cast does a solid enough ob throughout, and while nobody delivers a performance that's going to win awards, but everyone fits the style of movie they're making, as Japanese horror has always leaned toward quieter performances instead of huge emotional breakdowns, and that's mostly what you get here.
The performances aren't really the selling point though, but they never become a distraction either, and that's perfectly fine for this kind of horror movie.
It's Familiar, But That's Not Always a Bad Thing
Anyone expecting The Curse to completely reinvent Japanese horror is probably going to walk away disappointed, because this movie borrows ideas from just about every supernatural classic you can think of, and it doesn't exactly hide where its inspiration comes from either, but sometimes it's just nice to watch a movie that simply understands why those older films worked in the first place, where it isn't trying to outsmart the audience or spend two hours explaining some giant mythology, it just wants to tell a creepy ghost story, throw in some bloody moments, and make you uncomfortable every now and then.
Final Thoughts
The Curse doesn't certainly belong alongside the greatest Japanese horror movies, but it's still a fun throwback that captures enough of that old-school supernatural style to make it worth watching, and for fans of J-horror, it's an easy movie to spend a night with.