Spiral

I actually had high hopes for this (call me naive), maybe because of the star power of Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, neither of whom typically dabbles in the horror genre. I was hopeful that it would at least be entertaining, if not scary. Boy, was I wrong. It was not only NOT entertaining, but it borderline felt torturous to watch. Grossly unnecessary gore, predictable violence, and a convoluted story line that has sadly departed so far from the unique twist and originality of the first film. Instead of suspense and scares the movie is entirely made up of shock value. The goal is clearly to gross viewers out in hopes that disgust might be confused for actual enjoyment. I'm going to recommend people skip this one, unless you want to feel like you're the one stuck in a torture device for 1.5 hours. And definitely not for kids!

Spiral: From the Book of Saw, or Spiral: Saw, or simply Spiral is an entertaining thrill ride that while not as good as the previous Saw films holds up well for what you could say is a second soft reboot of the franchise after Jigsaw back in 2017. Plot: After the opening scene that involves the death of a detective from the Metropolitan Police Force, Detective Ezekiel Banks is on a manhunt when spirals seem to pop up all over the city. What seems to be an eerie connection to his father and knowing some of the cops' dark pasts, they figure out that this killer is targeting dirty cops and seems to have an eerily similar connection to the Jigsaw killer when those puzzle pieces seem to line up with the signature spirals showing up around the city and leads everyone to this conclusion: a Jigsaw copycat is after the department. Pros: the acting is surprisingly good. I actually bought into Chris Rock's role as this chief recruiting Max Minghella as the new rookie cop in the city William Schneck. He had some genuinely great moments of seriousness and great moments of humor. Samuel L. "motherfucking" Jackson was also great in the movie for the limited screentime he has. As for the gore, it's a great balance, considering this movie focuses less on traps and more of a character building piece. That doesn't mean that it holds back though and definitely earns an R rating. The pacing was pretty good for the most part (until the end); nothing felt like it dragged too much, and nothing felt too fast until the 3rd half. Which then leads me to some of the negatives. Cons: The writing could've been better within the last half of the film. The climax felt way too quick with the killer reveal for some reason. Not to mention the twist being slightly predictable. I also feel like the film could've benefitted greatly if I were emotionally invested in some of the characters when they got killed off. But since this movie only has a 90 runtime, there ain't a lot to focus on character wise. Not to mention it was a bit hard to believe how some of the cops got caught so easily. But that's all I have for negatives. If you wanna a good Saw film, you'll get it here. If you wanna a good cop thriller, you'll get it here. So in the end, that was a 90 minutes well spent.