Spiraling Down the Drain
Uzumaki, based on Junji Ito’s manga masterpiece, should have been the cinematic equivalent of a fever dream: grotesque, disturbing, and unforgettable. Instead, it feels like someone filmed a high school theater class inside a laundromat and called it “art.” Spirals may be hypnotic, but this movie will not put you in a trance—it will just make you dizzy with confusion and regret.
Plot: Like Watching a Toilet Flush for Two Hours
The town of Kurouzu-cho is cursed by spirals. Yes, spirals. The same shape you see in snail shells, curly fries, and that sketch you doodle when you’re bored in meetings. The curse manifests in increasingly absurd ways. Shuichi’s dad, for example, becomes obsessed with spirals, eats miso soup in a weird whirlpool fashion, and then decides the best way to embrace the spiral lifestyle is to climb into a washing machine and die. OSHA should put this movie on a loop as a workplace safety PSA.
Then his widow develops a spiral phobia. She chops off her hair and fingertips to avoid spiral shapes, which is admittedly hardcore but also feels like the director mistook “body horror” for “Pinterest DIY nightmare fuel.” Her storyline ends with a millipede trying to crawl into her ear. Romantic, huh? If your dead husband ever reincarnates as a bug, maybe it’s time to switch religions.
Meanwhile, the local teens start turning into snails. Actual snails. They ooze around school and drink like dehydrated frat boys. One kid sprouts a shell, and instead of panicking, everyone just sort of shrugs like it’s finals week. This is less “terrifying horror” and more “Animal Planet on cough syrup.”
Characters: Flat as a Pancake, Without the Spiral
Kirie (Eriko Hatsune) is our heroine, but she’s about as active as a screen saver. Her main role is to stare blankly as the world literally twists itself to death around her. Shuichi (Fhi Fan), her boyfriend, spends the movie looking like he accidentally walked onto the wrong set but is too polite to leave. Together, they have the chemistry of two cardboard boxes leaning against each other in a light breeze.
Supporting characters are even worse:
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Sekino, whose hair takes over her brain. Imagine Rapunzel, but instead of saving princes, her curls strangle lamp posts.
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Tamura the Reporter, who treats spirals like his Pulitzer ticket, only to end up with his head smushed into a windshield spiral crack. Journalism at its finest.
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Random Snail People, who become the real stars because at least they commit to the bit.
Special Effects: The Real Curse
The CGI in Uzumaki looks like it was rendered on a Nintendo 64 during a power outage. Spirals appear in the sky as if someone slapped a Photoshop filter on the film reel. The snail transformations are less horrifying mutation and more “Dollar Store Halloween costume with extra Vaseline.” And don’t get me started on the snake-like hair sequence—it looks like Medusa’s bad hair day filmed through a funhouse mirror.
Junji Ito’s manga is notorious for its grotesque, disturbing imagery, but this adaptation turns nightmare fuel into clip-art horror. It’s like asking H.R. Giger to design your haunted house and then hiring Bob Ross to paint it instead.
Pacing: Spirals… of Boredom
The movie wants to be a slow burn, but it’s really just slow. Entire minutes pass with people staring at spirals, spirals in soup, spirals in smoke, spirals in hair—look, we get it, the shape is cursed. By the halfway point, you’ll wish the curse had infected the editor so they could’ve cut 40 minutes from the runtime.
Tone: Between Horror and Comedy, Stuck in the Spin Cycle
There’s a fine line between disturbing and ridiculous. Uzumaki crosses that line, runs a marathon past it, and builds a snail shell condo there. When a boy gets twisted around a car axle and becomes literal roadkill spaghetti, you’re not horrified—you’re laughing, because it looks like something out of Looney Tunes After Dark.
Instead of dread, the movie inspires confusion. Should you scream? Should you laugh? Should you just order pizza and let the spirals win?
Ending: Don’t Hold Your Breath (Unless You’re a Snail)
By the climax, Shuichi starts twisting into a human corkscrew and begs Kirie to join him in Spiral Land. She declines (a rare moment of good judgment) and flees, leaving his body to resemble a soft pretzel abandoned at the fair. The movie ends on ambiguity, which is a polite way of saying “we didn’t know how to end this, so… spirals!”
Performances: Spiraling Out of Control
The actors can’t decide if they’re in a serious horror or an unintentional parody. Eriko Hatsune alternates between deadpan shock and high-pitched screaming, like she’s auditioning for two completely different films. Fhi Fan spends most of his screen time squinting as though he’s trying to read the script from across the room. The rest of the cast delivers their lines with the conviction of people who know their paycheck is already in the mail.
The Real Horror: Disappointing Junji Ito
Junji Ito’s manga is a work of art: grotesque, surreal, terrifying. The movie is like taking a Michelin-star recipe and microwaving it with expired leftovers. The source material deserved practical effects, visionary directing, and actors who could sell the cosmic dread of being consumed by a spiral curse. Instead, we got a made-for-TV oddity that looks like it was filmed in someone’s uncle’s garage.
Final Thoughts: A Cinematic Black Hole
Uzumaki the movie is proof that not all great manga should be adapted, especially if your budget is smaller than a middle school science project. What should have been a descent into body-horror madness turns into a goofy, poorly paced, snail-centric mess. Watching it feels like being trapped in a spiral yourself: you keep going in circles, hoping for something profound, only to end up in the same puddle of disappointment.
