Holy Spider

Holy Spider-1080P

Holy Spider-360P

Holy Spider-1080P

Holy Spider-360P

A serial killer in Iran is the subject matter as a religious zealot strangled sixteen prostitutes before being caught by the police. A journalist wearing a head scarf is the main character throughout the film and I do not know how much of what is presented is fact and what is fiction. The reporter hounds law enforcement to solve the series of brutal murders against the backdrop of a theocratic society with little regard for women selling their bodies in order to feed their drug addictions. The people of the sacred area where the hookers offered their wares were, for the most part, supportive of the killer. Religious fanaticism in all of its forms are equally dangerous and Holy Spider portrays them in a realistic manner.

I knew this new film from Ali Abassi would be something special but I didn't know what kind of special it would be. After seeing his entirely insane last film, BORDER, which was equal parts mystifying, disturbing, creative, and confusingly endearing, I would have watched a follow-up about just about anything. And, what a hard shift this is from the fantasy realm of Border to such a dead serious, bleak, violent, and incredibly apt film about some of the darkest facets of Iranian culture. Border is incredible but this outdoes it. What really sets Holy Spider apart from other serial killer thrillers is that, though the man committing the murders is despicable, he is not portrayed as the primary villain - there is a greater villain in this film and that's the culture itself, conditioning everyone to inhumane states, widely swayed by religion. Who's truly to blame? The killer? The government? The media? Religion? Holy Spider does an incredible job of making the viewer ponder all of this, and the raw reality of it hits like a sledgehammer. It is very bold to see someone making a film that criticizes an entire country's culture in such a blunt manner, but Abassi is Iran-born so it feels very much from the heart and soul, from pain and fear, made with passion. This will not be a FUN viewing for almost anyone, by any means, but that is far from the point. The murders are extremely realistic and filled my eyes with tears several times. The performances are flawless. The directing and pacing are immaculate. The creepy atmosphere stays locked in - the dread is real. The tension and intrigue builds slowly but surely. The film only gets better as it goes. Honestly, if I've seen any movie that deserves awards this year, its this one. Mehdi Bajestani pulls off an immensely challenging and complex character, and he doesn't even have a profile picture on IMDb. He is entirely terrifying. Zar Amir-Ebrahimi is also a wonderful protagonist with an immense amount of depth - likable but always on edge, you are living the tension through and with her. What else can I say? This movie is insanely heavy but it's a damn masterpiece. Ali Abassi is a filmmaking force. I will be watching everything he does from here on out.

What made me interested in Holy Spider is the fact that this film is multinational: the director and the actors are Iranian, the film is produced by a French, a German and two Danish companies, it's in Persian language, and the film is Denmark's candidate to the Best International Feature Film category on the Academy Awards. I didn't have knowledge of the plot or the story behind the film, I was completely blind (something that's more and more common and I'm proud of). And, unfortunately, I felt the one thing that I shouldn't feel: indifference. And that's because of a creative decision that I will talk deeply from now. The movie alternates between two plots: the journalist's one (the protagonist, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi) and the killer's one (Mehdi Bajestani). While the investigative one (the journalist) is uninteresting, the characters are not charismatic, the killer's one has the worst approach possible: it's treated almost like a slasher movie. In a slasher movie, like Friday the 13th, Scream and Bodies Bodies Bodies, it's impossible not to root for at least one character to die. This approach takes the burden of all deaths, and due to what I said on the last sentence, it's not possible to root against Saeed. So, as it's not possible to root against him and it's not possible to root for him either, for obvious reasons, the only feeling left is the already said indifference. And how Rahimi figures out that Saeed is the killer is something terribly written. Terribly. Maybe 2022's biggest example of narrative convenience. I would delete the whole Saeed's plot and focus entirely on the investigation. It's uninteresting because it's rushed, and focus more on the relationship between Rahimi, the journal and the police than on the investigation itself. It's a technically good film, the message is fundamental (and made me understand why this movie is competing for an Oscar under the Denmark flag) and the cast is great, but the structural choice, for me, was unforgivable.

When this very acclaimed director announced he was going to make another feature, I naturally rushed to the theater to see it. And it was sure a great start to the 2023 movie season. It is a very disturbing and graphical depiction of a serial killer-mystery thriller, and it doesn't shy away from the gore, yet doesn't wallow in it. It's certainly not for the faint of heart, but all is in service of the important and terrifying script. The script is, in itself, astonishing. Based on a true story, it's a paralel tale between the killer and the journalists chasing him. You actually feel some kind of sympathy for the serial killer, something that is not easy to convey. It's a very beautifully made film, with great cinematography, incredible award winning acting and an important yet hard to fathom theme. It's certainly bound to be one of the best films of the year.

I congratulate the people involved in making this extremely valuable movie. Cinematic works related to Iran that are made outside of Iran without the support of the Iranian government often follow one of these two paths. Either their film is a film with formal games and a bad story (such as Women Without Men and Rhinoceros) or a film that is not refined, which is deliberately produced for an audience in a small geographical area (like almost all films that focus on Iran environment or character) The brightness of the holy spider requires another space to write but I would like to express my sincere thanks to the creators of this work for not stepping in either of those two paths.

The movie beautifully portrays the injustice that women face in Iran, and how corrupt the justice and jurisdiction system is. I used to live in Iran as a child and I remember the how terribly people were being treated in the name of "Allah and Islam". To me, this movie was extremely thrilling because it resurfaced some of my childhood traumas, and that tells me how relatable and well made this movie is. The actors and actresses were absolutely amazing. Making a movie outside of Iran about inside of Iran is not easy. I can't imagine how difficult it was for the actors and actresses get mentally prepared for their roles and get in character, since they all have been living outside of Iran for a long time. Most interesting movie of the year!