Spiral: From the Book of Saw

Chris Rock is the star and producer of a slick, sick horror film that delivers in spades.

A hard place: Chris Rock

Darren Lynn Bousman is back. It is he who directed the first three sequels in the Saw franchise and who put the taut into torture porn. Horror, like any product, can either please or disappoint its core demographic. And Spiral is unlikely to disappoint. Its set pieces are not only characteristically creative but showcase the advanced art of prosthetics. Likewise, the plot is an ingenious affair with its own depraved, psychological logic.

Readers of a more sensitive disposition may wish to skip the rest of this review in case of any inadvertent emotional triggers. We are in Philadelphia where an off-duty cop on the trail of a pickpocket enters the subway through a manhole – and wishes he had turned a blind eye (although, in the Saw franchise, turning a blind eye can get it ripped out). There, he is ambushed by a pig and when he awakes, he is trussed up in an elaborate contraption that would make the devices of the Spanish Inquisition seem benign. He is suspended above the railway track and has his extended tongue in a clamp. A voice, with which we become familiar, announces, “I want to play a game.” The cop is given a choice: he can either stay where he is and suffer the consequences of an oncoming train, or he can lose his tongue. “Live or die – make your choice,” the voice concludes.

The graphic, close-up detail of this scene is about as explicit and gory as the cinema can get. So, the abrupt cut from this to the opening title and then to Chris Rock delivering a comic riff on how unwoke Forrest Gump is, is, well, disorientating. Chris Rock is, though, a step in the right direction. Looking remarkably fit for his 56 years, the actor both relieves the horror with humour and plays several sides of the metropolitan cop: blasphemous, cynical, hard, caring, funny and intelligent by turns. Spiral may be horror, but not as we know it. And then Samuel L. Jackson turns up as Rock’s father and we feel we might be in a different universe. But we are not. Spiral, the ninth instalment in the Saw series, is just as amoral, sadistic and seriously macabre, like Se7en with the gore dialled up. A Jigsaw copycat killer is targeting members of the South Metro Police department and he – or she – likes playing games. Spiral – the moniker of this new serial killer – is a cruel prankster and can do wicked things with live wires, hot wax and broken glass. We do not question his – or her – ability to come by such high maintenance machinery, as the story rattles along with a variety of distractions and red herrings. Your nightmares are assured.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Chris Rock, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols, Samuel L. Jackson, Daniel Petronijevic, Richard Zeppieri, Patrick Mcmanus, Edie Inksetter, Thomas Mitchell, Nazneen Contractor, K.C. Collins, Trevor Gretzky, Christopher Ramsay, Genelle Williams, Dylan Roberts, Ali Johnson, Zoie Palmer.

Dir Darren Lynn Bousman, Pro Oren Koules and Mark Burg, Ex Pro Chris Rock, Daniel Jason Heffner, James Wan, Leigh Whannell, Stacey Testro, Jason Constantine, Gregg Hoffman and Kevin Greutert, Screenplay Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger, Ph Jordan Oram, Pro Des Anthony Cowley, Ed Dev Singh, Music Charlie Clouser, ‘Spiral’ performed by 21 Savage, Costumes Laura Montgomery, Visual consultant David Hackl, Marionette design Samantha Gardner.

Twisted Pictures-Lionsgate.
93 mins. USA/Canada. 2020. Rel: 17 May 2021. Cert. 18.