Hou-ho-xiu-yi, si-sei-wu-ma
Incantation is a 2022 Taiwanese found footage Religious Horror film, directed by Kevin Ko, and co-written by Ko and Chang Che-wei. The film centres around a woman called Li Ronan, who has recently regained custody of her daughter, nicknamed Dodo. The mother and daughter are targeted by supernatural forces, stemming from a curse placed on the family before Dodo's birth.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- Animal Motif: Caterpillars appear in many pivotal scenes.
- Arc Words: The eponymous incantation is repeated throughout the film. It's later revealed that the incantation's purpose is to spread curses across multiple people, and thus dilute the effects.
- Audience Participation: Played for Drama. Li Ronan encourages the viewer to play with optical illusions onscreen and invites them to chant the incantation along with her. It's revealed in the lead up to the climax that the entire audience will be afflicted by Mother-Buddha's curse, but Ronan is hoping that the chanting will dilute the curse enough to keep her daughter and the audience from suffering serious ill effects.
- Bittersweet Ending: Li Ronan and Ming may be dead, and the audience may have contracted a supernatural curse, but the footage of Dodo implies that she is happy, and her burden has been lessened to the point where she can lead a normal life.
- Children Are Innocent: Played straight with Dodo. She is manipulated by supernatural forces, but aside from a sleepwalking scene in the beginning of the film, she is never portrayed as sinister beyond a child's normal behaviour.
- Creepy Child: The girl the Chen clan are planning to sacrifice has some very odd mannerisms and keeps a box of pet frogs, though she comes across more as a normal child trying to make her own entertainment in an admittedly freaky situation.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Characters possessed by Mother-Buddha will commit suicide by bashing their heads repeatedly against the nearest hard object. Examples include a stone wall, a computer desk and an altar to the Mother-Buddha herself.
- Curse: The cause of the hauntings in the film.
- Demonic Possession: Mother-Buddha possesses several characters, which usually results in suicide.
- Don't Look At Me: Seeing Mother-Buddha's face is one way to contract the curse. Any character that sees it in person is possessed and driven to suicide.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Did you decide to play along with Li Ronan when she started chanting? Well, bad news, you've just been afflicted by Mother-Buddha's curse.
- Haunted Heroine: Li Ronan is troubled by both her struggles with mental health and the malevolent entity hunting her family.
- One-Word Title: Just "Incantation". Same goes for it's Mandarin title, zou (咒) which literally translates to its English title.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The film was inspired by a case of mass hysteria in Kaohsiung in 2005
, in which members of a family were convinced they were possessed by various deities from Chinese folk religions, and accused each other of being demons. - Would Hurt a Child: Dodo isn't even born when Mother-Buddha sets her sights on her. There's also an unnamed child that the Chen clan are implied to be preparing as a sacrifice.
