Holy Spi­der

The Iran-born, Den­mark-based film­mak­er Ali Abbasi made waves in 2018 for his eccen­tric polit­i­cal fan­ta­sy romance, Bor­der. He returns with some­thing very dif­fer­ent, an extreme­ly graph­ic true crime saga whose per­sis­tent focus on squalor and degra­da­tion con­nect it to a cer­tain ten­den­cy in hard­core hor­ror films of the 1970s and ​’80s.

Work­ing in an intrigu­ing metaphor about reli­gious fun­da­men­tal­ism employed as an excuse for fascis­tic social cleans­ing, it sees Rahi­mi (Zar Amir-Ebrahi­mi) rolling into the city of Mash­had to inves­ti­gate a rash of sex work­er mur­ders. As she goes about her inves­ti­ga­tions, Abbasi allows us to mon­i­tor the par­al­lel com­ings, goings and slay­ings of Saeed Hanaei (Meh­di Bajes­tani), a hen-pecked fam­i­ly man nick­named ​“Spi­der Killer” in the media. The film excels in nasty gener­ic thrills, even if there are some fic­tion­al ele­ments of the sto­ry which under­mine its appar­ent ally­ship to the victims.

Rahimi’s plan to ensnare the beast is high-risk enough to have us watch­ing through clenched fin­gers, espe­cial­ly as we’ve repeat­ed­ly wit­nessed how bru­tal Hanaei can be. It’s a dif­fi­cult watch, not least because Abbasi appears to be lav­ish­ing in the same vis­cer­al vio­lence he pur­ports to decry, and his con­cep­tion of the appar­ent­ly repul­sive lives of sex work­ers appears to mir­ror that of the killer. It’s trashy and hyper­bol­ic, put togeth­er with no small amount of brio, but doesn’t appear to serve much pur­pose, in the ser­i­al killer canon or otherwise.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

By becom­ing a mem­ber you can sup­port our inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and receive exclu­sive essays, prints, month­ly film rec­om­men­da­tions and more.