When Toho Studios adapted Koji Suzuki’s novel Ring in 1998, they took the unusual step of licensing and producing its sequel at the same time. While director Hideo Nakata’s team worked on Ring, an entirely separate crew – directed by Jōji Iida – went about adapting the second novel Spiral (Rasen). Both films were then released to cinemas simultaneously as a double bill. Ring was a runaway success, kickstarting the global J-horror boom and influencing a generation of screen horror. Spiral, by contrast, was not well-liked. Within weeks of release Toho was already negotiating with Nakata to direct an original Ring 2, and Spiral was by-and-large forgotten.

Suicidal pathologist Mitsuo Ando (Koichi Sato) is called into work to conduct the autopsy of Ryūji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada), who has died under mysterious circumstances. In his stomach, Ando finds a coded note, and is soon drawn into a mysterious urban myth about a cursed videotape that kills anyone that watches it in exactly seven days.

There is a strange disconnect between Ring and Spiral. While they were made at the same time, it is as if neither production actually communicated to the other how they were going to adapt their respective novels. While Nakata took remarkable liberties in transferring Ring to the screen, Iida pursued a much more faithful take on Spiral. The result is that, despite the reappearance of some of Ring‘s actors in the latter film, the storylines do not entirely align. Critically, Iida keeps the original curse from the novel: characters do not die out of sheer terror but rather become infected with a smallpox-like virus that is somehow transmitted electronically via videotape. It is an altogether more technology-focused phenomenon, and one expressed in a more cold and clinical fashion. The folkloric aspects that made Nakata’s Ring such a success are conspicuous by their absence.

There are unexpected elements of sexual thriller to Spiral, and very different conceptualisation of the malevolent ghost Sadako. There is also, in keeping with the original novels, the intriguing idea of Sadako’s curse shifting media. It is not a videotape that seems haunted here, but rather the written word. It is an idea that is followed up in later Ring sequels.

It is clear that Spiral is not well produced film as Ring. It reveals scrappier production values and a cheaper sensibility, and suffers from the odd shaky cut in the editing. Taken on its own merits it is well performed, notably by Koichi Sato but also by Miki Nakatani as Mai: Takayama’s young assistant from the previous film. While the technical qualities are inferior, the ideas are top-notch. Move past the slightly disappointing packaging and pace, and one can find some genuinely provocative ideas underneath. I suppose one could describe Spiral as a failed experiment, but commendably while it does not work as well as Nakata’s film it still remains an interesting failure.