If you’ve ever thought, “Found-footage horror is fine, but what if it also roasted YouTube culture, true-crime obsessives, and Quebec winters at the same time?” — Curse of Aurore is very much your cursed little USB stick.
This is one of those movies that sounds generic on paper—dark web mystery box, lost footage, dead child, creepy rural town—but ends up feeling way more unnerving and weirdly fun than it has any right to be. It’s like someone took a standard possession flick, fed it through a French-Canadian meat grinder, and then mailed the remains to a YouTuber as “content.”
And somehow, it works.
Found Footage, but Make It Extremely Online
Instead of the usual “we found this tape in a basement” setup, Curse of Aurore opens with real YouTuber Casey Nolanunboxing a dark web mystery box on a livestream. Already, that’s hilarious and depressing: of course in 2020, cursed evidence of a ritual murder would come packaged like a loot crate for aspiring victims.
Inside:
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Creepy artifacts
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Blood-stained odds and ends
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And a USB drive labelled like the world’s worst homework assignment
He then does what any responsible adult would do in this situation: plugs it in on camera and hits play.
So the whole film becomes this video-within-a-video: Casey reacting to the footage as we watch the footage. It’s a clever twist on the found-footage format: you’re not just watching “raw evidence,” you’re watching content consumption — the modern ritual where horror isn’t just experienced, it’s reacted to, liked, and monetized.
It also gives the whole thing a nasty, cynical edge: by the end, you’re not totally sure whether you’re watching a horror movie, a snuff film, or the inevitable end stage of influencer culture.
Fun!
Three Filmmakers, One Terrible Vacation
The USB footage chronicles three American filmmakers:
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Lena (Llana Barron) – local Québécoise, emotional center, bad at life choices, decent at poutine.
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Aaron (Lex Wilson) – the cameraman, the quiet observer, low-key the audience surrogate.
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Kevin (Jordan Kaplan) – the kind of guy who thinks stealing cursed objects is “good for the story.”
They’re traveling to rural Quebec to research and develop a project based on the real-life case of Aurore Gagnon, a little girl abused and killed by her parents in the 1920s. Lighthearted stuff!
From the moment they arrive, it’s clear they are:
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Outsiders
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Blissfully unaware of just how unwelcome they are
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Doomed
They eat poutine, joke about their careers, and bicker about story structure and breakups, while the locals stare at them like they’re already dead. It’s honestly impressive how long it takes them to realize that they, in fact, are not the main characters in this town.
Quebec: Snow, Poutine, and Extremely Bad Vibes
One of the film’s biggest strengths is how normal it all feels at first.
They crash at Lena’s family cottage. They joke in the car. They try to be artsy. In the background, though, the weirdness creeps in:
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An apparition photobombs them at the cottage like it’s just another guest.
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A hatch door slams shut upstairs on its own — repeatedly.
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Lena spies a ritual gathering at a neighbor’s house — chanting, people going inside, like a PTA meeting for Satan.
The trio’s decision to turn Aurore’s tragedy into a film becomes this running moral discomfort in the background. They’re technically “artists,” but they’re also absolutely exploiting a horrible story for their careers, and the movie never lets that sit entirely comfortably.
It’s as if the land itself is going, “Oh, you came here to profit off a dead girl? Great, let’s see what we can do for you.”
The Locals Are Not Okay (and Neither Are You)
Things escalate once they visit Fortierville, Aurore’s hometown. Highlights include:
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A priest refusing to let them film in the church, which is always a good sign.
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The grave of Aurore, where they meet Chantal, an old friend of Lena’s who cheerfully arranges a tour of Aurore’s childhood home, because nothing says “welcome back” like “come visit the murder house.”
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Lena getting increasing déjà vu-level vibes that they’re in over their heads, which of course everyone ignores.
Then they meet Benoit and Blanche, a delightfully bizarre farmhouse couple straight out of “Do not accept soup here” folklore. Blanche, a spiritualist, reads Lena’s tarot and pulls three death cards in a row, which is about as subtle as being hit with a hearse.
Do they leave?
Absolutely not. They steal Blanche’s occult book, Languages of the Dead, because Kevin is the kind of person who sees “ancient cursed volume” and thinks “production value.”
Let’s Hold a Séance, What Could Go Wrong?
Back at the cottage, tensions rise:
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Kevin wants a more “authentic” film (translation: more dangerous and exploitative).
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Lena is stressed and clearly being affected by something unseen.
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Aaron is stuck in the middle, camera rolling, silently regretting his life choices.
They decide to perform a séance using:
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The stolen occult book
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The crucifix from Aurore’s locked bedroom door (good job breaking that, Kevin)
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Their last fragments of common sense, which evaporate almost instantly
At first nothing happens… until the pizza burns, the smoke alarm shrieks, and then the house itself seems to lose its mind:
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Cabinets slam open
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Objects fly
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The whole structure shakes like it’s trying to shrug them off
Blanche shows up to inspect the chaos (as you do), but flees when Kevin reveals fresh bloody scratches rising on his stomach in real time, as if he’s being scored by invisible claws.
At this point, even the audience is yelling “leave,” but the trio pushes on. Because “we can’t leave, we don’t have an ending yet” is honestly the most cursed indie filmmaker energy imaginable.
Rituals, Pitchforks, and Consequences
Things go rapidly, violently downhill from there:
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The trio notice townsfolk gathering and chanting outside, like a particularly unfriendly community watch.
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Kevin disappears, screaming somewhere in the dark.
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Lena and Aaron follow the sounds to a barn, because apparently not one of them has ever seen a horror movie in their lives.
Inside, they discover:
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Chantal’s uncle bound on a makeshift altar
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Kevin’s decapitated body hanging like meat
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A circle of chanting villagers fully committed to their Folk Horror Aesthetic™
It plays like an unholy mix between The Wicker Man and small-town Facebook groups. Lena and Aaron plead for their lives, the camera jostles, there’s a blow to the head, and the footage cuts out.
And then we’re back with Casey Nolan.
The Real Final Scare: The Comments Section
Casey wraps up his video like he’s just watched a weird short film and not, you know, evidence of ritual slaughter:
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He says he’ll “turn it over to the authorities.”
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He invites anyone who recognizes the people or places to contact him.
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He signs off like a YouTuber wrapping up a reaction video, and we’re left with that wonderfully nasty aftertaste:
Did we just participate in the exact exploitation the movie was critiquing?
That’s the quiet genius of Curse of Aurore. It’s not just about a cursed story — it’s about how, in the age of streaming and “mystery boxes,” grief, horror, and trauma become content. The film leans into that discomfort and lets it sit with you like bad poutine.
Why It Works (Even Though It Really Shouldn’t)
On paper, this movie could have been a disaster:
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Found footage
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Dark web gimmick
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Dead child legend
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Rural cult
That’s a bingo card of clichés. But Curse of Aurore gets a lot right:
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The acting feels natural. The trio actually sound like real friends on a low-budget shoot, not scripted archetypes.
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The scares are slow-burn. A door here, a shadow there, a tarot reading going very wrong — the supernatural builds gradually, which makes the final 20 minutes hit harder.
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The setting feels lived in. Rural Quebec isn’t just “spooky woods”; it feels like a real community with history, resentment, and no patience for outsiders with cameras.
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The dark humor is subtle. It’s not quippy or forced — it mostly comes from how tragically, recognizably human everyone is while doing absolutely horrible decision-making.
In the end, Curse of Aurore is like a grim little morality tale for the streaming generation:
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If you go digging for tragedy to turn into content, don’t be surprised when the tragedy digs back.
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If you steal from the dead, maybe don’t also break their crucifix and crack open their bedroom like a loot chest.
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And if a tarot reader pulls three death cards in a row, you don’t finish the reading. You finish packing.
It’s creepy, bleak, surprisingly smart, and yes, a little bit funny in that “I’m laughing because I, too, make terrible choices” sort of way.
Just… maybe don’t open any dark web boxes in the meantime.
