User reviews

Same sex couple moves in a remote location in a small town and things just don't seem right. Why to watch this: 1-resembles the atmosphere of "Hereditary", which was pretty scary 2-interesting story development but with many gaps. 3-keeps you guessing what's going on 4-scary enough for halloween 6/10 , watch it if your out of things to watch.

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.

A mixed-race gay couple (and the one guy's daughter from a previous relationship) make the move as an alternative family unit to a small town where things are, and always have been, button down and traditional. At first, the couple feel excited that their plan to live a more down-to-earth life away from city stresses...but soon one of the guys begins to suspect that the community is hiding a sinister secret.

The set up is very familiar to horror fans and yet the first act of the movie plays out quite well. It's shot well, has convincing performances from the leads, and - with the help of a good sound engineer - effortlessly builds up the creep factor.

These plus points remain throughout the movie; however, the second act of the film drags and the third act seems to fall asleep at the wheel and veer dramatically from paranormal horror to Rosemary's Baby-esque paranoia, back again, then into some ham-fisted social commentary on both mental illness, racism, and homophobia before finally crashing headlong into the lovechild of Hereditary and Dracula.

As a result the ending feels unsatisfactory as a lot of the reveals feel tacked-on and limp. By the time it ended I felt like the writers tried to cover up a weak script by distracting the audience with some horror cliches and - if that didn't work - some clunky "message" that "racism is bad" and/or "homophobia is bad" and/or "mental illness is a shame".

Which is sad because if the film had had the courage of it's convictions a bit more I think it could have delivered way more effectively on what it set up in the first third. All in all, an okay-ish watch but that's being a bit on the generous side.

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.

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.

I don't think 2 or 3 stars is fair, and I tend to dislike new movies easily. Yes it's slow at first and could've had more "filling" in the beginning/middle but still it delivers by the end. The cinematography is really good, and although some conversations between the couple are ridiculous (long time relationships don't get into simple break up fights) and you expect the main character to react to certain situations that are insane yet he brushes them off (don't wanna spoil here) but overall ends up entertaining as it should.

This movie had a really good plot, however I do feel like they could have delivered the "scary" thrill of the story more effectively. I enjoyed the creepy neighbourhood vibe that got us wondering what was going on. The main actor was great and I felt invested in his story and his journey with being a young gay man and the things he has had to battle through in life. If the story cut the middle section and became more clear it would have been better in my opinion. I loved the ending! I predicted it but it was done so well!

Has some good potential. But let down by the script early on. Key characters make decisions based on the future plot not what's believable. A sign of bad writing

This is another movie that popped on to my radar when trying to check out movies that were getting some buzz before doing my end of year list for 2020. I knew that this movie was on Shudder and that it could potentially be dealing with cults. The latter is something that really interests me. Aside from that, I came in blind. The synopsis here is a same-sex couple move to a small town to enjoy a better quality of life and raise their daughter with strong social values. But when neighbors throw a very strange party, nothing is as it seems in their picturesque neighborhood.

Now I do feel that the synopsis is a bit misleading. We start this movie off with a gay couple in the back of a car making out. Something happens, causing one of them to get out and the scene ends with the other one sobbing over the body.

We then shift to 1995. Here we have a gay couple of Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) and Aaron (Ari Cohen). Also with them is their daughter of Kayla (Jennifer Laporte). Aaron is her true father from a previous marriage. They're moving from the city to this small town. Kayla isn't thrilled as she is leaving behind a boyfriend.

The new family goes to settle in and we soon after meet one of their neighbors, Tiffany (Chandra West). She doesn't realize until bringing over a flower that they are gay couple, but she is quite accepting. Not everyone is as nice though. Malik comes home one day from a run to see someone broke in and wrote a derogatory slur on the wall. He paints over it before Aaron sees it though. He also installs a security system which upsets Aaron as well.

It doesn't help that the piece Malik is working on is ghost-writing something on Charles Darrylson (David LeReaney). He is someone who believes in the traditional family unit and in conversion therapy. Malik being gay is bothered by him and he no longer wants to write it. The break-in shakes him up as does seeing this creepy older man of Mr. Reinhart (Paul McGaffey). He tries to break in, but when Malik confronts him, the man might actually not be as crazy as he is letting on. He gives a piece of paper to Malik, but there is nothing on it.

More weird things start to happen like dead raccoons are found in the attic above Kayla's bed. Their blood leaks through onto her. They meet Tiffany's husband of Marshal (Lochlyn Munro) and Malik sees an odd picture of an ancestor of his along with an old book with a spiral symbol on the spine. Malik looks into what he thinks is going on, but are these things real or is he piecing together things that are unrelated. There's a history of trauma that could be causing his mental break as well.

To shift over now to my thoughts on the movie, I really liked the premise of what we're getting here. This movie looks like is trying to be progressive with what they're doing. It is strategic to place it back in 1995. I say that as even though in 2020 where we are more accepting of things like same sex marriage or even just couples, we still aren't there fully. Having this couple move to a small town is interesting since personally, I'm from a small town which tend to have more closed minded people. I do like though that Marshal and Tiffany are accepting of them. Part of this could be their liberal minded or just that they've gotten to know them.

I think I should focus next on Malik though. We keep getting flashbacks of an attack that he witnessed back in the day. At first, I wasn't sure if it was Aaron that was with him, but we learn it was someone else. This really cut him deep, but I also think that it helped make him more vocal for not only his rights, but also that of gay rights as well. As I'm writing this though, I hate that I need to differentiate between the two. The break in at their new place triggers some bad memories and most of the weird stuff is happening to him. I like here that he's descending into madness and that makes him unreliable. We see what he's seeing, but we don't know if it is real until the explanation.

I won't confirm or deny if there is a cult in this movie or not, but I like how this handled. We see fairly early on that Marshal and Tyler are watching as a ritual is taking place in their house. Malik is watching from his place. It does involve a spiral by the way. The thing is there is a normal explanation when it is brought up afterwards. Since Malik is becoming unhinged, we can't necessarily believe him. They do some creepy things with hooded figures as this goes on and I'll be honest, part of what really pulls me into this movie is them. There are some great reveals that come from Malik's investigation on top of that.

What I'm going to say next feels a bit weird, but I love how fast this movie goes. We really don't waste a lot of time. It hooks me from the beginning and I'm there until the final reveal. I prefaced with this statement though is that I wish the movie slowed down just a bit. It plays a lot with black-outs where Malik doesn't remember things that happened and we don't necessarily know if some of them did or not. My issue here though I want a bit more back-story. I think it moves too fast where a bit more reveal would have made me like this even more.

To get away from the story now, I'll go next to the acting. Bowyer-Chapman I thought did really good job as our lead. He just has a solid screen presence. What really works though is we establish him and then we see him as he descends into madness. With how it is presented, I felt bad for him. I wanted him to be able to prove things, but the logical explanations are all against him. That worked for me. Cohen is solid as the counterpart to him and the rock of the family. We need him grounded in reality. Laporte is solid as the daughter. I like that she loves her progressive family, but also she makes bad choices as a teen will do. Wood, Munro and West are good as this family that could be harboring a secret. The rest of the cast rounded this out for was needed in my opinion as well.

That will take me to the last part of the movie I want to delve into which would be the effects. We don't really get a lot of them to be honest and I'm not mad about it. This helps to play with the idea that nothing could be happening and allows me to piece things together. What we do get was done practical and I thought the blood we get here was really solid looking. The cinematography is also well done, especially with the editing to show us as someone is blacking out. There could be a bit of CGI, but if there was, it was seamless and I didn't have problems there.

Now in conclusion, I thought this movie has some really good aspects about it. I love the idea that there could be a cult in this town doing things or that we have someone who was traumatized in the past sinking into madness from a triggering event. Regardless of how it plays out, the acting really helps to bring this to life as well. If I have an issue though, I feel that the movie could have been deepened a bit with more stories added to it as that's what I find to be more interesting. It just seems to gloss over things. I think that the soundtrack works for what was needed and the effects along with cinematography were well done. I'd say that despite what it is lacking, it is still an above average movie.

My Rating: 7.5 out of 10

I don't know why people have rated this film so poorly.

Although there may be the impression by some that because this film centres on two gay characters that it is some kind of identity politicised propaganda - It isn't.

The story is well written and skilfully produced in bringing all of the characters in to something that is believable and which unfolds in unexpected way.

The acting by all of the cast is superb.

This isn't a gory horror by any means. It takes you in the world of the characters - rather one character in particular - and the terror that gradually leads to the climax of the story when everything becomes clear.

Well worth watching.

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

The moment any movie is compared to Hereditary or Vvitch, i try to avoid cos of the bore effect. The acting is good but the movie is very slow with a good twist.

In short, it tried hard to be like Get Out n felt more like Adam Green's Spiral but ended up more like Hereditary.

I thought this was a pretty solid horror/suspense movie. I thought it was going to be a lower budget, kind of cheesy film but it wasn't that at all. I appreciate the whole topic it deals with and everything as well. The way it is used really adds to the horror. You'll see what I mean if you watch it. I'm a supporter of LBGT and though I don't fit into the category myself, I like when movies incorporate it. This one definitely plays it into the plot and at the end, theres a bit of a twist that I thought was pretty cool. I think 7/10 is very fair. Definitely watch it!

I have been a horror fan since I can remember and this is top notch slow burn with a truly horrifying but subtle ending in so many ways!

Slow and well crafted build up with superb music/sound effects which always make a good horror, superlative acting from the stand out character played by Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman who steals the show and almost carries the whole film on his shoulders as well as a good cast headed by the venerable Lochlyn Munro who portrays his insidious and mysterious character with aplomb. With a denouement that will surely satisfy the most picky of horror fans with its pervading sense of dread and mystery this film did not disappoint.

Do not listen to the negative reviews on this one, it is just that most people these days seem to have a low threshold for boredom and cannot appreciate films that are slow and methodical; give it a try with the lights off late at night in the dark with the surround system turned up and tell me if I am wrong.

This movie had a really good concept with potential, but it was squandered by being made too long, drawn out, and boring. Any story that includes gaslighting has to be handled delicately, because an audience will only take so much before they check out because of the stupidity of the characters who doubt the victim. Add in the slow pace and drawn out periods were nothing seems to happen, throw in an annoying, unsympathetic actor as the victim, and the result is something that you can't wait to end.

I love that we are at the point now where a homosexual couple can be the lead characters in a film and no one even thinks twice about it. 'Spiral' is an interesting little movie. It hooked me in with its mysterious and intriguing trailer and then an even more intriguing beginning to the actual film. It's one of those films where you aren't entirely sure what type of horror you watching. It could easily be supernatural, or it could just as easily all have a reasonable explanation.

The first jump-scare in this movie got me. I wasn't ready for it yet and it made my heart jump out of my skin. Interestingly that was one of the only (possible the only?) jump-scares the film actually used. It does overdo the music a little in certain scenes, trying to make things seem even more ominous than they actually are, but for the most part the film excellently utilises imagery and tension to keep the audience on edge.

The ending to this film is a ball of fun. The middle does fall away a little and gets a little messy and tedious, but it's all worth it as long as you stick around for the conclusion. I liked the characters in 'Spiral', I liked the story and I loved the ending. This one gets a thumbs up.