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So a few years ago I saw a film called Uzumaki. It was a Japanese horror film, one of the creepier, more bizarre movies I’d ever seen. The movie was about a town obsessed with spirals; that odd, repeating pattern that occurs often in nature and human art. The movie featured a variety of weirdness, including a boy who turned into a snail, spiral-patterned cremation smoke and a girl whose hair curled and took on a life of its own. I slept with my head under the covers that night.

I picked up the original Uzumaki manga by Junji Ito because I liked the movie and was curious to see how it differed from the original three-volume story. It differs quite a bit. The plot is mostly the same, though cut quite a bit shorter in the film. The main difference is that the manga is far, far, far more disturbing than the movie.

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