10 Body Horror Movies That'll Make You Squirm
4. Uzumaki
No, not the soon-to-be 2020 animation teased by Adult Swim.
When it comes to manga, no one does body horror like Junji Ito. With some of the most disgusting imagery to grace the pages of a book, his illustrations are the definition of “nightmare fuel.” And in the year 2000 those nightmares were brought to the silver screen.
When watching Uzumaki, some fans may notice it only covers one third of the original story, then rounds off into a different ending. This is because it was made as the manga was still being released. Due to this, the film was very close time-wise to the source – and it shows.
Bringing Ito’s illustrations into the live action world can’t be easy, but somehow Uzumaki manages to do so. The curse of the spiral rings throughout the shots of the film. Eyes rolling unnaturally is their skull; a body curled into a barrel; legs and arms twisting around each other like spaghetti.
The body horror of Uzumaki comes from the incomprehensible nature of the subject. The deaths the characters undergo are impossible; they couldn’t happen in nature or, in fact, reality.
It’s the horror of the complete unknown invading human biology and twisting it into something eldritch and unrecognisable.
Even the regular deaths in the film are somehow warped to become strange: when Kirie’s stalker is hit by a car, his body curls around the front wheel, becoming a spiral.
It’s safe to say, there’s no other film like it.