Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Spiral: From the Book of Saw Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 15, 2021

When Lionsgate released both a "new, improved" 1080 version and a UHD version of the first film in the venerable Saw franchise with their Saw 4K outing, I mentioned in our Saw 4K Blu-ray review how I personally couldn't help but feel the release was at least in part a marketing ploy attempting to elevate interest in Spiral: From the Book of Saw. One of the excellent supplements on the Saw 4K release was a rather in depth history of the franchise called Game Changer: The Legacy of 'Saw' which provided a fascinating overview and which, along with the supplement entitled The Consequences of Your Actions: Creating 'Spiral' on this disc, might help to give fans an inkling of what the creative crew that has been involved with this franchise for years, and in some cases from the very beginning, have sought to create over the course of several years. The fact that Saw became an annual event, typically linked to releases around Halloween, made the Saw films "appointment viewing" for some fans, even if an individual rendezvous might have been a bit of a disappointment. The Saw team frankly tried to "reinvent" the (tricycle?) wheel a few years ago with Jigsaw, and that Blu-ray release also had a rather excellent featurette called I Speak for the Dead: The Legacy of 'Jigsaw' which offered some of the same talking heads explaining what that reboot was attempting to do within the context of the overall Saw story arc. All of the foregoing is to perhaps help indicate that the team working on Saw for so many years has, kind of like some of the victims in the series, had its back to the wall and, at least with regard to the initial yearly outings, may have earned a little slack in terms of having to come up with material over and over. But that aspect aside, since Jigsaw didn't exactly set the world on fire in terms of "reinventing" Saw, some may wonder why there's this "new, improved" (?) attempt to do much the same thing, albeit in a somewhat different direction.

If Jigsaw attempted the tried (trite?) and true method of offering an origin story of sorts, Spiral: From the Book of Saw takes a procedural approach that is focused on a supposed "Jigsaw copycat" killer who is being investigated by a police detective named Zeke Banks (Chris Rock, also one of the producers). Now this conceit has both pluses and minuses, with the pluses ostensibly including the ability to depart from perceived " Saw canon", though co-writers Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger don't travel too far from "traps" and grotesque injuries, two of the franchise's probably unavoidable "calling cards". But the biggest minus here is that by the film's own self-imposed strictures, the story here deals with a copycat, which perhaps makes this the cinematic version of a Xerox product. In other words, the only thing binding this film to the overall Saw franchise is the copycat aspect, and that simply may not be enough for diehard Saw fans.

In terms of the plot mechanics, they're arguably once again too reliant on an almost preposterous number of coincidences, something that I have found to be a recurrent problem with some of the Saw films. Here you have supposed "good cop" Banks, albeit one with a background that has some issues, working to discover a killer who seems to know a lot about Banks and the police force in general. When the killings seem to be pointing to Banks as the perpetrator, the film tries to take on a perhaps quasi-Hitchcockian air of an innocent man being wrongly accused, but the surrounding context is so often ridiculously contrived that there's actually surprisingly little suspense.

Suffice it to say that Banks' past is of course the key to what's going on, and that it also involves his father Marcus (Samuel L. Jackson) and another cop named William Schenck (Max Minghella). This is another ostensible franchise entry whose major reason for existing (aside from extracting box office receipts from viewers) seems to be to set everything up for yet another sequel. Stay tuned.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf was even less enthused about Spiral: From the Book of Saw than I was. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Spiral: From the Book of Saw is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. The IMDb lists the Sony CineAlta Venice capturing at up to 6K source resolution, and a 4K DI. Both of these data points probably help to explain this transfer's really superior detail levels, which include fine detail able to peek through sometimes very dark or aggressively graded scenes. The Venice has actually been overtly mentioned in some other reviews I've done as being chosen for the lustrous palette it supports, and it's easy to see that aspect in this film, not just due to the aforementioned grading, which is often rather interesting and approaches near John Wick-ian levels of almost lurid purples, greens and chartreuses. As can be seen in some of the screenshots, several scenes have an almost buttery yellow look to them, but once again detail levels are remarkably consistent. Some flashback material has a kind of quasi-sepia toned look (see screenshots 11 and 19 for two examples).

Spiral: From the Book of Saw Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Spiral: From the Book of Saw features a nicely immersive Dolby Atmos tracks that gets its overhead mojo working as soon as some of the production mastheads. There are numerous examples of great surround activity, beginning with the cacophonous carnival setting that quickly becomes claustrophobic in an underground subway tunnel, and some of the trap scenes provide good engagement of all of the surround channels, with one especially disturbing sequence involving shattered glass bottle shards spewing out of a fanlike object and into the body of a hapless victim being one of the more notable Atmos moments. Charlie Clouser's score also wafts evocatively through the side and rear channels and provides a good subliminal boost of the angst factor at key moments. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are available.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Darren Lynn Bousman, Co-Screenwriter Josh Stolberg and Composer Charlie Clouser


• Audio Commentary with Producers Oren Koules and Mark Burg


• The Consequences of Your Actions: Creating Spiral (HD; 59:05) is another very well done background piece that when taken in the context of some of the other making of pieces included as supplements on previous Blu-ray releases I mentioned above in the main body of the review is starting to make me wonder if maybe there should be a franchise of documentaries about Saw, rather than any further Saw films.


• Drawing Inspiration: Illustrated Trap Breakdowns (HD; 8:45) is a "guided tour" with Darren Lynn Bousman walking viewers through various sequences. This includes "instant playback" of some of the more gruesome moments, so forewarned is forearmed.


• Decoding the Marketing Spiral (HD; 6:12) is a rather interesting short looking at things like poster designs through the years.


• Theatrical Teaser Trailer (HD; 1:43)


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:26)

Spiral: From the Book of Saw Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Spiral: From the Book of Saw offers Rock a good showcase for more dramatic skills, but the film's story is almost willfully derivative and some may wonder why anyone thought this needed to be a "Saw film" in the first place. Technical merits are excellent and the supplementary package very interesting, for those who are considering making a purchase.