‘A note about the Jigsaw murders; they’re reeeaaal!’ – so sorry, I’ve still got the Chris Rock mouse in my head from The Witches.
If my teenage self could see me now! I never thought I’d even entertain the notion of seeing a Saw movie at the cinemas and look how much I’ve grown. I only binged the Saw franchise for the first time at the start of last year actually. I liked the mental components of the games the best, like Amanda’s ultimate test in Saw III or the public execution trap in Saw VII, but the ingenuity behind the gorier traps cannot be understated. Jigsaw was an underwhelming attempt at a reboot, whereas Spiral looks like a reinvention. It’s intriguing to me that these movies have almost exclusively been made with relatively obscure actors; Chris Rock and Samuel Jackson don’t fit that mould, and I’m looking forward to see where they take this.
You know, I value Chris Rock in the top handful of living comedians, and I have my suspicions that producing and staring in this movie is just an excuse to workshop some material – Forrest Gump, ex-wives; little did I realise I’d be getting so many chuckles in the first few scenes of a bloody Saw movie. Honest to God, when I first saw the Spiral trailer, I thought the movie was rolling with some de-aging software for Rock, making it more believable that he is playing Jackson’s son, but I think my man is just looking good! Then again, both actors, are playing characters who are probably twenty years younger than they actually are, and I’m sure the make-up department deserves a pat on the back. Chris Rock is Det. Zeke Banks, the son of former Police Chief Marcus Banks (Samuel Jackson), and the black sheep of his precinct, following on from an incident where he turned on his murderous dirty partner years ago. When Zeke gets a parcel through the office mail, it becomes instantly clear that there’s a Jigsaw copycat at work, and the focus of the entire department turns to the case immediately. Partnered with rookie Det. William Schenk (Max Minghella), and backed by boss Capt. Angie Garza (Marisol Nichols), the race is on to catch a killer that’s specifically chosen this precinct to play its deadly little games. Spiral is directed by Saw-aficionado Darren Lynn Boseman.
Apart from some too-close shaky-cam, I’m impressed with the style and structure of Spiral. The premise allows the movie to balance an entertaining story, and the Saw-style massacres which make the franchise famous. Through Zeke’s flashbacks, of the dirty cops as they bite the dust, it’s as if he understands that in a terribly gruesome way, they’re getting what’s coming. ‘Spiral’ and Zeke’s bugbear with the police force only parts ways when it comes to Zeke’s father, where Zeke sees Marcus as a father, and Spiral sees nothing but the person who allowed the police to be corrupt. I think the emotional turmoil in the finale could have hit harder, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s editing that holds it back, because the movie sets itself up so well with Zeke’s past. There’s shame to this discussion around Marcus, because Marcus is absent for a large part of the middle of the movie, with the movie suggesting that he could be the killer, but if you saw the trailer first, you know Marcus ends up in chains. I get it; you see the trailer and you’re meant to think, ‘woah, Samuel Jackson is in a Saw trap; I’ve got to see this movie’. I was one of those people too. But if the movie wants to save Marcus’ fate for the third act, then the trailer undercuts the movie. Who’s happy with this? Trailers have got to do better.
When it comes to the mystery behind the killer’s identity, here’s how my viewing experience went down; taking a wizz the morning I was about to see the screening, the trailer popped into my mind and I thought to myself, ‘I wonder if the that guy is going to be complicit? I wonder if the movie is going to hide the new Jigsaw killer in plain sight? His voice seems to fit’ Having that whiff of a hunch, it was easy for me to pick up the breadcrumbs that the movie leaves along the way, only to be validated in the final reveal. The task then became observing how cleverly the movie was hiding clues, and I thought they were doing a great job, until something happens that I think the majority of movie fans might agree, made it very obvious. You’d think the entire point of making a Saw movie is the traps, so if you’re not going to show the grizzly manor in which a character has died, then he’s not dead. To be fair to the story, the movie still works from Zeke point of view; he never sees the traps in action and so when presented with a fresh mutilated body, it’s not on him to be overly suspicious of the evidence presented. But as an audience, we do; we always do – we see how the trap works, the killer’s rationale for why the specific victim is in the trap, and we see the trap in action. Negating that, and expecting us to believe an important character is dead is a very big leap, and an amateur mistake if I’m quite honest. I would’ve backed movies in to be smarter than that these days, with an awareness towards how movie fans, particularly of certain genres, have picked up on the tricks that don’t work anymore. It’s disappointing, and leaves a gaping hole in an otherwise really high-quality movie. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me and I’m being harsh, but when it comes to a thriller mystery it’s on the writer to hold the upper hand, and this relatively detachable story beat in question could have been substituted to avoid giving the game away.
Positively, there are a lot more positives. I thought the traps lived up to their processors; I genuinely felt faint after the second trap, but I was actually proud of myself because I don’t want to be a sicko who thinks these traps are arousing or inspirational (if you are one of those sickos, you’re not really; each to their own… please don’t hurt me). I like that this murder spree was incentivised with cleaning up a crooked police force; a motive that I’m sure the majority of the audience would find relatable, and praise the movie for finding that sweet villainous angle that is understandable. In turn, it also meant that the victims were hardened heads; cops that had experienced their fair share of uncensored material already and would have had more resolve than other victims commonly used in horror movies; like sexy teens, or in Saw’s case, thieves or insular public servants with a white-collar misdemeanour. But as my movie-going companion so rightly pointed out, where the original Jigsaw killer put his victims into traps hoping they’d escape with an epiphany and a new found respect for decency, Spiral is vengeful, with an attitude towards hoping they die. I think it’s alright; a slight change, but accepting it depends on how you like your Saw movies – Spiral is an all-new killer after all. Targeting cops also gives a new credence to the pig mask (and now mascot) that these movies have always used when nabbing victims, as police are colloquially known as pigs.
3.5
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