Holy Spider (2022)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Web Smite

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

In the Iranian holy city of Mashhad, someone is killing prostitutes. But this person, dubbed the "Spider Killer," does not consider what he's doing murder. Rather, he's "cleansing" the city, ridding it of vermin. Ali Abbasi's Holy Spider tells this brutal story, which apparently actually happened between 2000 and 2001. A journalist, Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi) heads to Mashhad to see what she can find out, after police have turned up next to nothing. Meanwhile, we meet the killer, Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani) and his wife and children. He feels, astonishingly, no guilt whatsoever for his actions and just goes about his life. Abbasi crosses their stories; Rahimi struggles in what is considered a man's man's world, the victim of prejudice and scorn, and even threat. She's just a pest. Meanwhile, Saeed is more or less a loving dad (except when he tries to beat his son for accidentally kicking a soccer ball at his head). He even makes love to his wife while his latest kill is neatly rolled up in a nearby rug (its foot sticks out). As he balances the two sides of the story, Abbasi also balances this procedural between bloody exploitation and message-mongering, deftly avoiding both. Eventually — somewhat predictably — Rahimi dresses up as a prostitute and helps catch the killer, but what comes next is even more shocking. Saeed becomes a sort of hero, having appealed to the masses with his expressions of hate and base emotions. It's an alarming, dismaying situation, which has lately been occurring on these shores, in real life, on a much more terrifying scale.