ultimately unsatisfying", and criticized a perceived lack of atmosphere between set pieces, along with its "typically bland, schoolgirlish heroine." Kim Morgan of The Oregonian described the film as "beautiful, cold, oddly colorful and just plain otherworldly"; she wrote that it contains "many creatively terrifying and effectively gross sequences that stand on their own beautifully", but lamented that it "doesn't flow into a consistent building of terror". Ross Williams of Film Threat praised the film's sound design and "cheesy, yet at the same time impressive and effective" special effects, writing: "While not as effectively creepy as The Ring, [Uzumaki] undoubtedly deserves to be watched". Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club noted the style of the film, opining that kinetic shooting style doesn't pause for anything; like a lot of music-video and commercial directors, his achievement is better considered shot-by-shot than as a whole." AllMovie's Josh Ralske gave the film a score of three-and-a-half stars out of five, calling it "visually imaginative and engagingly offbeat horror film, but its willful goofiness and unresolved story line doesn't offer much in the way of psychological resonance." Higuchinsky stated that, since the film's release, he has received fan mail from Europe, which made him particularly happy as it was his "dream to use film as a way to overcome national borders and have my movies watched by people all over the world. I think that these fans focus not on the story but on the simple images, they sense something through the visuals." See also List of horror films of 2000 List of Japanese films of 2000 Notes Bibliography External links 2000 films 2000 horror films Live-action films based on manga Japanese supernatural horror films Discotek Media 2000s Japanese films ja:うずまき (漫画)