Is murdering prostitutes in modern-day Iran the work of God? It is if you are the madman and religious fanatic carrying out a reign of serial-killer terror in the gripping and horrifying “Holy Spider” in the early 21-century city of Mashhad, the second most populous city in Iran and the location of the shrine of Imam Reza.
Director Ali Abbasi, co-writing with Afshin Kamran Bahrami, was inspired by the actual murders, which occurred while he was a student in Iran and by a 2002 documentary about the killer by Iranian-Canadian journalist Marziar Bahari. Abbasi, whose debut film was a Copenhagen-shot horror film named “Shelly” (2016), says his focus shifted from the serial killer to a fictional female journalist trying to find out why the police have been so ineffective in catching the killer.
Abbasi’s new protagonist made it capable to focus on culturally sanctioned misogyny in Iran. For this reason, Abbasi shot “Holy Spider” in Jordan. The film is not a whodunit. We know who’s doing it from the start. He is a devout father, husband and family man named Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani), a hulking builder with mitt-sized hands. His method is to pick up prostitutes at the same park on his motorcycle, drive them to his home when his wife Fatima (Forouzan Jamshidnejad) and their kids are staying with her parents. Saeed strangles the women, most of them mothers and junkies, to death in gruesome close-up scenes and dumps the bodies on the outskirts of town.
When we first meet him he’s already killed 10 women and as someone casually remarks, he’s doing the police’s work for them. The hero of “Holy Spider” is Rahimi (the talented and soulful Zar Amir-Ebrahini, who was named best actress at Cannes), an attractive journalist, who is hounded by a scandal that was actually a case of a male editor harassing her. Rahimi may have a bit of a chip on her shoulder. But she has good reason. When she arrives from Tehran at the hotel, where she has a reservation, they refuse to give her a room because she is a woman alone.
Abbasi actually begins his story with the ninth victim. She is a severely bruised young mother and drug addict and her heartless, violent death by strangulation comes as a shock. It’s not hard to see the setup. Rahimi, who carries a knife, gets nowhere with the police official, whose attitude is scornful. Rahimi does not expect much better treatment from the male colleague assigned to help her. Saeed, a war veteran who prays at the shrine when he is not strangling women, believes he is carrying out a “jihad against vice” and that his victims are “corrupt women,” who do not deserve to live.
But you don’t have prostitutes without customers. In the film’s sickest scene, Saeed makes love to his wife while staring at the bare foot of one of his victims sticking out from a rolled up carpet. Ebrahini, whose haunted copper-colored eyes seem to see right through the men Rahimi meets, of course, puts herself in danger, in an attempt to capture the killer. But she firmly believes that even if the culprit is caught, the authorities will “buy him forgiveness” or just release him. Her hopelessness is palpable and pervasive and completely justified. “Holy Spider” packs an unholy punch.
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'HOLY SPIDER'
Grade: A-
(In Persian with English subtitles)
No rating (contains gruesome images, extreme violence and sexually suggestive images)
Running time: 1:56
How to watch: In theaters
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