A same-sex couple and their daughter move into a new house in a small town where one of the men, Malik (Jeffrey Boyer-Chapman) immediately has uneasy feelings about their neighbors. Seeking a more peaceful life, Malik and his partner Aaron (Ari Cohen) are trying to raise Aaron’s 16 year-old daughter Kayla (Jennifer Laporte) in a safe community. Aaron is pleased with their new home and their neighbors. Kayla is adjusting pretty well, despite her rebellious streak. But Malik, he’s feeling a bit different about things. He spots one of his neighbors, a feeble old man, lurking around the property. The old man warns Malik and gives him a blank piece of paper that will show him the truth of the situation. The next day, the old man is dead. Malik begins experiencing what are either hallucinations or very real and surreal visions. Is Malik having a mental breakdown, or is there truly something sinister going on in his neighborhood? As the web of paranoia grows and tightens around Malik, he finds himself estranged from his partner and Kayla and soon, he is on his own, seeing ghosts and apparitions that no one else experiences. After intense investigation, Malik thinks he’s solved the mystery and knows what’s happening, and finally lashes out in a very dangerous way. But Malik only thinks he knows what’s really going on…
Spiral is an interesting slow-burn of a horror film. It’s a methodical watch. Everything appears normal at the beginning, although ominous undertones lets you know that things aren’t quite what they seem. Slowly the weirdness begins to unravel and slowly we watch Malik lose his mind. This all pays off in a pretty spectacular way towards the end, when the mysteries are solved, and the terror and the horror of what Malik thought was going on is actually, much, much worse. Spiral literally does what its title describes: it spirals down into madness and insanity and ancient evil. If you remain patient and allow yourself, you’ll get sucked in and down with it, slowly finding yourself at first confused, then conflicted, and finally horrified. There is an increasingly unsettling sense of underlying dread that builds as the story continues, as the viewer is not sure what narrative to trust. Is Malik simply losing his mind, or are there really sinister, outside forces massing against him and his family? The tension between these two realities is sometimes almost unbearable.
The closest kin to this movie I can think of is The Invitation. Both films take place in a very solid and grounded reality that soon begins to slip away. In the case of Spiral, things get far more surreal and that level ground soon tilts and dips and sinks in. Halfway through the movie, you’re not sure where you stand anymore, just like Malik. Spiral is an effective and scary little movie, reflecting the fears of same-sex couples, of parents trying to give their kid the best raising they can, of moving to a new home and life, and of being the outsiders, in more ways than one. A slow, tense film, Spiral delivers all the horror you could ask for, and more.
★★★☆
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