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Film Perfection

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

"Spiral" 12/2/2011After his breakthrough horror splatter hit "Hatchet" Adam Green teams up with friend Joel David Moore to write and direct the suspense drama "Spiral" which also stars Moore in the lead as "Mason" as an intensely quiet and withdrawn painter who works at an insurance company call center. This movie is quite the departure from the blatant blood and gore of his previous film. "Spiral" is really a hard film to classify. It's not really horror, but more of a character drama that happens to have an overall theme of terror. It's also about the nature of friendship between two friends. Zachary Levi (who now plays "Chuck" on the NBC show) is Mason's long time friend Berkeley who knows Mason has some serious issues. There is also Mason's relationship with women, Diana in the beginning and Amber (Played by Amber Tablyn) for the majority of the movie. The movie continues to tease the audience as to weather Mason is a killer or just and average guy dealing with some pretty heavy emotional issues. Mason appears to be a very meek and neurotic guy. He lives alone in an apartment where he paints portraits of women who pose for him. Is Mason as benign as he looks or is there something else brewing inside his tall, lanky body? Joel David Moore's portrayal of Mason is pretty dead on and definitely makes this movie what it is. Zachery Levi is also very strong as the friend who is really in denial that his friend really needs professional help. Amber Tamblyn's character of who else Amber is probably the weakest of the three but in a movie as well acted as this one, she still does give a decent performance. What does she see in Mason anyway?Spiral builds to a suspenseful and sort of obvious climax, but when Mason goes to Berkley for help after an "incident". The rug is pulled out from you in a brilliant "oh my god" twist, but is it the truth or is it just what Berkley wants to believe. He then comes to the realization that Mason isn't quite what he appears to be.

A social misfit, Mason(Joel Moore), works in sales at an auto insurance company(mainly because his best friend hired and fires, Berkeley), has serious issues which might derive from psychological trauma caused by a past incident concerning his father, suffers nightmares and hallucinations involving a beautiful young woman who posed for him(he's a talented artist who paints portraits). Practically every morning he awakens with quivering hands, as if blood were on them. A light emanates from his bathroom, the door half cracked open as if to tell us that something important happened there, awaiting him.A new employee, Amber(Amber Tamblyn), starts working at the company, befriending him almost immediately, soon becoming his muse. Amber Tamblyn, thank goodness, is well cast and a welcome presence opposite Joel Moore's strange neurotic, talkative, unflappable(another way of saying she yaps a lot about any subject), glimmering, a light shining bright in a particularly dark film. Yet, when she discovers sketch books in a bottom drawer while looking for socks(her feet were cold), Amber is unnerved by what she sees. A torn page after multiple sketch portraits sends chills(especially, when this is a recurring trait in the other books)and soon dents what has been a promising romance for Mason whose quota has been on the upswing since dating her.We learn that there is a pattern. Berkeley(Zachary Levi) is an important character in that he sheds light on Mason's enigmatic nature. Mason restricts anyone knowing anything about him, and this is where Berkeley lends a hand to the viewer. We come to understand that Mason seems to have suffered from relationships which end in rejection before. This might explain the multiple sketch books in the bottom drawer, and an empty seat at the Christmas dinner every year over at Berkeley's house where a girl is supposed to be sitting.I like psychological thrillers where the protagonist's mental state is up for debate. What is real and what is fantasy? I like being toyed with and I think some good acting is on display in movies such as SPIRAL. There's a pattern in this film in regards to Mason and his muses. Amber, we soon realize, is just the recent in a string of women who enable Mason to eventually come out of his shell, he's an obviously guarded person who doesn't open up to just anybody. There are little signs as to this pattern. Before embarking on his new romance with Amber, we see portraits of another hanging on his wall. They are soon removed and Amber's portraits begin to decorate his wall. Berkeley is the character who knows Mason best(they've been lifelong friends), and has been loyal to him even when he doesn't need to be. That loyalty has surely been tested in the past and SPIRAL shows that it'll be once again.A trip to the cemetery to visit his mom's grave provides a nice homage to Hitchcock's umbrella scene in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT(or if that wasn't their intention, this overhead shot of a little boy moving through a crowd in a memory flashback sure reminded me of it). Joel David Moore and Adam Green(the two collaborated together on the slasher homage, HATCHET) do an effective job of following a tormented man through an up and down time in his life, burdened by night terrors and specters that may or may not involve him, and how the frown turns upside down when a new girl enters his life. The tragedy is we must acknowledge that we can not always trust our eyes since Mason is the person we follow. Joel Moore(who co-directed)is an actor I'm very fond of because I think he's great at portraying eccentric characters(I also think he's a very funny guy who can play weirdos very effectively)and SPIRAL might just be his best performance to date. His idiosyncrasies(the devotion to jazz, the insistence of not revealing his sketch work to his muses, as Amber wants to see her portraits as Mason is working on them)are interesting to see develop through Moore's performance. I just like Tamblyn in this film, her kind of character I easily embrace because she's so upbeat and charges the battery of what could've been an otherwise dreary overall experience. She portrays the "too good to be true" character which in itself could be telling.

After reading many of Spiral's reviews, I had to leave one for the less hebetudinous. It was awkwardly contrived, not unlike Meet Joe Black and Eyes Wide Shut. Those films had the outrageous nerve of making us look at pretty people without dialogue for 10 second clips all movie long. This film serves up the same silent drivel with a face that's supposed to have the same effect as a motorcycle accident, but fails to make anyone I know care. Gorgeous girl is liberated, feeling safe in her own skin for the first time in, who cares.It seems this move was made to be enjoyed by politically correct souls. Those who want to demonstrate to whoever how intuitive and sensitive they really are if one to peak under the garb one needs to wear in the biz world. I didn't get it, thank goodness.

Troubled childhood...Mom murdered by Dad and you have the set up of a lonely,asthmatic,delusional, young man trying to eek out a living as a telemarketer in Portland Oregon, filled with demons in his head. I felt this film was genius because it truly captured the progression of a serial killer in the making. Basically this was a prequel of Masons life as a serial killer. You had a creative , painter dabbling in imagination of women with delusions seeming oh so real. When the film convinces its viewer that Mason was just delusional, and has harmed no one, the viewer is in for a shock. Despite the fact that, lead actor Joel Moore reminds us of 'Ross' from Friends, the movie still shines , mostly because of the creative material. Amber Tamblyn is so so as Amber. Film could have explored the psyche of her character somewhat, but chose not. Mason had one friend , his boss , though a womanizer, had a heart of gold when it came to Mason , as well as the most patience ever, in dealing with Masons idiosyncracys and blow ups. Truly a gem of a film . One can assume that Mason is on his way to being a serial killer, terrorizing the USA. Very cleverly written and refreshing.