In a Spiral State (2009) User Reviews

Film School undergraduate work

[Oswald1963 · 3/10 · 10 October 2009]

Have you ever wondered what a David Lynch film would look like if Lynch had no talent? This is your answer. The commentary tract with Ramzi Abed and friends is quite instructive. The film looks like a student film project, and Ramzi and friends sound like unformed adults still searching for clues. The dialogue is atrocious. An aspiring writer would only fight to have his or her name removed from the credits on this film. No one who worked on the film including Ramzi Abed has any idea what the film is about. They admit this.

While Ramzi has not yet demonstrated any talent for making a compelling or even competent film he has proved that he knows how to convince people with money that he can as this is not his first film. That or he has a lot of money himself that he inherited.

Perhaps someday Ramzi will make a film good enough that he can graduate from film school and then go on to make a film worthy of our time. Regardless of whether he ever develops any ability he will continue to make films because he is a proved talent at finding money to make films.

Perhaps he should be a producer instead?

tedious and in my opinion unwatchable!!

[s_gunn · 1/10 · 6 October 2009]

I managed to sit through about 15 minutes of this film with my partner before scanning through it to see whether anything even remotely interesting happens! It appears to be an extremely low budget film with special effects straight out of ghost or early superman films, with locations as interesting as my friends couch! As for the storyline, the majority of what i saw was 5 minutes each of watching people having phone conversations with very little dialogue at all and the acting, well, it reminded me of a bad porn film! Even from just scanning through 'in a spiral state', I felt 'mind-numbed'!! I've never commented on here before but this film inspired me to register in order to warn others not to waste their time and money!!!

How did this happen?

[thegamelair · 1/10 · 9 October 2009]

Somehow this got released somewhere.. Hopefully by accident. I don't even know where to start with this one. The visual effects are GOD awful (the intro scene alone was a great example). I even think there was some Japanese movie that did the whole 'spirals have meaning' or something like that. I'm not going to mention the acting because you can't even call it that.

Sometimes awful movies are fun to watch in the company of funny friends or when you are bored out of your mind; this movie just.. doesn't deserve a minute of your time.

I just farted and that was more entertaining than this movie.

Worse Movie Ever

[woghd911 · 1/10 · 5 January 2014]

I watch a lot of movies, but none of them have ever actually proved painful. Sometimes a bad movie can be fun to watch because it is cheezy or unintentionally funny. This movie isn't like that.

This movie is below poor. It is unwatchable. I lasted about ten minutes before I was seized with an unholy urge to grab a fork and tear out my own eyes to avoid watching it for even another second. Fortunately there was no fork around.

I began screaming my most closely guarded secrets at the screen because I became convinced that some unseen interrogator was attempting to extract information from me by forcing me to watch this unendurable piece of "art". Fortunately I had a moment of lucidity and was able to stop the movie before being driven insane.

This movie is not "trippy", there are no "hidden meanings" in it. There is no "intellectual" value to it in any way, shape of form. It is just a mind-numbing mess that may pull a suicidal reaction from you.

just watched this on a stream

[macygrayscale · 10/10 · 9 October 2009]

I ended up watching it twice actually. I watched it last night then this morning, and ordered the DVD from Amazon here in UK. I thought it was going to be a weird movie from the start but I had no idea how weird. It's not like anything I've seen before and my boyfriend loves cult movies and obscure art films. This is weirder an dare I say more original. It's obviously small budget and also obvious that the director and actors and all made it their own weird way. But I've never seen anything that played with the feeling and mood of reality TV like this did. It was like taking shows like Intervention and Big Brother and putting them on acid or something. Also it's like an anti-drug movie but the movie itself feels like a drug. I thought I was hallucinating parts of it when it was playing on the computer. Now mind you I did only see it on our Mac computer at home and not in a theatre or DVD but I will when I get it. I think some people will for sure hate this movie expecting anything normal or plot driven like a Hollywood film. This is totally art-house weirdness. It's like a documentary but it's not. It's like a J-Horror film, but it's not. It's definitely a mystery and sci fi. I'd say it's like taking The Secret and Pi and Slacker and The Wall and The Blair Witch Project and making them into one movie. Now that's effin weird! Can't wait to trip out to it with friends on telly.

In A Spiral State

[djnofly · 10/10 · 8 October 2009]

This film is like old time radio meets art-house... It is a mind trip and a seamless experimental bit of madness!!! Probably one of the first noise films with an actual plot. Ten people did not sit in a room and try to discuss whether or not you would like this film, but the makers probably made it for themselves. If you don't get the film you probably get board with yourself a lot or are indoctrinated into the stereotypical BS Hollywood advertisement film. It is not a point A to point B Mary Kate and Ashley film, but a film that asks the viewer to put themselves into a situation that is not clearly defined. The special effects are non traditional and the music is very transcendental. Ramsi Abed may be a bit of an Egoist in some of the scenes asking a lot of the audience's patience, but any film maker should be... This is not a film for the weak minded.

Where do I start?

[rayzone1 · 9/10 · 15 October 2009]

I like that line at the beginning of this super crazy movie (if you can call it a movie, because it's not built like any kind of conventional movie for the most part). Where do you start when talking about this really? I mean for someone looking for a thrillride or a fun time this is totally not the right ticket. I mean for some people like me and maybe some of my buddies it's a cool and unique ride, but for most people this is gonna be way too trippy or hard to follow. What made me like it enough to want to talk about it at all is how truly different it is from pretty much anything I've seen in the last 10 years. It has no name actors in it, it feels like reality television then flips on it and gets strange, it has really hypnotic visuals and good music. There's a lot of other stuff like the sheer diversity of the cast and their looks. The girls in the movie are super hot, and in a way that's so not Hollywood. I don't know. The kicker for me that makes me hope other people out there like this too, is that it felt like a new kind of midnight movie or cult film. SPOILER: The parts with the angels esp. when they approach the actual director of the movie you're watching is freaking awesome. But the scene that will forever make this so weird and special is the one where the young girl bumps into the two imaginary characters/homeless angels and the whole conversation gets super deep and also robotic. I recommend it if you can actually find it. Good extras on the DVD too esp. the short film The Tunnel and the commentary