The Scotto Grotto (org)

Speaking of spider webs…

Mike lent me a copy of Uzumaki, on VCD and it had some interesting themes…I think if I can get it back, I’ll burn a copy.

It starts in a small Japanese town, where one man becomes obsessed with spirals. Strange things start to happen, with spirals nearby: someone falls to his death down a spiral staircase, the aforementioned spiral-obsessed man climbs into a spin dryer, and so on. Eventually, things start to get downright bizarre, such as students slowly turning into snails, and you start to realize that the clouds in the background are becoming spiral-shaped. A reporter discovers a possible link between spirals and a snake-worshipping cult whose mirrors were discovered in the local pond, but before he can tell anyone else he’s killed in a suspicious (and messy) car accident, in which the fracture patterns on his windshield are… you guessed it… spirals. A woman who is terrified of spirals ends up cutting the skin off her fingertips to remove her spiral fingerprints. All sorts of spirals make it into the film: the inner ear, wave patterns in water, curled-up millipedes. The local police chief discovers the spiral rifling in the barrel of his gun, with the expected results. Eventually a single resident escapes, and she’s the one who’s been telling you the whole story.

The best thing about it is that there’s no real villain in the film; it’s all about obsession and reality slowly and irrevocably being twisted into… something else. By the time people realize that something’s going on, it’s generally too late and they’re under the effect. If anyone told me before I saw this that a film could be made with the “monster” being a shape, I would have laughed.

Maybe I’ll see if I can Kazaa it down.