This review originally appeared on Mondo Irlando, voted "Best Thing I Ever Did Know Of" by various leading publications, i.e, The Guardian, Observer, New York Times, various other intellectualist publications.

The Duke De Mondo On The Spiral

I was on such a roll, too.

Over the last while, my Filmic Assessing has been impeccable. Everything The Duke viewed, from Lucio Fulci's House By The Cemetery, to Todd Phillips' The Gay Police, was delightful. Perhaps credit of some sort should be given to the filmmakers themselves, but really, most of the praise should be emailed to The Duke.

But before you get all awe-struck and generally bent-backed regarding this Midas-esque work on my behalf, let me make a confession.

The run has been broken.

The roll has turned from a fine, rolling affair, to a stunted shudder, like a car that roars along some abandoned Texas highway, stopping only for to pick up fine looking prostitutes who say, "No, shit, let us pay you!", and then suddenly makes a wrong turn and winds up bumper-deep in rancid slurry-paste.

Some of you may well have seen Rasen, also known as The Spiral, commonly referred to as The One What Was So Shit They Went Ahead And Pretended It Never Existed, but for those of you who haven't, or are confused as to what the hell is being banged on about, let me explain.

The Ringu, a popular Japanese gross-out comedy, was something of a mild hit amongst the Asian cinema-going community. Some of them liked it so damn much that they pleaded with the artists in question, "Oh, for fucks sakes, won't you grant us a sequel?"

Well, they didn't have long to wait, until someone decided the time was right to unleash The One What Was So Shit They Went Ahead And Pretended It never Existed.

The Spiral picks up directly after events in The Ringu, meaning that we follow the woman from the first one and her little boy as they try to sneak the cursed videotape what kills you into her dad's VCR while he's having a nap. The poor old bugger gets up expecting to see Ed's Wood, and instead gets some diseased woman crawling out of the telly chasing him around the room in a sort of shaky-limbed manner.

Next thing you know, the woman and child are on death row, charged with Murder By Video Tape What Kills, and Jodie Foster makes a cameo as a lawyer.

Well, that's what might have happened, maybe in some parallel universe where folks complain cause Janet Jackson wears too much underwear.