Sprial: From the Book of Saw (2021) * 1/2

Directed by:  Darren Lynn Bousman

Starring:  Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols

The Saw series began with Saw (2004) in which an ingenious serial killer lures his victims into traps in which they must choose between death or permanent disfigurement.   I wasn't crazy about Saw, but at least it had a plot.   The ensuing movies in the series were little more than a series of gorefests in which the traps grew more elaborate and sickening.   Body parts are severed and blood spurts all over the screen.   They were depressing to watch.   I stopped after Saw 3.   I don't believe I missed much by not watching the other movies.  

Many years later comes Spiral, starring Chris Rock as a detective on the tail of a Jigsaw copycat killer who targets cops.   I went in knowing full well the victims will be secured in contraptions of agonizing complexity.  My first question is:  How much time, energy, patience, and resources does this killer have to keep setting up these booby traps?   He must buy chloroform and pig masks by the gross.  And how does he perform test runs of the traps?   The opening sequence features a dirty cop hung by his tongue while a subway train races towards him.   The killer sets up a small TV set which outlines the two possible outcomes to the would-be victim:  The cop can die when the train hits him or he can free himself from the contraption which will sever his tongue clean off.   The cop will live but have trouble eating and speaking for the rest of his life.   Fun times.

Not even the comic presences of Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson bring any levity to Spiral.   Rock's Zeke Banks is a department pariah for testifying against his former partner who coldly murdered someone.  He is put on the case when what is left of the cop is found splattered all over the subway tracks.   His dialogue to his new partner (Minghella) about marriage and divorce sounds like something out of his stand-up act.   Jackson appears in a few scenes as Zeke's dad, a former department captain also targeted by the killer in the pig mask, drops four and twelve-letter words and then disappears for a long stretch.  

Spiral leaves room open for yet another sequel, but it merely continues a wearying film series which is among the least fun you will ever witness.   There is nothing new in Spiral except upping the ante on gore, blood, and severed body parts.