Uzumaki

This film Uzumaki "The Vortex" is a pretty weird experiment in cinema and a proud part of my vast movie collection,its a strange movie about a town that gets posessed or cursed by the VORTEX damnation,A lot of people start going insane about the shapes of the spiral in the VORTEX to the point in which some choose to die by becoming a VORTEX themselves, I know that whats new is J-Horror or Japanese Horror as people know, but this film really takes the cake, it has no visible comparition to any other J-Horror movie (Ringu,etc,etc) because its a twister of twisted material for your eyes, its a nightmare from which its hard to wake up. I really recommend this film for Japanese Horror movie fans and weird movie fans like Eraserhead and stuff that plays with your mind, the movie is a little slow and has no start nor ending to the story, actually the ending is kind of stupid but the whole thing works. Check it out.Ill give it a good 9 out of 10 on Scare factor on J-Horror movies.

A town in Japan is being taken over by a horribly brutal abstract shape: the spiral. It's becoming a theme in everything from animals to clouds to people and twisting them, mentally and literally. This film shows it happening to several groups of people. Some demonic possession is implied, but nothing is entirely sure except that the best bet is to get the heck out of dodge. The film progresses really well from normal life to abnormal phenomena (giant snails and crazy people) to the truly supernatural (walking dead).

As a jaded American horror movie fan, this was just what I needed. Maybe it was just the novelty of a different culture's film, but it seemed to have a very original progression, set of characters, and the premise was definitely new. The Japanese may think "horror shapes" (uzumaki means "spiral," I'm told) are old by now, but it was nice for me because I'm used to monster/alien/virus/disaster/undead films. In an American movie, you know who's going to die (the annoying/nasty/lascivious/racist characters) and who will live (the children/heroine/dogs/cats/nice guy). That's not true in Japanese horror. It was not predictable how they would fight the evil or how it would end up. Also, it had this really new (but probably typically Japanese) color leached Pacific Northwest style cloudy day thing going, which was a fresh visual effect for me. The horrific moments were seriously creepy, relying on a little gore but mainly just impossibly overdone facial expressions (think The Ring) and body manipulations. This should be one of the greats, up there with once-original ideas like the first Nightmare on Elm Street or Night of the Living Dead.

As is frequently the case when Manga is translated into live action, there is quite a bit lost in the translation. However, this remains a highly entertaining film. The premise is unusual and it is presented in the quiet, understated style so prevalent in Japanese films (ha!). The special effects are a little 70s camp but, it adds to the comic book feel of the film. I wouldn't recommend this film to everyone but, if you are familiar with (and enjoyed) other Japanese horror films like "Evil Dead's Trap", this film will appeal to you.

This movie is actually pretty good at first. Stylishly directed with interesting visual ideas and an intriguing start. In spite of some spotty acting it feels pretty professional and well made. But the complete absence of any sort of explanation for the film's rather absurd concept is increasingly bothersome. At first I thought, perhaps it's a symbolic movie shot like a horror movie, but by the last third it had made it pretty clear that it was just a bad horror movie with a dumb premise and no interest in explaining it's seemingly random slew of events. One is left with nothing but loose ends and some last scenes that are utterly laughable. Still, parts of it are really cool and I did enjoy most of it, so I give it 6/10.

UZUMAKI (aka: SPIRAL) is a bizarre film, in a good way. It's about a high school girl named Kirie (Erico Hatsune), who lives in a small town in Japan. Right from the outset, things begin changing around her, leading to a sort of madness and death among those in her life. There's an odd obsession with spirals that appears to enter and take total control of the mind. This is presented in a truly disturbing way.

Is it a curse? Mass insanity? Something in the atmosphere?

There are several spiral shapes, like a snail shell, a beauty salon sign, a piece of pottery, etcetera. However, as you watch, you will notice spirals where there really shouldn't be any. This messes with the viewer's head, and really ups the creep factor. While there are some gruesome parts, it's the unsettling nature of the film that makes it scary.

Having watched this, it's hard to believe that Director Higuchinsky only made one other horror movie...