The Mosley Review: Spiral: From the Book of Saw
If there's one franchise that sums up the most iconic, sadistic, beautiful and inventive nature of a horror subgenre, its the Saw franchise. Every since 2004, this franchise reshaped the splatter horror film subgenre, broke the boundaries of imagination and helped coin the title "torture porn". The films went on and on as they became very popular, but the quality of each film truly diminished after Saw III. It quickly became about the gimmick of how violent and disturbing the deaths were and how elaborate the tests could get. The story was lackluster with every entry and became sort of a soup opera of connectivity throughout the films. I loved the first 3 films and how they tied up and I just really wished they'd stopped there. Now comes the 9th film in the series that kind of acts as a spin off and it was exactly the lack of quality in the storytelling that I expected. The detective aspect of the story was fun and I found 2 of the tests in this film to be impressive, but the overall plot was just boring and felt like a regurgitation of past films that did it so much better. I just felt nothing by the end of the film and even the twist was very underplayed.
The cast all range from great to decent in performance. Chris Rock leads us through the carnage as Detective Ezekiel "Zeke" Banks and I liked him, but it was hard to care about him. The point is that he isn't supposed to be a likeable guy but once people he cares about start dying around him, we're supposed to care for him. It was kind of hard since this was not really the best acting I've seen from Rock. The character truly lacked any dimension or layers, but that doesn't mean I didn't like watching him. Samuel L. Jackson plays his father Marcus Banks and well, he was just himself for most of the film. The relationship between them is strained to say the least and I did like seeing them on screen together, but there was no chemistry there. Max Minghella was good as Det. William Schenk and I liked his scenes in the beginning with Ezekiel, but later on he just completely becomes a dead fish of a character as he barely puts any emphasis on the situations he finds himself in with Zeke. Marisol Nichols was good as Capt. Angie Garza and when she isn't constantly yelling at Ezekiel, their chemistry was alright.
The score by the franchise composer Charlie Clouser was good and dark as it should be. I did like the remixed and fresh take on the Saw theme that plays in a cool scene. The "Hello Zepp" score returns as expected in the final act. The cinematography is gorgeous and consistent with the look of the franchise, but I feel this one is the most colorful of them all. The Saw films are known not only for their gore, but they're also known for the twist ending that ties it all together. This film delivers on that promise, but it just lacked the mind blowing and inventive punch the past films had. It was a decent twist but once you see it unfold, you are disappointed by the fact that it had no real lesson behind it. The twists have always been about teaching a lesson or making a choice that would be a serious impact to the character, but this one teaches nothing. Overall, I thought it was just another forgettable entry in a franchise that should've ended a long time ago. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!
