Spiral (1998)


Most people are aware of Ring 2, the rather disappointing sequel to 1998's Ringu.  It was a bit of a mess, going off in numerous directions and relegating Sadako to a mere afterthought throughout the majority of the film.  Those expecting her to continue claiming victims by crawling out a television set were quite disappointed.

However, Ring 2 had been made with a purpose.  When Ringu was in production it was decided to begin making the sequel, Spiral, at the same time.  Also based on a book by Kôji Suzuki, this was the movie he spent a lot of time on, cowriting the film adaptation with director Jôji Iida.  However, where Ringu became a major box office smash and, elsewhere, a cult hit, Spiral failed so badly that Ring 2 was rushed into production to make up for it.  The truth is that neither sequel does much to carry on the original story. 

Mitsuo Andô (Kôichi Satô) is a pathologist on the brink of suicide who blames himself for his son's death.  After yet another attempt he receives a call from his colleague Miyashita (Shingo Tsurumi) that he has a new autopsy scheduled, and it happens to be someone he knows: Ryûji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada).  Takayama and Andô attended medical school together and the former was known for being able to predict the future.  

Andô also soon meets Mai Takano (Miki Nakatani), Takayama's girlfriend, who is able to read minds when touching someone.  Together they try to investigate further into the strange videotape that led to numerous deaths, with Andô thinking that he has ended Sadako's (Hinako Saeki) curse by destroying it.  Unfortunately, it lives on as a virus, passed not only by the videotape but also by Reiko Asakawa's diary.  With the fate of the world at stake Andô must find a way to contain it before Sadako's plans are realized.

While this doesn't go in as many directions as Ring 2 this is still not a satisfying sequel to Ringu.  Despite being more of what Suzuki wanted it once again makes Sadako a background character that, until the very end, doesn't affect much.  It also tries to add scientific and technical mumbo-jumbo which, unfortunately, are about as accurate as anything out of a Godzilla film.  

Mai played a small part in Ringu and, like its other sequel, she becomes quite a bit more important this time around.  While she continues to have the same powers her role is quite different, as she was more of a main character in the official sequel and is more of a supporting character in Spiral.  The purpose she serves would be a lot more interesting if handled better, but things just get muddy in the end.

I can understand why audiences were not happy.  They had just seen one of the best horror movies of the 1990s only to have it followed up at the same time with this lackluster, and somewhat tedious, piece of cinema.  I wouldn't say that the main Ring series has been great past the original film, but even the American films (save for Rings) have been better than this.

Spiral (1998)
Time: 97 minutes
Starring: Kôichi Satô, Miki Nakatani
Director: Jôji Iida

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eyes Without a Face (1960)

Image
A large portion of the world likes being scared.  This seems to be one thing we all share.  At some point when there were just a few homo sapiens gathered around a fire I am sure they told stories of old Gak who had his arm replaced with a mammoth tusk and terrorized some teenagers making outside of camp when they should have been hunting and gathering.  Everyone enjoys a good scare. Except, apparently, for the French.  Eyes Without a Face came out square in the middle of the French New Wave, a series of films that guys in the late 1950s and early 1960s pretended to understand to impress their girlfriends.  In contrast Georges Franju's film was pretty straightforward.  Although he nominally was more interested in exploring depression and loss, the framework was that of a typical mad scientist film.  However, Franju's surrealist touches set it aside from normal b-movie fare.   Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is a brilliant surgeon working in t...
Read more

The Resurrected (1991)

Image
Dan O'Bannon was known for a few things, other than being extremely difficult to work with.  He cowrote and co-starred in Dark Star , wrote Alien and directed The Return of the Living Dead .  Because of the latter he has his own version of zombies named after him.  While he had issues he wasn't the only one in his field that did, and his supposed problems seem tame when compared with a lot of eccentric directors.  Whatever the case, he had early success with his movies and was considered to be quite brilliant.  Therefore, it is a bit of surprise that he only directed two feature films and one of those is almost impossible to find.  Private investigator John March (John Terry) is contacted by Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) to find out what her husband Charles (Chris Sarandon) is up to.  He has been acting strange as of late and recently moved into an old farmhouse in rural Rhode Island that had once been owned by a  man named Joseph Curwen (Sarandon)....
Read more

Looper (2012)

Image
Looper  was writer and director Rian Johnson's third feature film and first major success.  A major departure from the movie he had done prior, it required immense worldbuilding, a major amount of attention to making the time travel plot plausible and the ability to do so on only a moderate budget.  However, it was a gamble that paid off in major ways for Johnson, at least in the short term. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a looper, which is basically a hired assassin who takes care of people that a crime syndicate 30 years in the future wants gone.  They send them back to his time - a dismal, dystopian United States in 2044 - to be shot, for which he earns silver bars that he can spend.  What he mainly spends it on is whores and drugs, but it's because he knows that, in the end, he will have to close his own loop.  That means ultimately killing an older version of himself. When Joe's friend Seth (Paul Dano) faces just that and fails he is asked by local crim...
Read more