Wednesday

In last night's October-fest Movie-thon feature Uzumaki,* something strange is happening in the quaint little mountain town of Kurozou. It is being haunted--cursed really--by the symbol of the spiral (That's what the four Japanese characters transliterated to "uzumaki" mean, by the way). Obedient high school student Kirie doesn't know what to do. Her boyfriend's dad is slowly turning crazy: badgering her father for spiral-motif pottery, stalking around town with a camcorder filming random uzumaki, and surrounding himself with curlicue castoffs at home. It seems like a mere oddity until he commits extravagant suicide, spinning himself to death in the family washing machine. Soon there are patterns curling in the sky over the village crematorium, and reality is spinning around, too: students are growing swirly snail shells and extravagant curly hairdos. Those who resist the uzumaki fare no better: rejection of the ancient symbol prompts one survivor to shave the whorls off her fingertips and cut off her own ears. Are all the townies doomed? The nice thing about Uzumaki is that it isn't self-consciously odd: weird things are happening but the characters aren't laughing, they're terrified. The movie wields its wicked wit through passé, and also stomach-turning, moments of realism before counteracting with the later mind-warping excesses. This effective counterpoint lends a snarky, sneaky menace to the growing unnaturalism of the plot. Strange camera angles and editing add to the air of otherworldliness, as does the bizarre use of mutated color and the assault of spooky sounds. Who knew that listening to the many feet of a millipede spiraling up the metal banister of a hospital bed could be so scary? The whole movie is similarly effective. Making a point to avoid gotcha startles, it prefers to terrorize with a steadily creeping, encircling doom. Highly recommended. [Cavin]