I ask him about the origins and it basically came down to he was a fan of the Saw franchise. Spiral confronts these issues head-on while at the same time delivering a nuanced, terrifying story that’s expertly directed and character-driven.Did you ever talk with Chris Rock about how he got involved with the Saw franchise? This is the very decision that men and women like Malik are faced with every single day. He tells her instead to keep her head down and live in fear. The most heartbreaking moment in Spiral sees Malik a broken man, refuting what he had once told Kayla about living your life proud of who you are. This film is a journey into the dark beating heart of white America seen through the eyes of one of “the others” that world fears and denigrates, the gay black man. Spiral won’t ever be accused of being a feel-good hit of the summer. It is a gut-wrenching, jaw-dropping finale that has to be seen to be believed. It would be an absolute crime to spoil the end of Spiral, but it is shocking and will make audiences rewind just to make sure their eyes weren’t deceiving them. Jason) is a standout and gives a chilling, career turning performance that is both subtle and terrifying. They embody the banality of evil that exists and runs wild behind closed doors throughout middle and upper-class white America. Those outside forces in Spiral are represented by Malik and Aaron’s neighbors, Marsha (Loclyn Munro) and Tiffany (Chandra West). They are both tragic figures that are victims of circumstance and gaslit to the extreme by nefarious outside forces. Malik could easily be a play on Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) from Polanksi’s genre-defining Rosemary’s Baby (1968). There’s a lot of Roman Polanski ( Repulsion ) running through in Spiral ’s DNA, and it’s shown through a post- Get Out (2017) lens. One review already billed Spiral as “Polanski meets Peele.” That assessment is right on the money. The film wants to remind you that the underlying fear that drives the cult to do what they do is very much alive and prevalent in our society today. Spiral smartly only shows glimpses of the supernatural, so even though the film gets quite fantastical, in hindsight it always feels like it’s quite grounded. The murder Malik witnessed isn’t used as a plot device, but for character development that helps the viewer understand Malik’s motivations and attitudes. Where other recent films such as It: Chapter 2 (2019) stumbled over incorporating hate crimes into the narrative, Spiral succeeds. Spiral intersperses flashbacks of the incident throughout the film as Malik becomes more aware of what’s happening to the family, highlighting his distressed mental state. Aaron doesn’t ever seem to quite understand the inherent fear Malik has of the outside world, despite the fact that he knows Malik survived and witnessed a vicious hate crime when he was a teen. Not only are Malik and Aaron living out as a gay couple in the mid-’90s in suburban conservative America, but they are also interracial. There are a lot of social issues intertwined into the Spiral ’s narrative, which is written by Colin Minihan ( Grave Encounters ) and John Poliquin ( Grave Encounters 2). The neighbors might not be as mainstream as they seem. It’s a recipe for horrific tragedy, and that’s precisely what Spiral delivers. Imagine if that fear was purposefully exploited-more than it already is just living in America-by a group of suburbanite cultists who may be more than they appear. It’s a complicated existence that sees many layers of fear, hate, and danger in their path for simply living his life in the open. Spiral puts Malik firmly in the center and forces the audience to see a glimpse of the much-needed perspective of a gay black man in an interracial relationship with a white man. It’s an extremely nuanced portrayal of a man that is slipping slowly into madness by way of a sinister gaslighting. Malik is the central character in Spiral and this film works in large part thanks to Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman’s performance. Spiral places on these fears in a terrifying experience about life as “the other” in contemporary America and the inherent fears that come with being black and gay and trying to simply exist. Marriage equality would not be legally recognized in the United States until 2012. 1994 may not seem like that long ago, but things were radically different in the fight for equality in the LGBTQIA+ community. Spiral takes place in the mid-’90s, which is extremely important to remember in the context of Malik and Aaron’s gay partnership and how that was viewed in mainstream America at the time. Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) slowly realizes that his family is being chosen for something evil.
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