Kyle's Rating: The book is always better!
Kyle's Review: I’m not sure what made me pick up the first volume of the collected Uzumaki, Junji Ito’s incredible horror manga. What made me finally put it down was a newfound fear of spirals, anything that looked like a centipede, and a creaking sound emanating from my attic which I ultimately learned was SATAN HIMSELF!!!! But that’s a story for another time.

Uzumaki the manga (a fancy way of saying “Japanese comic book”) is available here in the United States in three volumes of reprints, with the third and final volume being released a few months from now. If you want to experience a bizarre yet beautiful phantasmagoria that will repulse you even as it impresses you with a wealth of creativity and dedicated research, I strongly suggest you check out the books first and foremost. If you never learned to read, or you love the books and want to see how it all translates to the screen, then it’s worth checking out the film adaptation of Uzumaki. But if you really dig the manga (as I do) then be prepared for disappointment. But if you’re illiterate, have a bad memory, or just skipped to this part of the review already because you just hate to read, hey, seek out this film and check it out! It’s killer!

Okay, so there is this hot young schoolgirl (aren’t they all?) named Kirie Goshima (no relation to Mr. Mister) who lives in the tiny town of Kurozu-cho (there should be an accent over the first “o” but I don’t know how to do it!), located on the coast of Japan (I like to add extraneous information to sentences, via parentheses. Try it! It’s fun!). She has a boyfriend, Shuichi, but he’s real quiet, withdrawn, and probably likes The Cure and various depressing yet critically acclaimed music bands. However, we soon learn that he’s so down because his dad has gone from caring father to a nut job who has found a new hobby/obsession: spirals. This guy is crazy about spirals! He collects anything with a spiral on it, he watches snails carry their spiral-adorned shells around, and when there are no more spiral patterned fishcakes at dinner he spins his miso soup with a spoon and watches the spinning spiral that forms. Kind of reminds you of your crazy uncle who no one really talks about except at holidays, eh? Anyway, Shuichi is convinced that his dad has been contaminated by a vague curse on the town that somehow relates to the power of the spiral, and when all hell starts breaking loose and madness starts creeping in from the edges of reality it looks like Shuichi is right on the money. Too bad spiral go on and on, so escape is not really an option . . .

Unfortunately, my verbose and intelligent prose most accurately illustrates how cool a person I am, and only hints at how scary Uzumaki is. Even more unfortunate is that the film version of Uzumaki only hints at the plot developments of the manga, so that unless you go in knowing what’s going to happen because you already read the story, you won’t have a clue as to what’s going on. Very important deaths and clues look great in the film, yet unless I knew (as I did from the manga) who this person was or what this ***** was, I would be totally lost and my viewing experience would suffer and I would stuff myself with cheese popcorn, ruing the day I listened to the advice of Kyle, the most idiotic and overly-wordy of the Mutant reviewers. But, wait, I’m Kyle. This is weird.

But that brings me to the biggest strength of the film Uzumaki: the dreamlike presentation of everything. I taped this film off of a cable channel (thanks, Robert Redford) so it’s not like I had a crystal clear copy, but visually this film is pretty stunning. Kirie (the very attractive Eriko Hatsune) and friends look great running around Kurozu-cho, while the tiny town seems like a labyrinth, or a spiral maze! Dang it, do you seem how spirals are everywhere?!? There’s one behind you now! Run!

Also, the visual effects are effective. Without ruining any plot points, the body contortions, cloud patterns, and gruesome deaths are all incredible visually and morally repugnant (because they look so scary!). And don’t get me started on the human snails! Yep, everything looks great. It’s just that story that really brings it all down . . .

See, the manga is all story, and it is fantastic. I mean, it is thought provoking and terrifying and mind-numbingly creative. The movie, which had this great manga to work off of, seems to have just focused on the gross stuff and taken the plot development for granted, with the resulting film looking wonderful but not really telling any kind of story in-between money-shots of blood and death. The girl is hot and nothing beats seeing people get twisted into spirals, but if you really want to get scared and possibly mentally scarred for life (join me in the Uzumaki therapy group everything Thursday at the local YMCA) go find and read the manga. It’s creepy! Then, and only then, give this film a try.