Holy Spider

A serial killer is on loose and the city is in a state of fear. A hardened, no-nonsense journalist starts looking into the murders and asking all of the hard questions, subsequently getting in danger and becoming part of the story. It's a classic true crime setup that's been the foundation of countless thrillers for decades, used again here by filmmaker Ali Abbasi to tell a dramatization of the real life story of a serial killer who killed 16 women in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city.

Shot and paced like many a David Fincher movie, Holy Spider follows both an investigating journalist Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi in a Cannes Best Actress-winning performance) and the serial killer Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani). As a woman journalist in modern Iran, Rahimi must endure constant misogynistic behavior and even outright assault from male police officers and officials, at one point almost being denied a hotel room because the manager said her head scarf wasn’t properly adjusted and they didn't want trouble with the morality police. It's an all-too-real example of the current state of affairs in Iran, one that has led to an uprising against the Islamic regime in the past few years.

The movie spends even more time with Saeed, who we follow through a series of mundane, daily-life family activities before we realize he has been targeting and murdering prostitutes. Saeed isn't a raving, mustache-twirling villain; he is seen as a pretty "normal" family man (albeit with some PTSD from his time in military service) who carries out the killings with the calmness of someone doing a daily household chore.

The final third of the movie is the most chilling, as Saeed confesses to his crimes with not only no remorse, but no belief that he has done anything wrong. Mashhad is a holy city, and he sees himself as ridding the streets of unclean elements, a hero with God on his side. And many people in the city agree with him, including well-connected individuals who work to get him off the hook for any crimes whatsoever. It's something that would seem unbelievable if we didn't see it in the news every day.

It's an interesting story with great performances and a unique angle for American audiences, but it struggles to overcome the familiar elements of the genre. It's also hard to shake the feeling that Abbasi shaped his story in this way to package an Iranian story for a broader Western audience, which may have ultimately worked in terms of viewership numbers, but unfortunately dilutes some of the power of the story. The first two acts of the movie, as well as they are told, aren't unfamiliar to anyone who has seen a few crime thrillers from the 90s. It's the final act that is truly effective, showing us how easily violence can be condoned if it pleases the right people in power, a frightening thought that is becoming all too real in countries all around the globe.