Category: Torture horror/police drama
Directed by: Darren Lynn Bousman
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Starring Chris Rock, Spiral isn't so much a sequel to the Saw/Jigsaw series as it is a parallel entry, and I think this confers two advantages:
Freeing this movie from the corpus of Saw canon allows the writers creative freedom - they aren't bound to ten movies of lore and backstory so they can create what is ostensibly a new movie and only need a couple of nods to keep the connection going. Being Saw-adjacent also allows the producers to borrow the clout from the Saw series, assisting this movie with publicity and inspiration.
But does it work? Is it worth a watch, especially if you're a horror fan? Let's find out after a plot recap!
The plot:
The movie starts with a 4th July carnival scene. A man wearing an oversized hat steals a purse from a woman who screams for help, causing a plain-clothes detective who just happens to be nearby give chase. The purse snatcher goes down a manhole with the detective in pursuit. Down the manhole, the detective finds a mannequin in a seat and when he goes to look closer, a hooded figure appears behind the detective and knocks him unconscious. After this, we find the detective at an underground railway line, his tongue clampled in a vice hanging from the ceiling while his feet barely touch the stool that is there to support his weight.
The detective awakens to a creepy video message stating that the detective's lying tongue has put many people innocent people away, but that he can now save his own life by allowing his tongue to be ripped out by his body weight - but he better hurry because there's a train a-coming. It's a Saw movie, so no guesses as to what happens next...
We then see Ezekiel "Zeke" Banks (Chris Rock) prepare for a robbery with three accomplices. The robbery goes off, but not without some hitches as a whole SWAT team stops the getaway car and arrests the crew. It turns out that Banks was working an undercover role (though without the authorisation of his superiors) and his arrest has hampered operations. For his efforts, Banks is told by Captain Garza (Marisol Nichols) that he is to be partnered up with Detective William Shenck (Max Minghella), an idealistic rookie who idolises Marcus Banks (Samuel L. Jackson), Zeke's father and a previous police chief.
Playing into the junior Banks' frustrations is the fact that some years ago, he had testitifed against a fellow officer who had murdered an unarmed witness - something that numerous current colleagues still hold a grudge against him for - as well as his divorce proceedings, constantly warning Schenck that policing work as a career leads to higher divorce and death rates.
Banks and Schenck are called out to the murder scene of the detective from the film's opening. It turns out that the detective was none other than Detective Bozwick, a colleague Banks was extremely close with to the point that Banks feels compelled to be the one who breaks the bad news to Bozwick's wife.
Banks argues with Garza about who should lead the investigation for Bozwick's killer, given their closeness, but also knowing that he is still not popular among his colleagues. Around this time, he receives a parcel (tied up with string, no less) of a USB stick that provides a clue to Det. Bozwick's death which the crew go to investigate, as well as a warning that more corrupt police will be targeted. At the scene, they find a box with Det. Bozwick's tongue and his badge, and an ominous spiral logo (good to see our killer is building his brand!).
Throughout the movie, we get flashbacks to two seminal points in Banks' career - the incident in which Banks' partner shoots and kills the witness who could have implicated another officer in a homicide, and a subsequent scene where Banks repeatedly calls for backup in a shootout and none of his colleagues respond, angering Banks' father as their lack of response results in the junior Banks being shot.
The next package arrives, giving clues as to who the next victim is and what heinous action (or inaction) they are being killed for, in classic Jigsaw style. This time around, it is Detective Fitch who years ago had shot an unarmed man simply for insulting him, so for this effort, Fitch wakes up in a slowly-rising bathtub with a contraption in his mouth and his fingers bound by wires. The message that plays reminds him of the injustices he perpetrated with his mouth and his fingers, and so to save himself, he has to bite down on the contraption which will activate a motor that pulls on the wires attached to his fingers - but he better hurry because when the water in the bathrub reaches the copper wire, he will be fatally electrocuted. In the end, Fitch has his fingers ripped out AND is fatally electrocuted. Some people just can't catch a break...
Banks and his father have a strained relationship, but the senior Banks offers to assist his son with the case over a meal later that night. When the son goes to his dad's place, his dad is not there as we see in an earlier scene, the dad had driven to an isolated warehouse without telling anyone.
Banks and Schenck go to a church where Banks has a very curt conversation with former officer Dunleavy, who now runs a support group. Dunleavy was the officer who Banks testified against for his actions that we see in the flashbacks.
The next package/video combination arrives and the only clue is the name of a bottle of paint found in the package, which twigs Banks to look at a hobby shop-now-butcher where a skinned body is found, but the only identifying piece of skin left over is a tattoo with the word "Charlie", which happens to be the name of Schenck's son.
In the next scene, we see a police officer being attended to by paramedics who claims he was slashed by a person wearing a disguise that matches the one used in the videos that the killer has been sending Banks. While Banks is listening to the officer, the words "I'll take your head" play in Banks' mind, twigging him to the fact that Captain Garza is the next target. However, it's too late as Garza receives an SMS asking her to go down to the (of course isolated) cold case file basement whereupon she is attacked with sleeping gas. When she comes to, she is tied to a bench and her face covered with a damp cloth. Her challenge is that she has to stop the boiling wax dripping on to her face from a pipe above by pushing her neck down on to a blade that will stop the wax flow, but also sever her spinal cord. Unfortunately, Banks doesn't get to Garza in time, so he gets the unenviable task of peeling the hot wax face mask off of Garza's corpse (one of the best visual effects in the movie!).
Banks looks over the security camera footage to get some leads on who killed Garza and discovers that vital minutes of footage have been erased. In going over the file log, Banks sees that Dunleavy's badge number was associated with a login, leading Banks to go pay Dunleavy a visit at the church. Dunleavy is not there, but who is? The person who has been kidnapping and trapping the other police officers.
Banks wakes up in a warehouse and sees Dunleavy hanging by his arms from chains attached to the ceiling. Unfortunately, a bottle crushing machine is activated with the glass shards being directed to Dunleavy's back. Banks makes an honest attempt to save Dunleavy, but it is too late. After this, Banks comes across Schenck who everyone thought was dead. In this scene, we get a lot of exposition where it is revealed that Schenck is actually the son of the man that Dunleavy killed in cold blood and saw the murder happen, so since his childhood, he has wanted to join the police force in order to clean it up as it won't clean up itself. One of the sticking points has been Proposition 8, a directive that allowed the police force to use extraordinary measures to bring the crime (especially murder) rates down, but essentially allowed police to act with impunity.
Schenck makes an offer to Banks to join him to clean up the force, but Banks needs to pass one final test - his father. Banks is handed a gun with one bullet left and is walked into a room where his father is hanging from the ceiling, attached to needles that are slowly draining his blood. Banks is told that he has to make a choice with his one bullet - shoot the target on the wall, which will release Banks Snr, but allows Schenck to get away; or shoot Schenck to stop the killings, but watch his father slowly die. Banks shoots the target, tends to his father and then gets into a fistfight with Schenck. However, just as the SWAT team arrive, a secret mechanism is activated that causes a shotgun barrel to protrude from under Banks Senior's clothes that points right at the officers, causing the officers to fire as Schenck slips away.
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This entry in the Saw franchise differs from the others in a couple of ways:
The first is that there's a clear motive for why the officers are being targeted, and also why the sole survivor is the sole survivor - in most entries in the Saw franchise, most everyone caught in a trap is trapped because of some vague sin, or just by being associated with someone who is related to that vague sin. But here, because the villain of the story is familiar with all the details, it doesn't come across as "torture for the sake of torture" - we not only know, but because the movie highlights police brutality, we're almost willing on the villain It's not just "you cheated on your wife 10 years ago!", it's "the justice system needs to be held to account". In fact, this plot line is what Candyman should have been based on.
The second big difference is that the main target is not trapped, but is free to roam and investigate and think. So rather than some poor schmuck trapped in a dingy warehouse with the odd cut-away to people on the outside, this time around, everything feels a lot more open and less claustrophobic (but no less dramatic). This turns the movie in to a murder-mystery/police drama that borrows from Saw, rather than an outright Saw movie.
Next of note is that Chris Rock did great in this dramatic role, to the point that you would be surprised if you knew him only for his work as a comedian. At no stage did I get the feeling I was watching Chris Rock cosplaying as a cop. Even in the scene where his character and crew are about to pull off a robbery, Rock apparently wrote that opening dialogue himself and it shows because it almost feels like a stand-up comedy piece. I personally loved it!
However, we did get some of the old Saw tropes, the first being stupid cops - has no-one ever heard of forensics? For example, anyone familiar with cybersecurity protocols should know to NEVER EVER EVER put an unknown USB stick in a networked computer that accesses sensitive information. There's a killer targeting police, and a specific department - why is there no lockdown or enhanced security protocols? And how does the login of a disgraced police officer still work? The IT person in me is tearing my hair out at that last sentence...
The other Saw trope I don't like is that you have to suspend your disbelief to such an extent that it feels almost unreal how one guy is able to pull off all of these elaborate setups without leaving any clues or cookie crumbs or even forensic evidence, very similar to the canonical Saw series where the viewer expected to accept a guy just about to die from a brain tumour somehow has both the energy to design and create death traps (as well as research various people and organise their kidnappings). If you go along with it, sure, but given this is the fourth Saw movie I've reviewed, I have to constantly remind myself that this is not a bug, but a feature.
But the real heroes are the special effects guys - some of the effects were gruesome! The visuals of Captain Garza's trap where the blade pierces into her neck, and then the moment when Banks peels off Garza's wax mask was both deliciously gory and the best effect in the movie. Fitch's finger popping was decent as well.
As a movie, this was pretty darn good. Now, is it the best in the series? It's up there, I'll say that. My biggest question, though, is how much more is left in the franchise?
STAR RATING: 3.75/5
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