UZUMAKI (a.k.a. SPIRAL)

For years filmmakers have been adapting the works of H.P. Lovecraft to the screen, usually with less than satisfying results, but this Japanese horror thriller captures the spirit of a Lovecraft story better than any other film.

Kirie Goshima (Eriko Hatsune, who has gone on to star in more horror projects) is a typical schoolgirl in the mountain village of Kurozu. On her way to meet her moody boyfriend Shuichi Saito (Fhi Fan) outside of town after school, she sees Shuichi's dad (Ren Osugi) staring transfixed, videotaping the shell of a snail on a wall. Her own father has become a prize-winning potter, and that night Mr. Saito records him at work, requesting a spiral pattern platter be made on his potter's wheel. At school the next day, a schoolmate plummets down the shaft of a spiral staircase, shocking the entire community.

Strange, brooding Shuichi says that the village is cursed by the uzumaki ("spirals"). His father has gone mad from his obsession with the pattern, stealing the swirling beauty salon sign, demanding spiral noodles in his miso soup, and even spinning his own eyes outrageously. The situation becomes increasingly surreal, with vortexes appearing everywhere. A slow-moving student comes to class covered in slime, and seems to be growing a spiral hump on his back, coming to resemble a snail more and more.

Mr. Saito's obsession reaches its ultimate form with his unique and horrifying suicide. At his funeral, smoke from the crematorium forms a huge spiraling cloud over the village. The incident gives Mrs. Saito (Keiko Takahashi) an extreme case of spirophobia, to the point that she can't stand the whorls in her own fingerprints, and takes extreme measures to avoid them. A reporter named Tamura (Masami Horiuchi) does some research into the phenomenon, and theorizes the mystery has something to do with a serpent cult that operated in the area in ancient times. As faces appear in the clouds, and humans begin to transform into huge snails, the number of spiromaniacs in town continues to increase, and Kurozu's spiral curse is bringing them all to the edge of doom.

David Lynch meets David Cronenberg in Japan for this very creepy movie, whose only drawback is the ending, which leaves too much unresolved and begs for a sequel. Perhaps the original manga series on which it's based continued the story. It's not to be confused with the similarly titled 1998 RINGU sequel RASEN ("The Spiral"), although UZUMAKI is part of the same Japanese horror renaissance that took place in the late 1990s. Ukrainian born director Higuchinsky (Akihiro Higuchi) knows when to be subtle and when to pile on the shocks. Good use is made of digital effects - spirals are even added to the backgrounds of some scenes, swirling on the ground or a wall and the entire film is given a disturbing greenish tint, which some international video releases have unknowingly corrected. Elite's sharp new transfer retains every unsettling detail, and the 5.1 Dolby soundtrack mix keeps you guessing where the menace will strike next.

The DVD's fittingly swirling menus also offer an 11 minute behind-the-scenes footage/interview featurette, including some footage that shows how some of the f/x were achieved without over-explaining. There's also about 5 minutes of the actual camcorder footage shot by "Mr. Saito", and the original Japanese trailer. All extras, presumably taken from the Japanese DVD release, include removable English subtitles. A snail image at the center of the main menu looks like it should lead to an Easter Egg, but no such luck.