Uzumaki

In small town Japan, a young female high school student named Kirie notices her boyfriend's (Shuichi) father, spellbound, videotaping a snail. As the film progresses the man becomes more and more obsessed with collecting any artifact that contains a spiral (uzumaki). This hysteria finally leads to his inevitable suicide via washing machine, in which he becomes an uzumaki, himself. After his death, and a subsequent vortex in the sky during his funeral, the townsfolk slowly become obsessed with this spiral design. One by one, they go mad and are consumed by this unknown evil. Some even mutate into giant snails, crawling up the walls of their local high school.

Uzumaki is an unusual horror hybrid, drawing on techniques from artists such as H.P. Lovecraft, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, and even Tim Burton (see: The Nightmare Before Christmas). There's a unique sense of hysteria, communicated through the use of exaggerated camera angles, image filtering, cross-fading, stop-motion, frenetic editing, and striking zooms.

The film also features an excellent sense of pacing that culminates in an extravagant, if experimental, montage of horrors that one must see to believe. It's also worth noting that Uzumaki stems from a manga series that contains three volumes. Apparently, the film is a condensed version of the first volume but it's much more open-ended. Many viewers may find themselves in the dark about the whole concept of the uzumaki and its mysticism, others may enjoy the overall cryptic nature of the film.

The DVD itself does quite an admirable job at presenting visuals in a quality that acknowledges the film's distinctive aesthetics. At first glance, the image may seem suspicious. However, as the film progresses, one can't help but appreciate the transfer's highlighting of the film's haunting green hues. Sure, the transfer is a little murky on occasion but this probably has more to do with the film's budget constraints (it only cost about one million dollars).

The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The sound has been newly re-mixed in Dolby Digital 5.1 Stereo Surround in Japanese with optional English subtitles and there are lots of aural whooshes that make good use of front/rear channels, throughout the film.

DVD Extras are reasonably adequate. First, we get a playful making-of featurette that lasts nearly 11 minutes. It involves the shooting of some nifty sequences as well as a Q&A with the film's heroine, Kirie, played by the charming Eriko Hatsune. There is also some really bizarre, harp and piano music that plays frequently in the background.

The next featurette is intriguing, if somewhat pointless. It contains footage that Shuichi's father shot prior to his suicide. This feature lasts around 5 minutes and takes us through three locations. Unfortunately, we don't see any part of the suicide that we haven't already seen in the film.

The last extra is the film's theatrical trailer, which is (for the most part) really well executed and quite daring, that is, until the jarring Japanese pop music comes in and totally messes it up.

The main menu isn't too shoddy either. Who doesn't love a good ol' spiraling vortex accompanied by incessant shrieking every time you select a feature? -- Neil Karassik