It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

First, I have to say that I picked this film up based on it's rating and after perusing the reviews here. While I was sitting through this terrible film, I started reading the reviews again, and I have to wonder if every person from the crew posted a review, because I, nor the friend that watched this with me, saw none of the good points in this film that many of the other reviewers did. It is painstakingly slow and boring with no payoff. The camera work is oftentimes very shaky and the colors aren't true. I'm not going to waste any more of my time, or yours, reviewing this. In short: It's not pretty, it's not entertaining, and it reeks of pretentious amateurishness.

Spiral is worth a watch. The movie tells a story about an introverted young painter.The movie is simple with some questionable acting, however the story is easy to follow and quite interesting. I'm happy to say that some scenes were really well done and quite intense. The thing I found best about the movie was the timing and pacing. While it is not a fast movie, I think that the pacing of the scenes was good, keeping the audience engaged, but waiting to see the story unfold.I enjoyed the music in the film. The frequent use of jazz in the film adds to the artsy feel.This movie comes down to taste. I think the movie is well done, but may not keep everyone interested.This movie may be for you if you want something that is easy to follow, interesting, and a little arty.Maybe not for you if you are looking a deep and complex story or a high budget blockbuster.

OK, we got JP from Grandma's Boy and Chuck from, well Chuck. I thought this movie would be quite good based on the reviews, and it did start out pretty high on my movie scale, but about halfway through it was just dragging out for so long I kept losing interest. I actually got so bored, probably because you can see right away what's going to happen in the end; the story is actually quite thread-bare, I skipped over 15 minutes and didn't miss a thing! This film should have been a short work, maybe around 45 minutes to an hour max. It starts out good and finishes good, too bad the filling is bland, boring, dull, and lacks everything but time. Some people say they like it for the music; I don't care for jazz and I don't go see movies for their score, I go for the story and when that's drawn out... well, ratings drop in my book.Bottom Line: Good open, great close, boring filler. Story was cool, but if you don't know what's going to happen a quarter of the way through, you haven't seen too many thrillers.

In order to describe what's seriously wrong with this movie it has to contain some *spoilers* so if you're going to see it and expect to be surprised, don't read this!I liked everything about this movie except the plot; and in a thriller like this believable plot is essential. It is well acted, if a bit slow moving, and the camera work and Portland scenes are exquisite for a low-budget, unpretentious picture. The dialog is very good. Mason is seriously withdrawn youth who works at a telemarketing company selling insurance. His high school buddy, Berkeley, is his employer and looks after him like a brother despite the fact that Mason is quite obviously mentally ill. Mason has nightmares which send him gasping and fumbling for his inhaler. His visions and nightmares suggest that he has had serious problems with good-looking women in his past, and the movie seems to be suggesting that he may be a serial killer of women. He meets a perky, pretty girl named Amber and he sketches her in his notebook. She takes a liking to him and poses for him so he can paint her portrait. He sees more of her and begins to awaken from his withdrawn state, almost becoming halfway human. Then something goes wrong. Amber finds sketchbooks with drawings in his apartment of other girls and she begins to wonder. She becomes frightened and pulls away. We are wondering if her sudden coldness is going to push him over the edge. His behavior becomes more erratic. This is the setup for a revelation. In order to explain how this movie goes horribly wrong I have to explain what happens. *Another spoiler warning!* In order for this plot to work we have believe that Amber, a really outgoing, pretty young girl is going to go for a seriously emotionally disturbed young man who, at least at the beginning of their friendship, has a vacant stare and can only speak in monosyllables or doesn't speak at all. He's way beyond nerdy, he appears on the verge of total catatonia. Yes I know, girls can be attracted to all kinds of weirdos, but usually the Charles Manson type or punk rockers, guys with some kind of evil manic energy. Mason is practically a zombie, he's hardly there at all. Any perky young thing would cross the street to avoid him. It is just not believable that this girl is attracted to him. Moreover, there is no credible reason for Berkeley to indulge the crazy Mason, that just isn't believable either. But wait, there's a revelation. Amber fails to show up at Berkeley's house for Christmas dinner where Mason is expecting her, and Berkeley, his old buddy, has to tell him that Amber and all his other former girlfriends, the ones he drew in his many sketchbooks, don't exist at all! She and all the others are merely figments of his twisted imagination: he dreamed them up. Well, this explains why a normal cute Amber would go for Mason: she's just a figment of his imagination. This could have been the final revelation of the movie with the proper preparation and setup, but alas, it's not. At this point Mason runs back to his apartment and finds Amber there...he's enraged, he kills her. But now we are given to understand that Amber was in fact real, not Mason's imaginary girlfriend. In the end, after being given proof that Amber actually existed and that Mason killed her, Berkeley has to admit that he was wrong, that he misjudged Mason. This would work if Mason had been halfway sane from the beginning, but because we the audience always suspected him of being totally deranged and possibly a killer of women, it is no surprise to us. We suspected what he was all along and can't understand why Berkeley couldn't see it. But then we are once again left to wonder: if she was real, why Amber would be attracted to the catatonic Mason? To make the ending worse, we never find out whether Mason's other girlfriends, the ones in the sketchbooks, were real, or was Amber the first real one? And if the others were real, did he kill them too? What did he do with the bodies? The problem is that the filmmakers just didn't know what to do with the material. Perhaps there could have been a way to straighten it out and tell a credible suspense story, but this movie is not that.