Uzumaki

 Title - Uzumaki
 Language - Japanese
 Genre - Horror, weird, curse

Uzumaki is an odd film.  The opening shot is of a body at the bottom of a spiral staircase.  Then we jump to Kirie, a school girl who wants to tell us what happened in her town.  As we follow Kirie and her friend Shuichi we find that there are quite a few strange character living in the town from the would be suitor of Kirie whose hobby is to try to scare her as much as possible to the tough girls who think that the main purpose of life is to be the centre of attention, then we have the boy who moves slowly and only comes to school when it rains.

Things only get stranger when Kirie sees Shuichi's father in the street, he is oblivious to everything except for the snails he is filming.  Kirie speaks to Shuichi about it and finds that Shuichi believes that his father is under the influence of a curse of vortex (the pattern of a spiral) and that his dad is obsessively collecting anything with a spiral.  As Shuichi’s farther gets more and more obsessed the strangeness of the town seems to increase as does his behaviour.  Shuichi’s mother throws out the collection of vortex related items hoping that it would stop his father's strange behaviours but it only makes things worst.  After Shuichi’s father dies the strangeness in the town only increases.

Uzumaki is a strange film.  The idea of curse of vortex was strange idea and i think that at least some of it was due to some cultural difference.  As well as the strange story line there are a number of strange camera angles and spiral effects that appear in the background all of these are there to make the viewer feel un at ease and to add a sense of vertigo to the film.

In some ways the film of Uzumaki is a bit like the ‘Final Destination’ films.  There are a number of strange, unexplained deaths, with the people in the village being stalked, not by death but by the curse.  Even some of those who survive are not safe from the vortex as it not only kills but twist, changes and mutates some of the villagers.

Like a lot of the Japanese films that make it over here (England) Uzumaki is is based on a manga and, to start with the film follows the manga quite well.  There are a couple of chapters missing from the film, for example there is a ‘Midwich cuckoo’ type chapter where most of the women in the village fall pregnant only to give birth to wasp children.  This is not in the film but, as the film concentrates on the vortex it doesn't matter.

The film focuses on Kirie and Shuichi but tries to include parts of the manga that concern other characters more and this seems to leave some parts of the plot not explained as much as they could be for example the manga fills out more about the what happens to the girls with spiral hair.  We see their fate but, if you've read the manga it makes a bit more sense.  There is also a lot more about the snails, one of whom plays a big part in the manga’s ending.

The ending of the film also seems to be a bit rushed, the female reporter is introduced but then is just left and there is a big chunk missing that is in the manga, if this was included it would make more sense that the film ends with Kirie repeating her first lines.

Uzumaki starts off as a good but strange film, the ending does not necessarily leave you with the closure it should and i found that giving it a second watch did show me more than the first time.  I think that some of the problems i had were because of cultural differences and the fact that, on the first view I may have missed a couple of the smaller points whilst I was reading the subtitles.  If you want to watch a film that has some interesting deaths and a lot of weirdness then why not give Uzumaki a watch.