Spiral plot?
Off-duty Detective Marv Bozwick pursues a burglar through a sewage drainage pipe during a Fourth of July parade. Bozwick wakes to find himself dangling by his tongue in a busy subway tunnel after being attacked from behind by a person wearing a pig mask. He is offered an option through recorded message: cut out his tongue and survive, or wait until the next train comes, killing him. Bozwick gets murdered by the train after failing to escape the trap in time. The next day, Detective Zeke Banks is assigned a new partner, idealistic rookie William Schenk, by police Captain Angie Garza. Banks and Schenk examine Bozwick's death, and Banks notices similarities to the now-deceased Jigsaw Killer's method of operation.
Meanwhile, a murder investigator called Fitch is kidnapped and put in a trap where he must pull his fingers off to prevent electrocution in a filling water basin; he too fails to escape and dies after ignoring a backup call from Banks some years previously. Because of his relationship with Fitch, several police assume Banks is to blame. The station is then visited by a package carrying a pig puppet and a portion of Schenk's tattooed flesh. A little vial inside the box leads the cops to a butcher shop that was originally a hobby business frequented by Banks and his father, retired chief Marcus Banks. When the squad arrives, they find a recording recorder and a skinned body identified as Schenk. Marcus decides to seek out the murderer himself and heads to a warehouse, where he is kidnapped. Garza is abducted and put in a trap in the precinct's cold storage, where she must slice her spinal chord with a blade to stop hot wax from a conduit from spilling down her face. She fails to do so, and when Banks finds her corpse, she dies from her injuries caused by the boiling hot wax.
Banks gets apprehended while following a lead and awakens in the warehouse, shackled to a pipe with a hacksaw nearby. He contemplates chopping off his arm, but escapes by using a bobby pin. He then finds shackled Peter Dunleavy, his old colleague who was sacked and imprisoned after Banks disclosed a murder he committed. A massive glass-crushing machine in front of him has been modified to swiftly fling shrapnel towards him. A tape recorder states that Banks has the option of either releasing him or leaving him to die. Despite his efforts to rescue Dunleavy, Banks is unable to get the key in time. Banks then discovers Schenk in another area, where it is revealed that he faked his own death by using the skinned body of the robber who lured Bozwick into the tunnels, and has been the copycat all along. He reveals that his surname is Emmerson, and that he is the son of Charlie Emmerson, whom Dunleavy shot and murdered because he consented to testify against a corrupt officer. He also explains that Marcus, as chief, purposefully sheltered corrupt cops in order to sweep the streets of crime more effectively under Article 8.
Who led Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)?
Chris Rock portrays Detective Zeke Banks in the film.
Detective William Schenk / Emmerson was played by Max Minghella. Young William was played by Leonidas Castrounis.
In this film, Samuel L. Jackson played Marcus Banks.
Captain Angie Garza was played by Marisol Nichols. The role of Detective Marv Bozwick was played by Daniel Petronijevic.
Richard Zeppieri played Fitch.
Dunleavy was played by Patrick McManus.
Officer Jeannie Lewis was played by Ali Johnson.
Kara Bozwick was played by Zoie Palmer.
Sergeant Morgey Silva was represented by actor Dylan Roberts. Detective Drury was acted by K. C. Collins.
Det. Deborah Kraus was played by Edie Inksetter.
Chada was played by Nazneen Contractor.
Mitchell played Tim O'Brien. Benny Wright was played by Chad Camilleri. Speez was played by Christopher Ramsay. Charlie Emmerson was played by Frank Licari. Williams played Lisa Banks. Trevor Gretzky was cast in the role of Officer Pat Jones.
Chris Rock contacted Lionsgate with his idea for Spiral: From the Book of Saw to revitalize the Saw series and his own career.Stolberg told Bloody Disgusting that Jigsaw was never in any draft of the screenplay for Spiral: From the Book of Saw, even though they talked about it after the first test screening and all the way through post-production. They thought that including Jigsaw would change the core of the story they were trying to tell, not because they didn't like the character but because they wanted to take the franchise in a new direction. Stolberg also thought that because of the franchise's timeline, any possible connection between John Kramer and William Schenk/The Spiral (2021) Killer should have happened when the latter was still a child. Stolberg and Goldfinger once proposed an after-credits scene in which Kramer met a young Schenk after the murder of the latter's father and became close to him, maybe giving him the puppet he later uses as the Spiral (2021) Killer.
As the film's murderer is a Jigsaw imitator who differs from the original, it was decided to replace Billy the Puppet with Mr. Snuggles, as Bousman believed that if the original Jigsaw was changed, the original puppet should also be altered so that the new killer cannot be compared to the old one. Deeming Bell's voice as too iconic, the production feared that reusing it for Mr. Snuggles could have raised questions about the relationship between both killers; an early draft featured Jigsaw's voice, which was later revealed to be a digitally altered version of his voice, and the story originally had all the speeches as being past recordings of Jigsaw's voice with the words rearranged to indicate that the Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) Killer had digitally rearranged the words. The directors had struggled to locate a replacement voice for Bell's murderer. Before deciding on the computer-generated voice, Bousman experimented with several female, male, and kid voices. The final voice used in the film was chosen barely two days before the final sound mix was completed.
James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Daniel Heffner, who made the first Saw, are now executive producers for Rock. Stolberg and Goldfinger have been confirmed to write the scripts.
Rock mentioned that he has been a fan of Saw since the first film in 2004. He was ecstatic at the prospect of taking things to a new level of intensity and twistedness.
After Saw IV, Bousman said he wouldn't direct another one. When Rock asked him to direct a Broadway show in New York City, he turned down the offer.
According to Burg and Koules, Rock's approach to Saw was analogous to what Eddie Murphy had done for buddy cop films in 48 Hrs., which provided the Saw series with a whole new point of view. In a similar vein, Bousman mentioned that there was less bloodshed and gore in Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) in comparison to previous installments. He expressed the conviction that the bloodshed and violence were the gimmick for him when he first started working on the Saw films, but that both elements now serve the story, which focuses more on character, tension, and fear.
Detective Zeke Banks was played by Rock. Rock, Stolberg, and Goldfinger came up with the idea for the character during conversations they had before writing the screenplay. Rock wondered what he would do if he were the original Saw protagonist, Dr. Lawrence Gordon, and had to cut off his own foot. They thought it would be interesting for Rock to play a cop who is looked down upon by his fellow officers.
What was Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)'s marketing strategy?
What grade did Spiral receive?
Did Spiral (2021) bring in a lot of money at the box office?
What did reviewers say about Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)?
Spiral (2021)'s efforts to shake up the series formula were hailed by reviewers, but it fell short of giving Saw the huge push it needed to reclaim its relevancy.
Surveys by CinemaScore and PostTrak show that audiences generally awarded the picture a B- on a scale of A+ to F, with 43% of those asked indicating they would strongly recommend it.
A film reviewer said the film had a few surprising twists, but for a thriller about police immorality, it's curiously offtopic and bland.
A separate film reviewer said the script captures the grizzled-cop-movie tone and sketches interesting characters, but the narrative is repetitive, the mystery is hopelessly foreseeable, and the inventive Click Here deaths are fewer than before. Spiral traded fun for respectability and didn't accomplish either.
Many film reviews praised Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) as a really terrifying, albeit unevenly paced, detective thriller, while simultaneously criticizing its writing for failing to depict the potential tensions between its major characters' father-son relationship.
Some film critics praised the acting and Spiral (2021)'s straightforward but compelling premise, but they also commented on the voice of the mysterious killer, saying that he sounded like Kermit the Frog, and they stated that the screams and the gore aren't things that this movie's real audience has to put up with. They are, in fact, the selling point.
In his review of the picture, which received one and a half stars, a different film reviewer called it "downright unreadable" since it lacked tension, a narrative, and movement in the storyline. He criticized the film's tone as well as the direction that it was given by Darren Lynn Bousman.
A separate film reviewer complimented the opening sequence but concluded that it was the film's sole redeeming feature, stating that the idea is "dishonest at best and fearmongering at worst." This film is not as brilliant as it thinks it is, like Jigsaw presenting one of his simple riddles.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw fumbles through its fundamental riddle without elegance, flair, or even much thinking, according to a film reviewer who gave the picture a bad review. Even the death traps lack creativity. He recognized the picture's promise, adding that the most frustrating aspect of Spiral is that a better, wiser film lies behind all the foolishness. There are just too many fast cuts and sequences when the pace ramps up. The awful speech, which is blasted at full volume, is irritating. Spiral: From the Book of Saw is ultimately a picture about corrupt, even deadly officers having a reckoning, and that kind of material has the potential to be both subversive and current for a Hollywood film, but it has to be noted that Spiral: From the Book of Saw is almost irritating in how little it appears to care about any of this. It just wants to bleed a lot, which it does.
In April of 2021, it was announced that the sequel film to Saw, which would be dubbed Saw X, will be produced by Twisted Pictures. However, Bousman remarked that the announcement was made too soon and that it astonished both him and the producers of the picture. He said that even though they produced Spiral, this does not signify that the Saw series is no longer active or relevant. There is no guarantee that there won't be a Saw IX, even since Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) has already been released. The Saw series has not yet reached its ninth installment with this movie. There is a strong possibility that Jigsaw will be followed by Saw IX. In order to assess what comes after Spiral (2021) and how audiences react to it, I believe they are waiting to watch how Spiral plays out. The completion of the script was certified by Josh Stolberg in the month of December of the same year.
Lionsgate Television chairman Kevin Beggs said in an April 2021 interview with Deadline Hollywood that Lionsgate TV is in early negotiations to produce a television series based on Spiral, with Mark Burg and Oren Koules' Twisted Television productions.