'Spiral': Chris Rock's 'Saw' reboot gets a NSFW first trailer

Lionsgate has launched the first trailer for Spiral, Chris Rock’s much-anticipated reboot of the Saw horror franchise. Watch it above.

The trailer shows comedian Rock as Detective Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks who, along with his rookie partner (Max Minghella), takes charge of a gruesome murder case that has echoes of the Jigsaw murders.

Its full title appears to be Spiral: From The Book of Saw. The 'spiral' of the title is a callback to the paintwork seen on the cheeks of Billy the Puppet, the spooky ventriloquist's dummy introduced back in the first 2004 movie, and daubed over the crime scenes the cops begin to investigate.

The film’s official synopsis suggests the film is a sequel to the previous movies.

Synopsis: A sadistic mastermind unleashes a twisted form of justice in SPIRAL, the terrifying new chapter from the book of SAW. Working in the shadow of an esteemed police veteran (Samuel L. Jackson), brash Detective Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks (Chris Rock) and his rookie partner (Max Minghella) take charge of a grisly investigation into murders that are eerily reminiscent of the city’s gruesome past. Unwittingly entrapped in a deepening mystery, Zeke finds himself at the centre of the killer’s morbid game.

SPIRAL stars Chris Rock, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols, and Samuel L. Jackson, and is produced by the original SAW team of Mark Burg and Oren Koules. The film is directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and written by Josh Stolberg & Pete Goldfinger.

It emerged last year that Chris Rock – of all people – was taking on the rebooted chapter in the increasingly hokey horror series.

The franchise was last seen in the form of the critically panned Jigsaw in 2017, itself a reboot coming seven years after Saw VII: The Final Chapter from 2010.

Read more: Chris Rock on how his Saw movie is different

Created by Leigh Whannell and James Wan, the movies began by placing seemingly random people at the mercy of the ‘Jigsaw killer’ - Tobin Bell’s John Kramer - a dying man testing their will to live in a series of gruesome games.

However, Rock is pretty involved in this chapter, having come up with the story and acting as a producer too.

Playing Detective Zeke Banks, he's assembled a decent cast, with Samuel L. Jackson as Marcus Banks (his father perhaps?), alongside The Handmaid's Tale star Max Minghella and Riverdale's Marisol Nichols.

Rock revealed last month that the project came about after he was introduced to the head of the Lionsgate studio, which has made all the Saw movies, at a friend's wedding.

Rock, who is fronting the next series of the acclaimed crime anthology Fargo, told Collider: “There are so many movies that I’ve watched and gone, ‘Three jokes would have made that movie a lot better.’ You know what I mean? A lot of times, you can get comedy in things, if it’s grounded, without it changing the movie, per se.

Read More: Chris Rock has written the story for the next Saw movie

“Just like that story that Beverly Hills Cop was written for Sylvester Stallone. Eddie Murphy was hired at the last minute, and they made kind of the same movie, but it was grounded with just a little here, here and here.

“So, Saw is really scary and really bloody. It’s a Saw movie. But every now and then, you take a little air out. It’s gonna be good.”

Spiral: From The Book of Saw is out later this year.