Found footage is a staple of the horror genre that was established by movies like The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007). Itโs since shown up in movies over the years, with Incantation (2022) being a recent notable release. That said, there are not a lot of Asian found footage horror films, at least not ones that readily come to mind the way Western found footage horror movies do, making it a little hard to find movies like Incantation.ย
With that in mind, weโve put together a list of all the Asian found footage horror movies that are similar to Incantation to help you get your next horror fix.
1. Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018)
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018) follows horror vlogger Ha-Joon as he gathers a group of fellow youngsters to explore an abandoned asylum with him. Ha-Joon believes the asylum to be haunted after seeing a video of two urban explorers disappearing inside the asylum. Ha-Joon and his group set out to investigate whether the rumors about the asylum being haunted by its murdered residents are true.
The movie updates the traditional found footage genre by replacing pre-recorded video with a live stream โ a fitting twist given that the leader of the group is a content creator.
2. The Medium (2021)
The Medium (2021) is a horror mockumentary set in Thailand. The movie is about a crew of journalists investigating a Thai village shaman who claims to be possessed by the spirit of a goddess. The crew soon find themselves roped into a string of supernatural events as dark secrets about them and people in the village come to light.
3. The Bridge Curse (2020)
The Bridge Curse (2020) is a Taiwanese horror film just like Incantation. Its story centers on the haunted bridge of Tunghai University, which is said to be haunted by the spirit of a student who was murdered there. According to the local legend, climbing to the 14th step of the stairs on the bridge at midnight will summon the spirit of the dead girl. The spirit will then ask the person for the time because she was murdered while waiting for her boyfriend to show up at the bridge.ย
A group of university students decides to test whether the legend is true by sending one of them to climb up the stairs. Things seem fine at first until that student disappears, making the group and the missing student the subject of a journalistโs investigation years after the disappearance.
4. Noroi: The Curse (2005)
Noroi: The Curse (2005) follows a paranormal researcher, Kobayashi, on his quest to make a documentary about supernatural events in Japan. Kobayashi leaves home to investigate a neighborhood where the sound of crying babies can be heard at night coming from the home of a woman and her son. The small family soon moves away, much to Kobayashiโs dismay, but he finds dead pigeons on the property that he later deduces are connected to a mysterious disappearance โ including his own.
5. A Record of Sweet Murder (2014)
A Record of Sweet Murder (2014) is a film directed by Koji Shiraishi, the same director behind Noroi: The Cursed. Like Noroi, A Record of Sweet Murder is a documentary-style horror film, but it has a twist in that the โhostโ is the serial killer behind the killings in the film. The murderer lures a Korean journalist and a Japanese cameraman into being his hostages under the pretense that he would be giving them an exclusive interview.
The movie is filmed in what looks like one continuous take as the killer forces the cameraman to keep filming him and his victims so that he can show the world his sacred mission to look for two people who share true love.
6. Remotely Killed (2020)
Remotely Killed is one of the many 2020 films shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic. Set during the lockdowns, Remotely Killed has all of its supernatural events happen over a video call. A group of classmates try to uncover the truth about a former classmate of theirs who died shortly after the lockdowns. While the widely accepted story is that their classmate committed suicide, the students soon discover that theyโre actually dealing with a serial killer.
7. Spirit Stealing (2010)
Spirit Stealing (2010) begins with a young woman being discovered dead in her apartment. Following investigations, the authorities conclude that the woman must have committed suicide, but all of those assumptions go out the window when several other people she had contact with before her death begin to disappear.
8. Wol-ha: Very Bad Moon Rising (2017)
Wol-ha: Very Bad Moon Rising (2017) is a retelling of the classic Korean horror film A Public Cemetery of Wol-ha. It is presented as a documentary about the life of Wolhyang, a young woman who was a university student at a time when South Korea was under Japanese occupation. Wolhyang later leaves school and marries a wealthy man, but her cruel mother-in-law pins a crime on her. This results in her being sentenced to death and returning as a vengeful ghost that haunts the people making documentaries about her years after her death.
9. P.O.V: A Cursed Film (2012)
P.O.V: A Cursed Film (2012) is about two television show hosts who run a segment about supernatural events where they show viewers ghost videos sent in by fans. Itโs mostly lighthearted fun, as the girls are only expected to react to the videos and not investigate them like other media workers in the movies on this list. However, things take a sharp turn when the girls receive a video that looks like it was taken at their old school. The girls decide to investigate, bringing their entire production crew to the school.
10. Haunted Changi (2010)
Haunted Changi (2010) is about a group of Singaporean filmmakers exploring the Old Changi Hospital in Singapore, a location famed for being haunted by prisoners of war who were killed during the Japanese occupation of Singapore. The Japanese soldiers were later executed in the hospital grounds themselves towards the end of the war. Now, the protagonist filmmakers are at the abandoned hospital to catch a glimpse of the ghosts said to haunt the area.
Remotely Killed isn’t a found-footage.
Thanks for the list…there are a couple I haven’t seen! ๐