OPENING
American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally (R) This drama is based on the real-life trial of the radio broadcaster (Meadow Williams) who broadcast Nazi propaganda to American soldiers during World War II. Also with Al Pacino, Thomas Kretschmann, Lala Kent, Jasper Polish, Carsten Norgaard, and Mitch Pileggi. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Funhouse (NR) Jason William Lee’s horror film is about a group of eight celebrities forced to fight for their lives while competing on what they believe to be a reality show. Starring Valter Skarsgård, Khamisa Wilshere, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Christopher Gerard, Karolina Benefield, Amanda Howells, Matthias Retamal, Dayleigh Nelson, Jerome Velinsky, and Kylee Bush. (Opens Friday at Grand Berry Theater)
Chris Rock in Spiral. (Brooke Palmer/Lionsgate)
Published May 21. 2021 2:00PM
Michael O Sullivan, The Washington Post Get the weekly rundown Email Submit
If after eight movies in the Saw franchise the new Spiral makes nine you re still unfamiliar with or (harder to believe) undecided on the concept, let me get this out of the way up front: The movies center on the gruesome infliction of pain, perpetrated as a means of teaching a lesson, though more often the student just ends up dead, often minus a body part or two.
Typically referred to as games, the scenarios are elaborate and theatrically violent, though usually shorter in duration than one would find in torture porn, a genre into which some have lumped the films, though that isn t exactly right.
Film Shorts // May 19-25, 2021
OPENING
Counter Column (PG-13) This Christian drama is about a drug dealer (Chris Gonzales) who tries to escape his life by joining the army. Also with Nathan-Andrew Hight, Michael Kaiser, Zane Castor, Ella Haslett, Madeleine Martinez, Diego Medina, and Lars Nielsen. (Opens Friday at Movie Tavern Hulen)
The Dry (R) Eric Bana stars in this thriller as a federal agent who returns to his drought-stricken hometown for a funeral and has to reckon with a decades-old unsolved murder. Also with Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell, John Polson, Julia Blake, Bruce Spence, and William Zappa. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Spiral is the ninth film in its series, but as the subtitle
Spiral takes place long after Jigsaw’s death, in the same city where he did his killing, the connections to the throughline end there. It doesn’t share any of its characters, motives, or histories with the franchise, and that inconsistency leaves a gaping hole in
Spiral that isn’t filled in with anything proportionately interesting.
Spiral is directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who also directed
Saw II through
Saw IV. In those chapters, he oversaw the death of Jigsaw, the rise of his co-conspirators, and the height of the torturous Rube Goldberg contraptions that made the
Fort Worth Weekly
Karma hits the police with a vengeance in this Saw spinoff.
The original
Saw series is a relic of the post-9/11 time when we wanted to watch bastards pay for whatever in the slowest and most excruciating way possible. In another generation, we may well see the spinoff
Spiral as a relic of our time, when police are being called to answer for their brothers’ sins as well as their own. I’ll say this: The movie that comes out this week has more sophisticated ideas in its head than its predecessors. Trouble is, it needed more.