Coming off very successful runs at Telluride and Toronto, “Holy Spider” now has a trailer and it does showcase very well the doom and gloom vibe Abassi attains in this Fincher-esque procedural drama. The film, produced by Danish money, is set in Iran and tells the true story of a serial killer that specifically targeted prostitutes in his reign of terror. This God-fearing man went on to kill 17 women back in 2001. I wasn’t that taken by the film’s first hour, which uses familiar genre tropes to set up its stronger last 40 minutes. The set-up, to put it mildly, is fairly conventional and not that involving, almost like a CSI episode, but more gruesome. The film really kicks up a notch when — SPOILER ALERT — the killer gets caught and becomes a sort of folk hero for a big chunk of the radical population in Iran. This is when the film grabs you. Back to Cannes, based on Metacritic scores, the most acclaimed competition titles at the fest this year turned out to be “Decision to Leave” (85), “Close” (83), “Showing Up” (81), “Holy Spider” (76), “EO” (75), “Armageddon Time” (74), “Pacifiction” (74), “RMN” (75), and “Tori et Lokita” (74), “Holy Spider” is coming soon courtesy of Utopia Films. Contribute Hire me
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