In Holy Spider, we follow family man Saeed as he embarks on his own religious quest - to "cleanse" the holy Iranian city of Mashhad of immoral and corrupt street prostitutes. After murdering several women, he grows ever more desperate about the lack of public interest in his divine mission.... (Full plot summary below)
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In Holy Spider, we follow family man Saeed as he embarks on his own religious quest - to "cleanse" the holy Iranian city of Mashhad of immoral and corrupt street prostitutes. After murdering several women, he grows ever more desperate about the lack of public interest in his divine mission.
Leave your thoughts about Holy Spider.
| The Irish TimesTara BradyIt’s a cracking, effective thriller, powered by uneasiness, and made all the more potent by the recent death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old killed in police custody after being detained for violating the Islamic Republic’s dress code for women. |
| The TelegraphTim RobeyIt’s profoundly compelling, expertly made, and quite intentionally horrifying. |
| Film ThreatAndy HowellThe brilliance of Holy Spider is how it takes all the gripping, lurid suspense of the serial killer thriller, turns it on its head, and takes it to the next level as symbolic of a corrupted, misogynistic society. |
| Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAs we begin to follow the trail of journalist Areez Rahimi (Ebrahimi, who received the Best Actress award at Cannes for this role), the film becomes a very effective thriller. Through her, we also experience the country’s entrenched misogyny. |
| RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireHoly Spider’s rendition of this grisly tale is powerful and precise, commendably lacking the sensationalistic tone of some serial killer movies. |
| Movie NationRoger MooreIt’s impossible not to see this character and this riveting performance by Amir-Ebrahimi and not think of the brave women protesting their treatment and status right now on the streets of Iran’s cities. Arezoo, like hundreds of thousands of her sisters, persists. |
| Film ThreatAbhishek SharmaDespite some fictionalization, it is a brutally honest take on the deep-rooted, orthodoxical ideals and their fatal outcomes. |
| We Got This CoveredAlejandra MartinezSpider is a heavy watch, and is guaranteed to haunt you long after you leave the theater. |
| Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganAbbasi has made an Iranian noir which, even though it dares to poke around the spiritual capital of Iran with its largest mosque in the world, isn’t an assault on the Iranian government per se, but a crime thriller which shows how far fundamentalist morality can be twisted and how banal the face of evil really is. |
| SlashfilmRyan LestonHoly Spider shines a light into the murky corners of a society that emboldens its aggressors. In that sense, the film is essential viewing. Even if it is completely devastating. |
