Spiral (2021)

Movie Name/Year: Spiral (2021)
Genre: Crime, Horror, Mystery
Length: 93 minutes
Rating: R
Production/Distribution: Twisted Pictures, Serendipity Productions, Dahlstar, Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit (CPTC), 01 Distribution, ACME, BF Distribution, Belga Films, Bir Film, CatchPlay, Central Partnership, Corazón Films, DeAPlaneta, Eagle Films, Forum Film Slovakia, Independent Films, Leone Film Group, Lionsgate India, Lionsgate UK, Lionsgate, Meloman, Metropolitan Filmexport, Mongrel Media, Monolith Films, Paris Filmes, Shaw Organisation, StudioCanal Germany, StudioCanal, Ukrainian Film Distribution, Vertical Entertainment, Pris Audiovisuais
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Writer:  Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger
Actors: Chris Rock, Max Minghella, Samuel L. Jackson, Marisol Nichols, Dan Petronijevic, Richard Zeppieri, Patrick McManus, Ali Johnson, Zoie Palmer, Dylan Robert, K.C. Collins, Edie Inksetter, Nazneen Contractor, Thomas Mitchell, Carvin Winans, Leila Leigh, Chad Camilleri
 
Blurb from IMDb: A criminal mastermind unleashes a twisted form of justice in Spiral, the terrifying new chapter from the book of Saw.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
I remember seeing the first Saw (2004) in theaters. I went with a good friend of mine from college, and I was absolutely transfixed. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The traps, the story… and especially the twist at the end when Jigsaw just picks his ass up from the middle of the room like he was just taking a little nap the whole time.
 
It was glorious, and it shaped my expectations of horror films for YEARS after.
 
The series has had its ups and downs. It lost the interesting story and leaned hard into the ‘torture porn’ aspect. Most of the sequels just couldn’t stand up to the original.
 
Still, there are certain expectations one has when watching a Saw film. We all know it’s going to be hardcore horror, with extremely graphic – often gratuitous – traps, a social commentary-based motive, and Jigsaw.

This movie only had one of the four: a scathing examination of how a cop who ‘rats’ on bad cops is treated among their peers – and corruption among police officers.
 
Granted, there were still traps in Spiral. None of them felt like they went far enough, though.
 
The first of the film was the only one that really felt like a Saw-based trap. The rest of them felt uninspired. The creativity just didn’t hold a candle to the rest of the films – any of them.
 

In fact, it felt like Spiral didn’t really deserve a horror genre classification at all. If anything, I think it was closer to Se7en (1995) in both genre and feel.
 
Going into it with this Saw connection, and the idea that it would be horror, hurt my enjoyment.
 

I know it sounds like I didn’t like Spiral at all, but that's not really the case.
 
It was bad Saw film, but I would have thought it was good without that connection.
 

Even if they had just kept Spiral part of the same universe, but made the antagonist a completely different breed of serial killer, the flick would have benefited. They could have kept all their little mentions and Easter Eggs, but it would have still felt like some new and it would have been better all around.
 
I did like the ending. I’ll admit that it was far-fetched and had a ton of plot holes, but I enjoyed it. That last trap was absolutely brutal, and brought together the entire social commentary point of the film.
 
It wasn’t enough to save the whole thing, though.
 
I’m disappointed.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 77%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 34%
Metascore – 39/100
Metacritic User Score – 5.5/10
IMDB Score – 5.9/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 2.5/5
 
Movie Trailer: