Review Taiwanese Movie "Incantation (2022)"

When an area is called “The Place You Must Not Enter”–this is just a thought–but maybe you shouldn’t enter it. That’s too tall an order for “The Ghostbusters,” however.

In Taiwanese horror film Incantation, Li Ronan (Tsai Hsuan-yen) is one of three videographers who use film to bust paranormal myths. But when the group encounters a mysterious cult guarding a secret tunnel, their exploration has dangerous ramifications for those close to Ronan–especially her daughter, Dodo (Huang Sin-ting).

Directed by Kevin Ko and co-written by Ko and Chang Che-wei, Incantation is a mockumentary horror movie presented as Ronan’s found footage. What starts as a wholesome video project to chronicle Ronan’s reunion with her daughter, whom she gave up six years ago, soon morphs into a chilling paranormal investigation. 

Something sinister affects Dodo. Ronan’s camera catches glimpses of horrific events, the footage often so brief that we don’t know what to be scared of. But we at least know to be scared. As frustrating as the ambiguous nature of this style of filming can be, it still manages to be engrossing. And that’s not just because you’ll be straining your eyes in order to catch every gruesome detail. The way Ronan frames her videos makes the viewing an interactive ordeal. We’re watching, she tells us, to help save her daughter. “How” is a mystery that will unfold throughout the course of the film.

It’s a bit of a clumsy journey to get to the truth at the heart of Incantation. Presenting the story as a mystery to be solved, Ko’s and Chang’s approach is to display vague (albeit disquieting) allusions to a horrifying curse… only to resolve the questions they raise almost all at once, in a substantial information dump. They save their reveals with a clever twist, however–driven and elevated by Incantation’s permeating and emotional family drama.

The essence of this heart-stopping Taiwanese horror cuts deeper than a supernatural curse. It’s in the tender exploration of a mother’s love for her daughter. The loving relationship between Ronan and Dodo and the threat of their estrangement add a whole new dimension to the terror of Incantation, making the film a unique, if somewhat amateur, entry to the horror genre.

‘Incantation’ Plot Synopsis

Directed by Kevin Ko, Netflix’s Incantation is a Taiwanese horror film recorded as if compiled from found footage. In it, Li Ronan is making a documentary that films her reunion with her 6-year-old daughter, Dodo. But when Dodo starts acting strangely, Ronan has to reckon with a dark taboo she violated years ago. A curse now settles over her family. Can she break it to save her daughter?

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What taboo did Ronan, Dom, and Yuan violate?

For a long time, Incantation keeps us in the dark regarding details of the taboo that causes Dodo to see ghosts (“baddies,” as she calls them) as well as other paranormal activities that occur around Ronan and Dodo. At the beginning of the film, Ronan records a message about having violated a taboo that had grave consequences.

It’s later revealed that Ronan (then pregnant with Dodo), her boyfriend Dom, and Yuan investigated a cult ceremony six years ago. There, they secretly entered a creepy (and forbidden) tunnel.

Ronan was too sick to go deep into the tunnel, but Dom and Yuan explored further. When they set their gaze upon the statue of the Mother Buddha, her curse caused their demise.

Ronan was cursed as well, for entering the tunnel. After she gets out, she has a brief stint at a mental institution and has to give up her daughter. Six years later, she reunites with Dodo–but the curse isn’t done with her or her daughter yet.

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What happens to Dodo?

When Ronan takes her out of foster care, Dodo starts seeing “baddies” everywhere. At one point, they compel her to say a chant (the same that Ronan asks the viewer to memorize at the beginning of the movie). Dodo then becomes paralyzed.

Ronan tries to help her, but Dodo only becomes sicker, eventually becoming comatose in the hospital.

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What does Ronan discover about Mother Buddha, the incantation, and the symbol?

With help from Dodo’s foster father, Ronan puts together details about her curse in order to save Dodo. She discovers that the cult members worship the Mother Buddha, a malicious deity. Those in the cult repeat an incantation and make a symbol with their hands that invites the Mother Buddha’s curse onto themselves. The deeper one looks into the curse, the heavier the burden becomes. And the burden is the greatest when one looks onto the face of the Mother Buddha, as Dom and Yuan did.

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Does Ronan lie to viewers of her documentary?

Ronan reveals these details at the end of the film, which shows that she earlier misguided viewers of her found footage. At the beginning of the movie, Ronan asks us to memorize the Buddhist incantation and hand symbol. She instructs us to chant the incantation in order to help save her daughter.

But Ronan later apologizes. She’s known–ever since she first visited the tunnel–that partaking in the incantation is sharing in the curse. She misguides viewers of her footage because sharing in the curse also dilutes the curse. Ronan believes that causing others to invite the curse upon themselves is the only way she can save Dodo.

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Does Ronan break the curse and save Dodo?

With Dodo in the hospital and unlikely to recover, Ronan enters the tunnel again. This time, she explores deeper, as Yuan and Dom did. But she sets to rights everything they damaged six years ago.

She then shows the Mother Buddha’s face to the camera, with hopes that the curse will become diluted enough to save Dodo. But the curse soon becomes too much for Ronan to bear, and she commits suicide.

At the end of Incantation, we see a brief clip of Dodo, alive and happy. It seems that Ronan’s theory was correct, and her footage was found and viewed. She was able to save her daughter.