Review: ‘Spiral’ examines vilification of queerness

“Well, my point is the world is exactly the same place as it was back then. People don’t change, Liam. They just get better at hiding how they feel.” This key line of dialogue, expressed by Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman’s Malik in a moment of gripping emotional turmoil, becomes the crux of not only Kurtis David Harder’s new feature Spiral but the entire state of the world in 2020. What feels like a long-awaited reckoning today is a mirror-image of social and political cycles spanning throughout history.

With a script written by Colin Minihan (What Keeps You Alive, Z) and John Poliquin (Selfie), Spiral is cut from the exact same cloth as Jordan Peele’s Get Out, rearranging various characterizations and story beats through a queer lens. A gay couple, Malik and his other half Aaron (Ari Cohen, It, Rising Suns), along with their daughter Kayla (Jennifer Laporte), relocate to middle America, exchanging their bustling city life for a considerably slower pace. Much like Get Out, Spiral plays on the unease many marginalized individuals feel in their everyday life, as they navigate outsider status in a new location. Thus, they’re cast further into the fringes of society.

Set in 1995, the film analyzes the vilification of the LGBTQ+ community in a post-AIDS crisis and employs Malik’s history of trauma as its central amplifier. Interestingly, Malik was originally written as a white character, and it was Bowyer-Chapman’s advisement to take the opportunity to explore the convergence of queerness and race. “You could look at this story of trauma and intrigue through intersectionality and give it that much more depth and layers,” he explained. As such, Spiral cuts even deeper wounds; Malik contends with not only casual homophobia but rampant racism [the couple’s new neighbor Tiffany (Chandra West, Z, NYPD Blue) assumes Malik is the “gardener” in an early scene). Filmed just an hour away from Bowyer-Chapman’s hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, the story is exactly as the actor knew life growing up. He was adopted as a baby into a white family and raised in a predominantly white community. “I was the only other and faced an extreme amount of racism and homophobia,” he said. “That in itself is a horror story.”

Spiral is Bowyer-Chapman’s story, and any queer person of color’s story, one riddled with misery, resentment, and anger. For Malik, he once witnessed the brutal murder of his high school boyfriend, and that fateful day has haunted him ever since. Harder mixes these powerful, gutting flashbacks with the present, pulling the psychological strings together so the viewer fully understands Malik as a human being. He’s been unduly damaged by society, and in the present, he seeks to conquer the past once and for all so perhaps he can truly live. 

His best efforts ⏤ from tracing back the town’s sick and twisted history to keeping the relatively new family dynamic afloat ⏤ are, however, met with constant gaslighting, especially from Aaron. No one believes the unsettling dread Malik feels right from the start. Any queer person knows that feeling when it’s like your heart is stuck and throbbing in the back of your throat. It’s terribly frustrating then to see Aaron so blasé about Malik’s very valid feelings, and when Aaron does realize he’s been telling the truth, it may be far too late. Even when Malik witnesses what appears to be a satanic ritual happening across the street, he finds no one willing to listen. The walls swiftly and severely close in around him, with a series of unexplained blackouts and apparitions further blurring the lines.

Several revelations and story moments don’t always make sense, but Spiral‘s overall message does. Fear-mongering and bigotry spin in literal spirals, as we’re seeing this year alone with the murders of George Flloyd and Breonna Taylor. When one group is done being villainized, another takes its place. Rinse and repeat. The film’s effectiveness lies totally in Bowyer-Chapman’s hands and his devastating lead performance, as well as the shattering real-world implications that go far beyond what many are willing to admit.

Spiral hits Shudder this Thursday (September 17).

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