This is a typical Colin Minihan script. A bit hokey with all of his signature type scares. This film isn't even really a horror movie but rather an experimental drama/mystery film. Most of the run time is devoted to the dynamics and relationships within the main family, leaving very little to chew on for horror fans. The violence doesn't come into play until the final 10 or 15 minutes but by this point we are just waiting for this boring and pointless film to end. What violence there is, is not effective enough and is a bit sudden. Malik makes a drastic decision at the end of the movie that comes out of nowhere. Wouldn't he have known it would only end him up in jail? A place where he can't do anything but admire his "partner" from afar? At that point he can only HOPE Aaron and his daughter don't fall prey to what he believes is a cult that murders minorities and pins their own crimes on them. Malik had no concrete proof and shooting the ring leader would only presumably make the cult more angry, would it not?
Also, the drama the movie so desperately tries to portray and thinks is so cool is actually very lackluster. Everything just seemed so shallow and fake. Its a bit of a "look at me! Im making a movie about gay men" type thing for Colin Minihan, following his film "What Keeps You Alive" which was about a lesbian couple and was WAY better. I actually really like that movie. "Spiral" is a major dud however. It reminds me a bit of Jay Baruchel's new film "Random Acts of Violence" in the sense that both that movie and "Spiral" seem to have something important to say about society but both fall flat on their faces while attempting to get their point across. Weak all around. Not scary at all. Not even a horror movie. A random, shallow. And weird movie with annoying and uninteresting characters.
Review of Spiral
