Spiral (2007)

Touches You

How sad is this?

Admirable film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I found this a very interesting movie. you feel sorry for mason but at times you wish he would be stronger and not so weasily. amber tamblin is adorable and very good.i was hoping for a different ending though. all in all it was a good movie and keeps you enthralled.i didn't realize it was filmed in Oregon as I live there but now all the rain makes sense.if you're looking for a tense tight thriller, this is it.

Call center worker by day, sensitive painter by night, Mason (Joel David Moore) is not all there. He has had emotional breakdowns many times in recent years... but now he has met Amber (Amber Tamblyn) and things seem to be looking up. Can he hold himself together? Moore breaks out here. As both director and star, he strays away from the silly, nerdy, dorky guy roles we know him from. Here he is edgier, manic, violent at times... he strays into acting territory that should earn him attention from bigger names, maybe put him on a path towards Oscar.Amber Tamblyn is a beautiful model, and perfect for the artwork featured here. The script is intelligent, with great insight into art, the idea of contrast and the construction of jazz music being harmony from discord. I'm sure there are deeper messages than I was able to pick up, but the writer gave this psychological thriller a smart wit and makes it a cut above the rest.What is Adam Green's role in this film? He is listed as co-director, but this is clearly Moore's baby. I suspect Green was more of a support for Moore, helping him with technical stuff and boosting recognition for this one in the horror community... but I shouldn't assume.As of this review, the film has been out three years with little buzz. Let me make some buzz right now: this is a film that you will love if you like thinking, mindbending films... some parts are deliciously ambiguous.

The asthmatic aspirant painter Mason (Joel David Moore) is a lonely and outcast employee of the JZD & J Insurance that is haunted by dreadful nightmares of women. His supervisor and only friend Berkeley (Zachary Levi) tries to approach to him but Mason remains reclusive and alone. He is befriended in the lunchtime by the new employee Amber (Amber Tamblyn) and a couple of days later they date and Mason begins to paint her. On the Christmas Eve, they make love and on the next morning, Amber finds his blocks of identical drafts of different women in his drawer. When Mason discovers that Amber has broken his rule that she could never see his sketch before the painting is ready, he has a violent argument with her. On the next morning, Mason comes to the company and tells Berkeley that he killed his girlfriend, and Berkeley discloses and finds secrets about his strange friend."Spiral" is a low-budget movie supported by a great screenplay with surprising twists; excellent direction of Adam Green and Joel Moore; and magnificent performances of Joel David Moore, Amber Tamblyn and Zachary Levi. The weird character Mason slightly recalls the deranged May, but the plot is ambiguous in "Spiral": I understand that Mason killed all the girls that Berkeley believed were imaginary but it is never clear whether Amber was his first actual victim and the others fruit of his damaged mind or all of them were real. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Círculo do Pânico" ("Circle of the Panic")

Now this is really a movie for anybody, who is not only focused on getting a gripping story when going to the movies. Everyone who can get the kicks out of nicely staged and directed pictures, visual effects, lighting and the whole scenery will be pleased to see this one!I got interested in the movie because of its director, Adam Green. Unlike many other users here i saw HATCHET on the 2006 Fantasy-Film-Fest in Germany and loved it! So i looked through IMDb from time to time, to see what he would do next.First of all i have to warn all the "Horror/Gore/Splatter/whatever"-Fans. This movie has absolutely nothing in common with HATCHET except for its director and leading actor! Second: Don' t watch the trailer! It is a real spoiler, and it lets the viewer assume that SPIRAL would be a psycho-thriller, with a really dark atmosphere all the time and shock-moments every five minutes or so. It isn't - but that is what's best about it.Other users compared it with Hitchcock and i have to say, that this reference also came to my mind when i watched the film. It's a mixture of a really gripping relationship (love-story???) and a character study that every now an then has its dark undertones. Only at the end there are real classical and modern thriller elements. The plot and the whole atmosphere really reminds me of my favorite Hitchcock movies like "Vertigo" oder "Marnie".Of course you can see, that Adam Green is still trying to find his unique style, that the actors do their best but are not yet at the peak of their acting abilities and that this is an indie-film with a small budget. But after all i would say, that this is without doubt one of the best movies i have seen the last months!