My Review of Spiral: From The Book Of Saw (2021)

 

Written by Josh Stolberg And Peter Goldfinger

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman 

William: "John Kramer was right. The spiral: a symbol of change, evolution, progress."

If you ever wanted to know if the Saw franchise could make a movie that didn't feature John Kramer/Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) in any capacity and still work, there's this movie. Aside from a few needed mention, this was a John Kramer free zone.

Even more surprising was the addition of Chris Rock to this franchise. Horror's not something he's done a lot of in his career and I'm surprised he opted for a well known franchise rather than A24 potential critical darling. He's also rather good in this movie.

Chris Rock played a demoted detective named Ezekiel "Zeke" Banks. Zeke's pretty coarse and set in his ways and he's not particularly happy with being paired with the more modern thinking Detective William Schenk (Max Minghella). Nope, he's not happy at all.

This time around though it's not ordinary citizens or even criminals being targeted by a new Jigsaw. It's the police themselves, mostly the corrupt and inept ones. This Jigsaw wanted to clean up police corruption and using John Kramer's method of self inprovement was the way to do it.

This obviously made Zeke determined to catch Jigsaw and even had him accepting William's way of thinking as well. It also meant Zeke confronting his retired police captain father, Marcus (Samuel L. Jackson). Marcus wasn't particularly the most likable of characters but there's a joy to be had in seeing Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson share several scenes together.

As for Jigsaw himself, I don't think Schenk was that shocking but the lengths he went to avoid early detection were impressive. The guy even managed to fake having a baby in order to gain Zeke's trust. As a Jigsaw successor, William did seem closer to what Kramer would have wanted but he was also motivated by revenge. He also got away too with Zeke and Marcus being the final casualties of the movie.

- This movie was the lowest grossing in the franchise and fell victim to be released during COVID.

- Various victims included Detective Marv Bozwick (Daniel Petronijevic), Detective Fitch (Richard Zeppieri) and Captain Angie Garza (Marisol Nichols).

- Standout music: Young Nudy's You Ain't Hard.

- Chronology: Present day, July 4th at the beginning of the movie.

I really enjoy this movie. Spiral: From The Book Of Saw effectively was a spin-off movie and it was great. Chris Rock, Max Minghella and Samuel L. Jackson were all on fine form. This would easily be high up in my list of movies for this franchise.

Rating: 7 out of 10