The Taiwanese found footage horror film Incantation is unnervingly based on a gruesome true story. Released in Taiwan in 2022 by director Kevin Ko, and then made available on Netflix in July of the same year, Incantation became the highest-grossing original Taiwanese horror film of all time (via THR). A creeping and well-crafted found-footage horror movie, Incantation is set across many years, depicting the tragic and inexplicable events to befall a family in Taiwan who stumble across a demonic ritual that may or may not be real.

Found-footage horror movies are often more frightening because of their attempts to trick the audience into thinking the events of the movie are real. This was a bit easier back in the days of The Blair Witch Project when people didn’t have the internet at their fingertips to fact-check, but movies like Incantation prove that even the suggestion that something is real is enough to heighten the creep factor. Even if Incantation were not inspired by a true story, it would still rank among the scariest Asian horror movies.

Incantation Is Inspired By Real-Life Events That Happened To A Taiwanese Family

The Wu Family Claims They Were All Possessed

Incantation does have some basis in reality, despite the fantastical elements of the story. The Wus were a Taiwanese family of six living in the Gushan District of Kaohsiung, a large city in southern Taiwan (via Storm). In 2005, the youngest sister of the family began to claim she was possessed by an enтιтy she referred to as the “Third Prince”. She told her family that the eldest sister, who was living in Taipei, was in grave danger and needed to return home. Soon after, the eldest claimed that she was also possessed, referring to herself as “Guanyin Bodhisattva”.

Her family took the eldest to an altar at Wuzhi Mountain on the nearby island of Hainan. This only seemed to worsen things, and soon, all the Wus were claiming possession by evil spirits with names like “Jade Emperor”, “Queen Mother of the West”, and “Seven Fairies”. The members of the family began attacking each other, beating one another with crutches, burning each other with incense, throwing rice and salt, and feeding each other feces and urine in hopes of expelling the spirits.

This went on for weeks, and eventually, the family stopped eating and drinking anything but a “magic” water solution. A month later, the eldest daughter was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. The Wus thought she was still alive and took her to the hospital, where she was quickly pronounced ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, and though she had bruises, it was determined she died from multiple organ failure, likely a result of malnutrition and not eating (via LTN). It wasn’t long after the eldest daughter’s death that the Wus said the evil spirits had left them.

The Wus tried to explain to the authorities about the possessions, but it was decided that the family was experiencing a collective mental delusion. The Wu family had apparently always been supersтιтious about ghosts and gods, which suggests why this tragedy happened. Incantation is not directly based on this story, but there are certainly some elements of the film inspired by the event.

The Similarities Between Incantation And The Real Story

Incantation Is Not Based On, But Inspired By The Wu Story

There are not as many similarities between Incantation and the true story as you might suspect, considering that the film is based on it. There is a possession element in the film, just like in real life. In the film, the power of evil is dissipated the more people there are exposed to the possession. So both stories involve multiple people being possessed. Incantation also involves a woman returning to her hometown, just like the Wu daughter, and a trip to a religious altar in the mountains only makes things worse.

In the real story, the Wu family harms each other in a desperate attempt to save one another from possession. In Incantation, Li Ronan (Tsai Hsuan-yen), a desperate mother, puts the audience in harm’s way to save her possessed daughter, Dodo (Huang Sin-ting), by tricking the audience into reciting a chant throughout the film. Both family members are willing to hurt others to protect loved ones.

What Incantation Changes From The Real Story

Incantation Makes Definitive Statements On The Nature Of The Possession

As Incantation isn’t actually based on the real story of the Wu family, there are quite a few differences. For one, in the film, unlike in real life, there is empirical proof that an enтιтy or demon is possessing people in Incantation. Whatever you believe happened with the Wus, there are certainly no confirmed videos or pH๏τographs of horrific demons. Incantation also features a smaller family, with a mother and her daughter as the ones mostly affected by the possession.

The events of Incantation also take place over many years, rather than a little more than a month with the Wu family. While authorities were quick to dismiss the Wu’s explanation for their daughter’s death, Li Ronan at least has a village of mystically minded people who understand what’s going on with her. In some ways, it makes the Wu’s story all the more horrible that they were unable to find anyone who could understand what they were going through, whether demonic or psychological.

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What Director Kevin Ko Says About Incantation

Ko Wanted To Bring the Audience Into The Movie’s Curse

Kevin Ko, the director of Incantation, spoke about the inspiration for his film, saying (via Vallistw),

“The film was inspired by a real event in Kaohsiung in 2005. My immediate reaction upon hearing the news was: some people in Taiwan believe in very strange things. Just like we were told as kids that a certain relative believed in something peculiar and our elders would advise us to stay away.”

It’s not clear until well into the film that what’s happening to Li Ronan and her daughter is real, so for many of those listening, it would be a peculiar story to hear, and one hard to believe. Ko goes into deeper detail about these “strange things“,

“This religious reverence and fear of ‘it’s better not to approach’ is hard to shake off and is something Taiwanese can deeply resonate with. ‘It’s better not to approach’ can be metaphorically seen as ‘toxic,’ and if something is ‘toxic,’ it can ‘make you sick,’ or in other words, curse you.”

Whatever is going on within the cave is toxic, and it’s infecting those who interact with it, to lethal effect. What’s worse is that it appears to be contagious, hence why Li Ronan implores the audience watching the film to “catch” the curse. That portion of the film was an intentional bit of filmmaking by Ko, who said,

“So, the film employs an interactive approach, enticing the audience to engage with it, understand it, and unbeknownst to them, take something away – akin to something shareable, aligning with the curse theme in the movie.”

Ko gets the audience literally invested in Incantation, pᴀssing along the curse to them. Incantation may not be based on a true story, but it suggests a willingness of all of us to believe in something frightening and unreal.