VENICE, Italy - The crowd at the Venice Film Festival rose as one on Tuesday night, delivering a thunderous nine-minute standing ovation to "The Spiral," a 1998 Japanese horror film that has found a fervent new life with Italian audiences. The screening, held in the festival's historic main hall, marked a rare revival for a picture that originally slipped out with little fanfare nearly three decades ago.

The film, directed by George Iida, unspools a grim supernatural mystery centered on Mitsuo Ando, a young pathologist played by Koichi Sato. When a colleague dies under inexplicable circumstances, Ando begins digging into the case and stumbles upon a cursed videotape - the same one that claimed the lives of his friend's wife and son. As he watches the footage, he realizes he has become the latest link in a chain of terror, one that leads directly to Sadako, a vengeful spirit whose reach extends far beyond the grave.

For the uninitiated, "The Spiral" exists in the shadow of "Ring," the landmark 1998 adaptation of Koji Suzuki's novel that terrified global audiences and sparked a wave of J-horror remakes. But Iida's film, released in the same year, takes a different path - it is less a direct adaptation and more a cinematic sequel in spirit, picking up threads from the novel's follow-up and weaving them into a standalone nightmare. The Venice screening, part of a retrospective celebrating overlooked genre gems, reframed the picture for a new generation. The applause began slowly, then swelled, with many in the audience remaining on their feet until the house lights fully came up.

The film's cast, largely unknown to Western audiences at the time, anchors its creeping dread with grounded performances. Sato brings a weary, obsessive quality to Ando, a man who believes in science until science fails him. Miki Nakatani, who would later gain international recognition in "Ringu," appears here as Mai Takano, a psychic investigator whose own connection to Sadako adds another layer of tragic complexity. Hinako Saeki steps into the iconic role of Sadako herself, delivering a portrayal that is less about overt scares and more about an unsettling, almost ethereal presence. The supporting ensemble - including Shingo Tsurumi as a haunted detective and Yutaka Matsushige as a journalist chasing the same story - rounds out a world where no one is safe from the tape's curse.

What struck many in the Venice crowd was not just the film's atmosphere but its prescience. Iida directs with a slow-burn tension that anticipates the tonal shifts of 21st-century horror, favoring psychological unease over jump scares. The cursed videotape, a relic of analog dread, feels almost quaint in an age of streaming and viral content, yet its power endures because the fear is intimate: a private act of watching that becomes an act of doom. At 97 minutes, the film moves with lean efficiency, never overstaying its welcome.

The standing ovation - a genuine, unforced outpouring rather than the clock-watched applause that often marks festival screenings - speaks to the film's reclamation. For years, "The Spiral" was treated as a footnote in the larger "Ring" phenomenon, dismissed by some critics as a lesser entry in a crowded field. Its TMDb rating of 5.4 out of 10 reflects that middling reputation among mainstream viewers. But the Venice audience, many of whom were likely encountering the film for the first time, responded to its quieter, more melancholic ambitions. This is not a film about a monster under the bed; it is a film about grief, obsession, and the way stories - and curses - refuse to stay buried.

Sato, who was present for the screening, appeared visibly moved as the applause continued. Speaking briefly after the ovation, he described the experience as "unexpected and deeply humbling," noting that he had not anticipated such a reception for a film he had made in his thirties with a modest budget. He credited Iida's vision and the enduring power of Suzuki's source material, which has spawned countless iterations across film, television, and literature. "Sadako is not just a character," Sato said through a translator. "She is an idea - the fear that something we have seen cannot be unseen."

The festival's decision to program "The Spiral" aligns with a broader trend in recent years: a rediscovery of Asian horror from the late 1990s and early 2000s, films that were once available only on grainy DVD imports and now command critical reappraisal. Venice has been at the forefront of this revival, and Tuesday's screening proved that the appetite for these works remains strong. The nine-minute ovation was not merely polite; it was a declaration that "The Spiral" deserves a seat at the table alongside its more famous sibling.

As the credits rolled and the crowd finally began to disperse, conversations spilled into the lobby about the film's final act, its ambiguous ending, and the haunting image of Sadako that lingers long after the screen goes dark. For a film that has spent years in the shadows of horror history, Tuesday night in Venice was a long-overdue moment in the sun. Whether the ovation translates into a wider theatrical re-release remains to be seen, but for those in the hall, the message was clear: some curses, and some films, refuse to die.

Source: Hollywood Reporter