Not only the Great Black Buddha, but there were also terrifying cults that seized human faces in ancient times...

Fire Buddha repairs one, heart Sa Moo

"Curse", this recently released Taiwanese ghost movie that was well-received and popular, and even went abroad, I finally made a pilgrimage to Netflix two days ago. After reading it, I have to try my best to control my head, don't run out of this brainwashing spell again and again, I can't guarantee that I won't have a connection with the big black Buddha, and I will hit my head and die after being cursed (I really want to buy an American football player) Wear a helmet, beware of evil).

Speaking of the Big Black Buddha, this fictional cult god from the movie, to me, the most terrifying thing is the " faceless " after uncovering the red cloth with "Famous for Death" written on his face; The "faceless" is not that the villain in Zhou Xingchi's "The Great Inner Detective Zero Zero Hair" has no facial features, but a deep hole that is so deep that you can't see the back of your head and is full of thumb-sized holes, like a purple sunken inward. honeycomb. It is precisely because He has no face that, compared with other ghosts with one-sided grimness, it creates an imaginary space for readers to condense the atmosphere of fear.

Although the origin of the Big Black Buddha is mentioned in the movie, the introduction is not very detailed, and it is up to the readers to piece together. According to my understanding, He is a dark god worshipped by a certain branch of Tantric Buddhism spread in Yunnan, who was introduced to Taiwan by the Chen family. As for why he has no face? unknown.

However, there are three cursed people in the film, who smashed their own faces abruptly. Maybe the big black Buddha mother can't see other people's faces, so she has to take away others' faces. The most terrifying scene is when A Dong hits a wall in the tunnel and turns his head to face A Yuan - his face is full of rotten holes...

But in fact, it's not just the fictional Big Black Buddha Mother who will take away her face. In the Qing Dynasty, a writer under the pseudonym of the master of Dongxuan recorded many anecdotes and stories he heard in his "Shu Yi Ji". Cult murder and sacrifice incident. I translate it into vernacular:

During the reign of Emperor Kangxi, from Yunnan, Guizhou and Hubei, there were often monsters who appeared and performed " wiping the face ".

They dress and talk like ordinary people, and often dozens of people walk into towns in groups, or wander in the suburbs, where they are erratic. Some will wear military uniforms, ride horses, and gallop between cliffs;

If someone passed them by, he would suddenly fall to the ground, and when he got closer, he saw that more than half of his face had been hollowed out, leaving only the back of his head and his skull . In the corners of towns or remote places in the mountains, as well as in the dark attic secret rooms, such strange things often happen, and they don't know what they are going to do by poaching people's faces. This group of demons had been working for eight or nine months before they gradually stopped, and there were as many as thousands of people who were killed. At that time, officials patrolled day and night, and every household prepared gongs and drums in case the demons appeared.

Once, several people carried a large wooden barrel into the city. The officers and soldiers felt suspicious and surrounded them for questioning, but these people suddenly disappeared without a trace, leaving only the barrels on the ground. The officers and soldiers opened the barrel to check, and were shocked to find that there were hundreds of dug up human faces covered with lime impregnation. I heard that these cult members took human faces in order to offer sacrifices to evil spirits as a ceremony to launch a curse; some people said that it was a cult organization of frontier ethnic groups such as Miao and Ji, who would come out to make trouble every time they were in the boudoir year.

The first time I read this note, I couldn't help but imagine the victim's death, shuddered, and was deeply impressed. So, when I see the end of the "Mantra" now, as soon as I see the true face of the big black Buddha, I immediately think of this record in the Qing Dynasty. Coincidentally:

 The faces of these victims have been hollowed out to look like a big hole, isn't it very similar to the sunken beehive face of the Big Black Buddha? Evil ghosts need human faces to sacrifice, isn't it very similar to the big black Buddha's mother taking human faces? Not to mention that this group of cult demons is also rampant in Yunnan, which is the origin of the Big Black Buddha...

Wonder if the inspiration for the movie was influenced by this note? Or is the resemblance purely coincidental? If you want to shoot the origin story of "Curse", it is recommended that the screenwriter refer to it.

In any case, to me, " people without faces " are more terrifying than " people without heads. " Because when you see a person without a head, no matter whether he moves or not, he must be scared and run away immediately; but when you see a person with his back to you or his head lying on the ground, maybe For the first time, like A Yuan, I think he is a living person, and I want to call him;

However, at the moment you can see it, there is a huge gap with your expectations.