A socially-conscious horror film doesn’t require sharp commentary to be effective, but it should at least use its stylistic elements to explore our most painful, unaddressed feelings about the issue at hand. Spiral doesn’t do enough of either, conforming to all the usual “something isn’t quite right with this neighbourhood” plot contrivances that tell us everything we need to know about where this story will end up.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t any technical flourishes in Spiral. It drives home its primary metaphor figuratively, with mysterious happenings narrowing in on the protagonist from all sides, and visually, with spiral-like camera movements and close ups of water swirling down a sink drain. The paranoid descent of Malik, played by Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, is also allowed some depth by having it parallel his regressive journey back into the closet, terrified of the ramifications of being out-and-proud in a heteronormative town.
But the LGBT lens through which this fairly standard horror story is filtered through doesn’t do enough to separate it from all those suburban nightmare movies that have come before. The greatest source of inspiration here is Get Out, which itself was satirical twist on Rosemary’s Baby, but Spiral contains neither the incisiveness nor thrilling suspense of its predecessors.
Spiral also misguidedly conflates the experiences of gay couples with the experiences of other minority groups. While all are certainly bound together by the fact that they face some sort of prejudice, the film superficially suggests that anyone who isn’t a straight, white couple could have easily been slotted into the two lead roles, and the story would have evolved in an identical fashion. As such, there is little specific interrogation of homophobia going on here, but rather a sweeping, shallow statement about discrimination on its broadest level.
One has to admire a filmmaker who demonstrates an interest in visual storytelling as Kurtis David Harder does, but these impressive stylistic choices are few and far between, connected by stretches of jump scares and strangers staring creepily at our protagonists from a distance. That the suspense derives from well-worn plot beats negates its own impact, leading us to an inevitable conclusion that isn’t as elusive as the movie seems to think. Spiral has good intentions, but sadly little finesse in implementing them.
