Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)

Spiral: From the Book of Saw earns its keep by taking the franchise’s sadistic ingenuity and grafting it onto a lean, propulsive police-thriller engine, with Chris Rock bringing a surprisingly sharp, restless edge that keeps the story moving even when the room gets dark. Darren Lynn Bousman stages the set pieces with grim precision, but the real hook is the mystery’s moral sting—corruption, loyalty, and resentment simmering beneath the procedural surface—so the tension comes from more than just what’s in the traps. Samuel L. Jackson adds bruised authority, and the film’s vibe is sweaty, angry, and urban, like a late-night thriller that happens to be dipped in Saw’s signature grime. It’s not for the squeamish—this one is unapologetically gory—but if you want a franchise entry with fresh momentum and a nastier, more pointed bite, Spiral is an easy ticket to punch.

Spiral is clearly trying to reboot Saw into a slicker police-thriller angle, using corruption as the motive and Chris Rock’s intensity to give the series a new voice. The problem is it still leans hard on the familiar franchise machinery, so the mystery feels more like you’re waiting for the obvious reveal than getting genuinely outsmarted, and the “big ideas” about policing don’t go much deeper than surface-level outrage. The traps deliver gore, but they’re not consistently as inventive or as tension-building as longtime fans might hope, which makes the whole thing feel oddly routine for a series built on escalation. If you want a gritty, nuanced detective story or a true reinvention of Saw, this likely won’t satisfy—but if you’re here for nasty set pieces, a brisk runtime, and Samuel L. Jackson showing up to add some bite, you’ll get enough to coast on.