TIFF 2022: Holy Spider Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

In the religious city of Mashhad in Iran between 2000 & 2001, a serial killer by the name of Saeed Hanaei murdered sixteen women, targeting addicts and sex workers. Hanaei was dubbed “The Spider Killer” and is to this day one of the most notorious criminals in the middle east. Despite the evil acts he committed, many religious operatives within Mashhad went to great lengths to defend and even praise Hanaei for attempting to “cleanse” the city and restore its holy nature. Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi’s follow-up to his bizarre adult-fantasy “Border”, is a cold-as-ice and deeply disturbing recounting of the Spider Killings, capturing Hanaei heinous acts in great detail and exploring the repressed community of Mashhad that encouraged this behavior. It’s an examination of how a monster can be created out of hatred and fear of the unknown.

Holy Spider is structured like a true-crime film and stars Mehdi Bajestani as Hanaei, and Zar Amir Ebrahimi as a fictional journalist determined to find the identity of “The Spider Killer” and put an end to the murders. Holy Spider is at its best when Abbasi places the focus on exploring the corruption within the political system of Mashhad. The fictional female protagonist that we follow throughout portions of the film is fascinating and provides the audience with a much needed glimpse of hope in an otherwise disheartening true story. I wish the film conveyed the majority of the story through her eyes, instead of switching perspectives and placing an emphasis on Hanaei’s story for large sections of the runtime.

While the film is obviously on the side of the women, Abbasi often runs the risk of glorifying these horrific murders by reveling in gratuitous violence and perpetuating a certain fascination for Hanaei, when it should be strongly condemning his actions. It does feel like it is a somewhat sensationalized retelling of this horrific story. That being said, while I do feel the film places too much focus on Hanaei’s story, Medhi Bajestani does deliver a deeply chilling performance and is captivating every time he is on screen.

Overall, Holy Spider is well crafted and deeply disturbing, but it is not as insightful, layered or sensitive as it should be considering the subject matter and the horrific true story its depicting.

still courtesy of TIFF

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Tristan French