The movie begins much like the Manga with Kirie and Shuichi, watching the events regarding his father Toshio Saito. Much like the manga he's obsessed with the spirals and his obsession leads to his suicide. The difference being, that unlike the Manga, where he twisted his body to fit in an old small wooden washtub, he instead puts himself in an electric washing machine and instead of Shuichi discovering it, Kirie discovers his corpse, eliminated the need for Shuichi to explain like he did in the manga. His whole story ends roughly the same. He gets cremated, his smoke and ashes turn into a spiral that trickles down Dragonfly pond. However here's where the differences start to occur even more.
For starters, Shuichi and Kirie are no longer the same age. In the Manga, both were 18 (forever) while in the movie, Shuichi is in his mid 20s while Kirie is 15. Second, where Kirie's mom was a recurring character in the manga, while in the movie she died before the events started. Her brother does not exist either.
Then you have their overall personalities being changed. In the Manga, Shuichi, was an eccentric, yet well-intentioned heroic character who could have avoided the curse all together had he not been so focused on getting Kirie the hell out of Dodge. Here, while it's easy to still feel bad for him due to what he has to witness in this movie, he comes across as slightly manipulative and more of a jerk. Granted he can be a jerk in the Manga sometimes, but it's often unintentional or during extreme stress. He unintentionally hurts Kirie or anyone around him when he flips out. Here, he's been manipulating her since they were kids making her overtly dependent on him. The only thing that hasn't changed was his warnings about the spiral curse, which even the movie can't bring themselves to say he's wrong on that. Then you have Kirie. While Manga Kirie can have moments where she can be stupid, something myself and Linkara before me have pointed out, she does develop as a character later on. Becoming more aware of the curse and only giving up because she's too tired and doesn't want to leave without Shuichi or her parents in the end. In this movie, it seems all she's good for is witnessing bad events and screaming.
Where the Manga was episodic, with each chapter dealing with an individual problem up until the last chapters. The filmmakers decided to have each variation of the curse all happening simultaneously with the movie showing it building up.
In the beginning act we see the events of Chapter 2 with Yukie's descent into Spiral-Phobia and we see the events of Chapter 6, 7 and 8. By showing the suicide that prompted Sekino to grow her hair into curls, Mitsuru scaring and stalking Kirie and Katayama in the beginning stages of his snail transformation. The movie also introduces Ichirou Tamura in place of Chie Maruyama as the reporter investigating the events. Only where Chie came into investigate the aftermath of the worst of it, Ichirou was investigating the mere beginning of it. Looking for clues to why Toshio would do what he did. For Saito asked Ichirou know Kurozu-Cho's history in an effort to add more to his spiral collection. As those chapters slowly get expanded on, Ichirou investigates footage Toshio filmed before his suicide. It showed him placing a mirror in the center of the washer tumbler before stepping in and getting spiralled. Becoming the first clue to the movie's version of the mystery. In a kind gesture, Ichirou drives Kirie home. As they talk about Shuichi, they nearly hit an apparition of Toshio, only for it really to be Kirie's Father Yasuo Goshima. Who had just returned from Dragonfly Pond collecting mud for his sculptures, beginning the events of Chapter 4 in the movie. As the events of the chapters begin to escalate, Ichirou goes to investigate the history of the town himself in an effort to figure out the significance of the mirror in the washing machine. He finds out that it symbolizes sinking a mirror into the bottom of a pond, which signifies a snake returning home to it's favourite water. Which in turn causes him to catch wind of a snake cult. Which leads him to an article regarding a Typhoon destroying the town decades back. Causing him to come to the conclusion that this phenomena is the result of a curse caused by said cult. I'll talk about that one in my conclusion. After Yukie is put in the hospital, Shuichi and Kirie are on their way back to Dragonfly pond to meet Ichirou who wants to share the information with them. Along the way they are confronted by Mitsuru who dies the same way he dies in the original chapter. Only instead of doing a stupid romantic gesture, by trying to stop an oncoming car with the power of love, he dies for a still stupid, but more rational under said stupid reason. In an effort to make sure she remembers him always, he intentionally commits suicide by car, rather than accidentally. Unlike the original chapter, it wasn't just a random car either. It was Ichirou's car. Causing him to lose control and crash into a pole. Killing him too and leaving a spiral shaped crack in the windshield. While this movie is way off on the story of the manga, I'll give it points for trying to at least mimic Junji Ito's style of sliver of hope ripped away by cosmic dread. Eventually Yukie kills herself putting Shuichi further in the deep end as he sees another cremation spiral in the sky. Forming apparitions of his mother and father, the mother screaming in anguish and the father devouring her. All while the chapters come to their own conclusions, with Chie appearing as an anchor recapping them. The two students and teacher turning into snail people. As well Sekino's hair becoming sentient and hypnotizing the student body. With the town slowly caving into spiral madness. All while a typhoon is slowly heading for town. Kirie and Shuichi go to look for Yasuo so they can get out of town, but as they search for him two things begin to happen. One, Shuichi's leg breaks on it's own. Two, her father finished the work, much like the manga, his pottery became warped after baking. However her father is no where in sight. Shuichi's other leg breaks and he discovers to his horror, not only can he not move, but his legs are twisting together, turning him into a spiral. As his body starts to turn more, Shuichi at first tells Kirie to run for it. He seems to die tragically only to come back as a twisting spiral demon intent on making Kirie a spiral too. Just as he grabs her, the movie smashes to black. Cutting to the next day. Showing the aftermath of the chapters, with Sekino's rotting husk hung by her hair. As well as Chie having worst luck as an extra than she did as a main character. With her news truck smashed and her along with her crew dead. Her body also turning into a snail person. A police officer having a spiral shaped gunshot wound in his head as their sloppy way of recreating Azami's iconic shot. Shuichi's twisted corpse is scene with many spirals drawn in the sand of which he lies. With Kirie no where to be seen. Finally the last shot of Dragonfly Pond, Yasuo's mud bucket afloat in the center, implying he may have drowned trying to get more mud. The typhoon hovering above it.
Now because the movie was being made before the Manga was even finished, obviously some changes had to be made on the fly. For example, the Spiral Curse appears to be more grounded. With each death being a bizarre accident or suicide and each spiral related obsession initially implied to be hallucination up until the transformation stuff started to happen. It didn't quite become supernatural until the snail people finished their transformations and Shuichi became a human snake. So naturally the more bizarre stuff, like Azami's black hole head would have not fit in well with the Friedken style theme this movie seemed to go for. Of course the ending itself along with the explanation of the spirals origins had to be changed as well, because by the time it was finished filming there was no ending and it was too late to change it now. Hence why the curse only effected the people instead of the entire town's structure like in the manga.
The one thing that seemed to throw me off, was the conclusion that the whole thing was caused by a snake cult. Now don't get me wrong, it's not completely out of left field as snakes have been used within the manga. Specifically Chapter 5. As well as the theme of the spiral repeating itself as equal to a snake eating it's own tail. When I first heard about it, I thought it was a cop out to explain what was meant to be roughly ambiguous. However with that said, a cult that worships the spiral would fit right into the mainstream manga. Not to mention, someone had to have built those ruins.
This movie isn't by any means a good adaptation, but it's not as bad as one would think and until the anime gets broadcast there is nothing to compare it to.
