Incantation (2022)

Taiwan's film industry has, over the past few decades, produced work that spans an enormous range: from the meditative domestic drama of Yi Yi (2000) to the unrelenting visceral horror of The Sadness (2021). Incantation, released in 2022, sits firmly in the horror corner of that spectrum, and arrived with considerable noise behind it. The film drew on a real-life incident involving a Taiwanese family who became convinced they were afflicted by supernatural forces after violating the rituals of a religious sect, and that grounding in something that actually happened, however loosely interpreted, gives the premise a particular unease before the camera has even started rolling. Director Kevin Ko and his co-writer Chang Che-Wei built a found-footage structure around a mother attempting to protect her young daughter from a curse she inadvertently brought down on them both, weaving in elements of folk religion and deity worship that feel genuinely specific to Taiwanese cultural tradition rather than the generic occult trappings you get in a lot of Western horror.

Kevin Ko was not a newcomer to genre filmmaking when he took on Incantation. He had previously worked across horror and thriller territory in Taiwan, and his approach here is self-consciously participatory, asking the audience to become part of the ritual itself through direct address to camera and on-screen text. The film was produced through a partnership between Monkey Movies, Moonshine Animation and the Kaohsiung Film Fund, the latter reflecting a broader regional effort to support Taiwanese productions outside of Taipei. It became, on its Netflix release, one of the most-watched non-English language horror films on the platform for a period, which brought it a significantly larger international audience than most Taiwanese genre pictures would ordinarily reach. Whether that audience was entirely satisfied is, of course, another matter entirely.

The film rests heavily on the performance of Ina Tsai in the lead role, and she brings a physical and emotional rawness to the part that grounds what could easily become an abstract or gimmicky exercise. The cast also includes Ven Kao, Sin-Ting Huang, Sean Lin and Wen Ching-Yu in supporting roles, filling out the timeline that flicks back and forth between past events and the present-day crisis. The found-footage format demands a naturalistic, often unglamorous kind of acting, and the performances here are largely convincing in that register, polished but unremarkable in places, though Tsai herself carries the emotional weight with consistency throughout the film's considerable runtime of 111 minutes. It is, for context, a noticeably long film for the found-footage genre, where brevity tends to work in a production's favour.

A-Z World Movie Tour Taiwan Incantation is a Taiwanese horror film that starts with promise, creepy found-footage vibes, a chilling local legend about a forbidden ritual, and some genuinely unsettling moments rooted in cultural folklore. There are scenes that get under your skin, not just through jumpscares (though there are a few of those), but through eerie imagery and a growing sense of dread. The concept (a woman trying to break a curse she unknowingly passed to her daughter) is emotionally charged and has real potential. But at nearly two hours, the film drags badly. It’s far too long for what it is, stretching tension past its breaking point and rrepeating segments without adding depth. What starts as atmospheric slowly becomes exhausting, and the constant handheld camera work begins to feel less like immersion and more like punishment. Some of the scares rely too heavily on loud noises and sudden faces, which might make you jump but don’t linger. And while the ending goes full-on nightmare fuel, it doesn’t quite redeem the slow middle act or make up for character choices that feel frustrating rather than believable. It’s not a bad horror film by any means, there’s craft here, and the cultural elements give it a unique edge. But as a viewing experience I didn’t enjoy it. It overstays its welcome and leans too hard on cheap tricks. Sporadically creepy, occasionally powerful, but overall a slog with more ambition than payoff.

I should say that if you have a higher tolerance than I do for handheld disorientation sustained over a long runtime, you may find more to enjoy here than I did. The cultural specificity is genuinely interesting, and for those curious about Taiwanese horror more broadly, it sits alongside Tiger Stripes (2023) as evidence that the island continues to produce horror with a distinctive regional identity, even when the execution falls short of the concept. There are filmmakers doing more confident work in the found-footage space, and you can find tighter, nastier examples of the form in The Blair Witch Project (1999) if you want a reminder of how efficiently dread can be constructed and sustained. Incantation had the bones of something genuinely unsettling. It just needed someone to tell it to wrap up about twenty minutes earlier.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2022  | Watched: 2025-09-11

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Incantation (2022) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
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Physical: Amazon US

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