Day 23

Spiral (2019)

Directed by Kurtis David Harder

When gay couple Malik and Aaron move to a small town with their daughter Kayla, they encounter an expectedly awkward welcoming party that seems well intentioned but not exactly politically correct. As the days pass, Malik begins noticing the neighbors participating in strange meetings after dark, meetings that seem to coincide with threatening events in their own home. Spiral seems heavily influenced by Get Out, which isn’t a bad thing, Get Out is a masterpiece that everyone should watch, but the thing about Get Out was how tricky it was to get that perfect balance of social commentary, true horror, and gripping characters that made it so special. Spiral doesn’t achieve that, but it does succeed in bringing together some quality actors to tell a story that will probably resonate with many people’s experiences, which is always a good thing. Speaking of the actors, the performances are the best part of this movie, particularly Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman whose emotional range and intensity are impressive and captivating, with the entire cast being at least good. Even when some characters’ actions don’t make much sense, the actors do their best to try and make things seem reasonable.

I don’t want to give spoilers for this movie, but I will say what kind of broke it for me was what I would consider an absurd sequence between two important characters where a main character is showing another a bunch of signs that things are not right here, and another character is comically dismissive of everything this person is saying. Without those scenes, or maybe if they were changed a little, I think I would like this movie more, but those sequences broke my immersion and nothing else could really get it back at that point. To be fair though, there is a lot of good character work, some impressive visuals considering the budget, and a neat story hidden beneath all these strange character interactions. There’s a stark gritty realism here that will also definitely be divisive, but I would still generally recommend this film so long as you know what you’re getting into.