Uzumaki (2000)

Directed by Higuchinsky [Other horror films: Nagai yume (2000)]

Based on a manga, this Japanese film is quite different. It’s not a film I can easily compare to others, and while I don’t think it really transcends into greatness, I can say that Uzumaki is an experience worth having at least once.

Known as Spiral, I first heard of this one via Wizard magazine. See, along with being a fan of horror movies, I’m also a comic book collector, and back in the day, I’d pick up the odd issue of Wizard. In one of these, there was a countdown of 25 scariest scenes from comics books, and the magna Spiral was referenced. It sounded intriguing, but not being a magna guy, I didn’t expect to ever read it. Shortley thereafter, I found out there was a movie based on it, and so I was interested from hello.

As such, I’d have expected the movie to feel a little more unsettling. Certainly the base plot is, being a small town is slowly taken over by an obsession with spirals (or as a character say, the town is cursed by spirals). Things start slowly at first, such as collecting items that possess spirals, or videotaping snails (their shell patterns are all the rage), but as the film goes on, it gets to the truly bizarre, as some of the kids design their hair in impossible spiral patterns, a woman cuts off her fingerprints (spirals, man), and humans slowly turn into snails for some reason.

There are potential answers hinted at, at least in the vaguest sense, but an unfortunate accident befalls the individual with the answers (which, at least in part, revolve around a nearby lake, called Dragonfly Pond), and so everything is left open-ended. To be honest, I don’t know if the finale here is entirely satisfactory – no doubt it’s creepy at times, but satisfactory? Not so much. Even so, which such a unique plot, it’s hard not to feel at least a little bit charmed by it.

Only four performances ultimately really matter, and all of them did well. Leads Eriko Hatsune and Fhi Fan did well, and I thought they complimented each other throughout (I particularly enjoyed Fan’s character’s serious disposition). Masami Horiuchi’s character gets the closest to figuring things out, but he doesn’t get the chance to let others know, and for the creepy factor, Ren Ôsugi did great.

As you might be able to tell, Uzumaki is a bizarre movie. I don’t know if it’s as bizarre as it could have been, and things do move quite quickly toward the ending, but it’s still creepy, and has a pretty good atmosphere, along with, of course, a memorable idea.

I’ve not read the manga, and let’s be honest – I probably never will. Magna’s just not my thing. At least we have this, though, and while Uzumaki isn’t a great movie, and again, I don’t think the finale really gives the whole film justice, but it is a movie I won’t soon forget, and I at least think the idea here is among one of the most interesting ideas I’ve seen in a horror film.

7/10