Uzumaki

Uzumaki is the film adaptation of Junji Ito's very awesome Spiral (Uzumaki) manga. It came out in year 2000 and never really caught on in the west. Its got elements of fantasy and absurdity that makes it atypical in its genre.

Summary/Spoilers:
A quiet little town in Japan is haunted by an abstract spirit: the spiral shape. Kirie is a nice girl living in the town with her potter father. One day she spots her boyfriend Shuichi's father filming a snail. When asked Shuichi tells her he's been depressed lately because his father's been infected by spirals. He implores Kirie to run away with him, believing the entire town to be possessed by spirals. Kirie dismisses him, but soon the spiral curse begins to manifest and the town becomes consumed by it.

From there on the film follows the generally linear storyline of Shuichi's family, his father's descent into madness and his mother's breakdown. There are many small side stories, like in the original manga.

Here are some spiral manifestations:

A boy infatuated with Kirie throws himself in front of a car and gets spiraled up by the wheels.
A girl begins to have spirals in her hair, and attracts positive attention because of it. The spirals get more and more ridiculous and big until they touch electric wires and kill her.

Hairgirl in Manga

hairgirl in movie

A classmate who liked staring down the central school staircases (because they spiral) is drawn in and jumps to his death, smearing his brains right in the center of the spiral.
Snail people. I'm rather sad they cut out the hermaphrodite scene. It was a gross-out in the manga.

In the end Shuichi is taken by the spiral curse and twists towards Kirie like a long noodle. The film ends with Kirie's voice intro, leaving it unclear whether she escaped.

Thoughts:
As a film adaptation (or live action of sorts) of a manga, its very impressive. Other than Shuichi's unnecessarily pasty Hitler hair, all the other characters are straight out of the manga. Granted this isn't a manga with exaggerated characters and crazy hair styles, still, I felt the directors took some care in casting and everyone fit their roles perfectly. A lot of scenes were straight out of the book. Its regrettable the film wasn't a complete adaptation, as the last parts of the book were all-out insane. I would've loved to see masses of tangled spiral people writhing about, not to mention the hilarious 'Hair-off' between Kirie and spiralhair girl.

Shuichi whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

straight outta the source material. props!

Don't expect to be scared senseless. Though Junji Ito's works are labeled as horror, there are only a handful that are truly frightening. Most are of the deliciously twisted category and all are very very interesting. Spiral has its moments, but its really just a demonstration of Junji Ito's talents at making crazy, creepy tales out of the most random subjects. This film isn't the sort of Japanese horror that leaves the viewer paranoid and dogged by nightmares for weeks, months, and years(maybe its just me). There is no real after effect. All those with a morbid fear of Asian horror cinema (like yours truly) can watch in peace and enjoy some very imaginative horror imagery.

Things that Struck Me:
I thought a film about spirals would make me motionsick. It didn't. In fact this film had the slowest, most drawn out camera pan out I've ever seen, and it didn't even amount to a scare scene!

Lots of green. I think its suppose to be eerie, but instead just reminds me of Goosebumps.

The film featured some really gross-out scenes. It was disturbing, but I interpreted it as absurdist humor.

The scariest & most ridiculous scene of the whole film

TL;DR
A quirky, non-scary Asian scary movie with a Spiral theme. Anyone who read the manga should give this a go. Anyone who hasn't should read the manga, and then give this a go. Its only three volumes. I finished it in one sitting in the public library.

Spiral film readiness test: if you're scared of this don't watch the film

Watch Uzumaki: