Rated: R18+
Directed by: Darren Lynn Bousman
Written by: Josh Stolberg & Pete Goldfinger
Produced by: Mark Burg and Oren Koules (original SAW team)
Starring: Chris Rock, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols and Samuel L. Jackson.
“Am I getting under your skin, Detective Banks?”
Inspired by the Saw franchise (starting back in 2004 with Leigh Whannell & James Wan teaming up as writer and director), Spiral is the 10th so far in the series – but wow, it’s been a long time since I came anywhere near a Saw movie. So I was bracing myself for the gore of, Spiral: the case over the face contraptions, ready to slice and dice.
And there’s plenty of that here: tongue, fingers, lots of missing appendages.
The film opens on a carnival and fireworks, then down into the underbelly of the city.
The underground is where we’re first introduced to the Pig Man: “I want to play a game.”
The phrase a familiar echo from the ghost of John Krammer.
Here, in, Spiral, we’re introduced to Detective Ezekiel Banks (Chris Rock), AKA Zeke.
The other cops in his precinct don’t like Banks.
He turned in his partner. A dirty cop.
To them, he’s just a rat.
Saddled with a fresh rookie (Max Minghella), abrasive and lone wolf Zeke is now forced to play nice (ha, ha).
Sent to yet another dead ‘hobo’ murder scene, Zeke has to embrace working with a partner again because this is more than a suicide by train. This has all the markings of a Jigsaw copy-cat.
But this copy-cat? This one likes killing cops.
Zeke has a lot to stand up against: his rep as a snitch, living under the shadow of his highly regarded police veteran father (Samuel L. Jackson). So there’s this detective with a past, a murder to be solved and some cringe-worthy gore.
Why don’t the victims just let themselves be killed rather than torturing themselves only to be killed anyway? I wonder… Then think, must be that survival instinct. But Spiral doesn’t really tap into that tension like the original. The, how far would you go to survive. This is more about the character, detective Banks, solving a crime.
Another difference is this abrasive detective is actually really funny.
Some of the dialogue delivered by Chris Rock is gold: ‘I just found out Pilates doesn’t exist,’ Banks tells the rookie because he’s going through a divorce and his ex cheated on him (no doubt while she was supposed to be going to Pilates).
I can be on the fence with a gory horror. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s just gross.
But throw in a bit of humour in the breaks and the story suddenly gets more entertaining, gets, another layer; to be able to absorb that next visceral serving of well, bloody meat.
I’m not saying this next instalment is brilliant (I’m getting sensitive to overacting), but without expectation, I got into the storyline and thought to myself mid-way, if it ties-off OK, this will be a decent film.
Make me laugh in between the bloody stuff and splice in a decent detective story and I say, worth a watch.