A Classic Horror Story filmmaker and rising horror virtuoso Paolo Strippoli turns the screws on an affluent family in his Faustian fable, The Spiral. Instead of one devilish bargain, though, this psychological chiller sees a mother confessing to a series of them, each more twisted than the last. Its unsubtle but universally relatable satire injects wry humor, ensuring this supernatural deconstruction of an Italian family is as wickedly delightful as its scene-stealing devil.
Fittingly, this fable begins on a dark and stormy night in present-day Rome, where a mother, Anna (Jasmine Trinca), arrives frazzled and unannounced at the apartment of her daughter, Alice (Romana Maggiora Hergano), to reveal the troubling truth about their family. The script by Strippoli and Salvatore de Chirico breaks The Spiral into four chapters, each a disturbing confession from Anna that highlights a series of troubling family misfortunes tracing back to 1999 in Bari.
It’s there that the family fissures first appear, even before the arrival of the enigmatic trench coat-wearing stranger, when a scene-stealing Valeria Bruni Tedeschi abruptly appears to offer a deal. Anna nitpicks and scolds her housekeeper ruthlessly behind closed doors while bragging to party guests at the family’s sprawling villa that 7-year-old Alice (Gabriella Telegrafo) just booked a Barilla commercial. Never mind that acting was Anna’s coveted dream, of course. But those brags are quickly humbled when the family dog viciously mauls Alice to the point where amputation is a very likely outcome.
That’s precisely when the Stranger appears, dangling an escape from this fate: Alice’s leg for prized son Tobia’s (Alessandro Carbonara) weight. Tedeschi is so magnetic and effortlessly cool, and her chemistry with the high-strung Trinca so off the charts, that audiences immediately get sucked into this devilish dance along with Anna. Naturally, this Monkey’s Paw type scenario grants Anna’s wish, but the payment on this bargain proves much worse. So much so that it only marks the start of Anna’s Faustian trades.
The Spiral is ultimately Trinca’s movie, turning in an anxious, nail-biting performance as the woman whose vanity and dashed dreams wind up consuming her entire family. Anna’s selfishness and pride damns those she holds closest, yet Trinca injects enough charisma and vulnerability to keep audiences in her grip. It’s the type of impossible role that Trinca overcomes with compelling ease. Of course, it also helps that Anna can sometimes seem saintly compared to her short-tempered husband, Walter (Adriano Giannini).
The devil’s in the details, of course, and some of The Spiral‘s juiciest moments are in unspoken moments of domestic torment, like the wordless reactions from mom toward Alice’s sexual identity that belie Anna’s facade of poise. Strippoli matches Tedeschi in terms of the savage glee derived from putting Anna through the wringer with each subsequent bargain struck, and where the director mines the most psychological horror and tension.
It builds to a rather biblical finale that isn’t as weighty in its moral messaging or its final confrontations as its build-up suggests, but one that’s thematically resonant all the same. Prideful self-image and selfish desires lead to hollow tragedy in The Spiral, one that sees a mother make shocking choices for the sake of appearances in juicy ways. Its mordant, deadpan sense of humor and a confining sense of atmospheric dread, paired with Trinca’s impressive turn and an incredible Mephistopheles in Tedeschi, make Strippoli’s latest his most entertaining, mordantly relatable, and thrilling yet.
The Spiral screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. Release info TBA.
