Spiral

What happens when stereotypes, cliches and terrible writing take a road trip? They crash; slowly, predictably and painfully.

Not to be confused with the 2021 'Saw' spin-off movie also called 'Spiral', as I did.

Not only is Malik and Aaron a same-sex couple, but also an interracial couple, moving to a conservative small town back in 1995. With them is Aaron's daughter, Kayla. Soon after settling into their new home, they start noticing the townsfolk reacting weirdly. 'Spiral' is mysterious, creepy and foreboding.

'Spiral' is a psychological horror which becomes increasingly nerve-wrecking as the film develops, and one never really knows what to expect. Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman is very good as Malik, a black gay guy who soon feels out of place in their new home. Kayla also meets a young boy, Tyler, who seem to have a secret or two.

I really enjoyed the mystery, but the film falls apart during the finale. Without doing spoilers, all I can say is that there's way too much left unexplained. Who are these people? What are they? Why are they doing it? Why every ten years? I also couldn't help but wonder whether this might be homophobic propaganda. The film also does not have the ending I had hoped for. Pity. It started off so interesting...

Would I watch it again? No.

Featuring an interesting premise that possibly had more potential than what ended up on the screen, Spiral is a decently crafted horror thriller that follows a same-sex couple who move to a new town to start a new life but soon find the neighbourhood harbouring a dark secret, and makes for a mediocre social commentary on minority experience in American suburbia.

Directed by Kurtis David Harder, the script takes bits n pieces of ideas & inspirations from existing examples but is unable to concoct a coherent & cohesive narrative out of it. Everything in it from story to characters to twist n turns needed more reworking & refinement before making their way to the film canvas. Also not helping the cause is Harder's direction, for it is quite lacklustre.

It manages to be tense & suspenseful in bits n pieces and is also pervaded with an air of foreboding but the scares & thrills are rather generic, and the effect wears off sooner than expected. Add to that, the middle act is a slog that's unable to keep us invested in the proceedings and it doesn't take long to figure out where it's headed. Only consolation here are the good performances from the cast.

Overall, Spiral had all the ingredients to deliver a timely & progressive chiller but in the end, it turned out to be no different from earlier attempts that exhibited promise on paper but didn't have the creative vision to deliver what it was actually going for on the film celluloid. The film's only saving grace is the performances but even that isn't enough to mask the obvious shortcomings in the script for long. An average at best effort.

The acting is ok. The cinematography, and sound are fine. Just a dumb story.

There is no horror. Maybe some suspense. The plot just grinds on with very little happening of interest until the end.

The character development is sparse. The motivations of the family and the neighbors is difficult to surmise. We learn very little about their pasts. Pretty hard to relate to or care much about any of them.

If they'd ended the film after the birthday party, I suppose it may have left a more interesting impression....But they junked up the ending with the same old same old.. Not a good watch. But... It does have a gay multi racial couple as leads. That's different. That's about the only thing interesting about it.

The idea of a gay character-led horror film appealed to me hugely as a gay man and avid horror fan. Identity politics aside; viewing 'Spiral' objectively, it lacks the promise of its potential. I'm a little over indie slow-burn, symbolic-heavy horror movies at the moment as the new generation of filmmakers are pumping them out faster than a David Lynch traffic light changes colours.

The majority of the film concerns itself exploring the topic of 'paranoia versus reality' which is taxing after about 20 minutes much less an hour and 20 minutes of this single beat repeated again and again and again. Additionally, I didn't think the paranoia brought anything new or interesting to the table and certainly wasn't enough to make me care for the characters.

Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman as the lead makes an effort to bring the level of intensity required to make his character work but unfortunately does not succeed. There are several plot holes within his character's backstory which results in the outcome of audience apathy for what he's going through.

Genre-wise this fails to achieve a horror tone. I can't honestly say there was a single moment when I felt horrified by any particular event. When the punchline finally arrived I stopped caring long before as the characters did not develop and the scenes didn't contain dialogue and conflict structured to sustain interest.

In the climax (no spoilers) the antagonist blatantly states the moral of the story, causing me to see weak writing rather than agreement for its existence. Sadly, I'm chucking this movie onto the pile of the hundreds of under-developed gay themed films that simply don't have the quality and/or budget to create a story of honesty, originality and significance.