Review: ‘Spiral’
This socially aware horror film, set in the mid-90s, manages to deftly balance the genre-typical jump scares whilst also being able to craft a narrative that shines a light on some of the massive failings of our society. Even though the film is set decades ago, the issues it raises feel ripped from today’s headlines, managing to present us with the everyday horrors that many still have to deal with in 2020.
Aaron (Ari Cohen) and Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) are a same-sex interracial couple, who along with Aaron’s teenage daughter Kayla (Jennifer Laporte), move from their big city life and into a small town, which is almost entirely full of very straight and very white people. Malik is secretly troubled by immense trauma from his past that we slowly learn throughout the film was a result of a hate crime inflicted on his ex-boyfriend, but his public persona at the start of the film is very optimistic; he talks openly about living your life being proud of who you are and not afraid to shout about it. However, as soon as the family arrive in the new town, they are the centre of attention and constantly observed as though they are some sort of theme park attraction for everyone to gawk at.
The relationship between Malik and Aaron, and the whole family unit in general, is very much the focus of the film and is explored in all its complexities. This is a same-sex couple that the film doesn’t vilify in anyway but it also doesn’t make them out to be perfect; it simply shows their humanity in all its glory and flaws. It is a brilliant family dynamic we are shown, as Aaron’s daughter Kayla seems to have a wonderful relationship with Malik, despite the abandonment issues she is working through in relation to her mother and her feelings about her parents’ divorce. The film effortlessly shows us that this is just as normal a family as any other, despite what people would have you think.
Things in the town begin to quickly unravel, and despite Malik’s best efforts to hide it at first, mysterious things start occurring around the house, people are behaving strangely around him, and homophobic slurs are painted on the walls outside. As Aaron and Kayla seem to be comfortably adjusting to the new town and building relationships with its citizens, Malik continues to fall down the well of investigation and mystery that surrounds events before they arrived, causing his mental state to rapidly detoriorate.
Much of the film is a slow build, with the first two thirds taking great amounts of time for us to really get to know some of these characters and for the tension and sense of mystery to build. This also allows for a final third to really go there and deliver gory kills and real scares, all while incrementally raising the stakes because we have come to care for the characters, particularly Malik.
‘Spiral’ has a solid script but many of the reveals and shocks in the film are visual, with smart cinematography adding a real darkness and sense of hallucinatory confusion, and well-paced editing effectively used to move the story along whilst keeping the uneasy feeling – almost as if we are witnessing these events slightly outside of reality, as it is from Malik’s perspective.
Awards voters have always had a strange bias against horror performances, and that is a real shame because Bowyer-Chapman carries this film excellently and his ability to play some of the difficult nuances of Malik is what really helps the film rise above genre clichés and be something very impressive.
No matter how many scares and supernatural horrors we see, the most haunting thing about this film is how much is shows the horrors that LGBTQ+ people and people of colour face every day. – Sam Howe
Rating: 3.5/5
Spiral is now streaming on Shudder.