Seasoned Detective Zeke Banks (Chris Rock) and his new partner fresh out of the academy pick up a case of a man killed by a subway train. Assumed to be the accidental death of a homeless person it turns out to be the work of someone who holds the Jigsaw killer in high regard. 

Zeke is a detective who likes to work alone. Twelve years ago he chose to hand in his corrupt partner and has not been able to trust anyone on the force since. Even his police chief father was unable to save him from his “rat” label. The mystery of why he is at the centre of this new killers game will be revealed one grizzly death at a time. 

Spiral is the ninth film in the Saw franchise and it does exactly what you would expect it should. Filled with gruesome traps that verge on torture porn and a procedural race against time to try and find the killer. Chris Rock is successful as the leading man leaning in to his cliched jaded cop role whilst Samuel L. Jackson, Max Minghella and Marisol Nichols are all fine in underwritten supporting roles. 

Personally I found the murderer and plot a little bit too easily signposted with it all being rather immediately obvious. The grim traps also seemed a little bit impossible to escape from with the victims given very little time to choose between gruesome injury or an even more violent death. The main draw being Chris Rock’s performance and the general refresh of the franchise, given that it had tied itself into knots over the previous eight films. 

Fans of the franchise and gore hounds will be satisfied but there is very little for anyone else.