Apparently, both films named Scare Me released in 2020, which makes it a lot harder to distinguish which one I’m talking about here than I’m used to. Even worse (although I suppose the title lends itself to this outcome), they’re both about the same thing, which is people telling each other scary stories. Worst of all, I have no idea whether I can distinguish this one from the other one by saying it’s the one that’s sort of funny in addition to being scary. …since I didn’t see the other one, you understand.

IMDb says this is horror and comedy, but I disagree. Even though the stories are mostly not scary, it’s also mostly not played for laughs. There’s a ton of snark, and it is well-mixed with a lot of genre self-awareness, but it’s not a comedy. The characters, as they tell their stories to and with each other, cause the lines between imagination and reality to grow ever more blurry, and this is the source of most of the horror and most of the humor… but not, you know, at the same time.

Irony meter: while this is not the first movie I’ve heard mention the Bechdel test, I’m pretty sure it’s the first one which, having mentioned it, proceeds not to pass it.

Did you ever wonder how it would look if someone took a run at Get Out, but for gay people instead of black people? If you have… Spiral doesn’t quite get there, but that’s not to say there isn’t a movie worth watching here so much as that it’s a really high target.

Two men and their 16 year old daughter move to either a picturesque bedroom community or else maybe just the suburbs? It kind of varies. Also, it’s 1995. Once there, they are exposed to glarey-eyed old men, homophobia, nosy neighbors, and for the younger and more flamboyant half of the couple, a creeping dread and flashbacks to a gay-bashing experience that his high school boyfriend took the brunt of half a lifetime earlier.

So why doesn’t it quite reach the comparison it was (apparently) striving for? For one thing, Spiral does not have the targeted feel that it should, on a moment by moment basis. I could change very little of the movie and it would fit a heterosexual couple just as easily. For another, the entire premise is cast into doubt by an unreliable main character who may simply be off his meds. And on the one hand, when done effectively (and this was), the game where they keep you guessing if this is an internal or external horror movie is something I’m quite fond of, even if the writers choose “internal” all too seldomly[1]. But on the other, when your base premise is this good, you commit to it instead of waffling between it and a diferent good premise, because half your audience won’t be satisfied regardless of what you pick.

Still and all, pretty good movie.

[1] Man I want to name drop an excellent example of when they did, but it kind of ruins the entire movie if you know in advance.