A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.
Female journalist Rahimi travels to the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate a serial killer targeting sex workers. As she draws closer to exposing his crimes, the opportunity for justice grows harder to attain when the murderer is embraced by many as a hero. Based on the true story of the 'Spider Killer' Saeed Hanaei, who saw himself as on a mission from God as he killed 16 women between 2000 and 2001.—Fred Burle
The holy city of Mashhad in Iran, which attracts millions of pilgrims every year, is the scene of a series of prostitute murders. The building contractor, war veteran and husband Saeed believes he has to cleanse the city's streets of sin. Although he calls the press after each murder to boast about his deeds, the police have yet to track him down. The journalist Rahimi then takes the investigation into her own hands. She suspects that the police and authorities are deliberately delaying the investigation. By making herself a decoy, she is able to identify Saeed as the perpetrator. However, in addition to Saeed himself, a large part of the population also sees his deeds as a godly work and, after his arrest, stands by the side of the self-proclaimed clean man - who has been popularly christened 'Holy Spider'.—Arte
Tehran-based journalist Arezoo Rahimi arrives in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate a serial killer targeting local street prostitutes addicted to drugs, dubbed the "Spider Killer" by the media. The killer follows a pattern of picking up women on his motorcycle, taking them to an apartment and strangling them with their headscarves, before ultimately disposing of their corpses in desolate areas on the city's outskirts.
Rahimi teams up with Sharifi, the editor of a local newspaper, to discover the killer's identity. Sharifi has been in contact with the killer, Saeed Azimi, having been chosen by Saeed as a publicist of sorts. Saeed claims to be cleansing the city in the name of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia Imam; he is shown in tears at the Imam's shrine. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, Saeed is married with three children and works as a construction worker.
Eventually, Rahimi and Sharifi are confident enough in the schedule, location, and patterns of the killer to lure him into a trap. Rahimi, posing as a sex worker, boards Saeed's motorcycle. Sharifi follows by car but loses them in the city's backstreets. Rahimi, armed with a pocket knife and a tape recorder, plans to elicit a confession from the murderer and flee but is soon discovered. After a struggle, she manages to escape and make her way to the police with evidence. In the following days, Saeed is arrested by the police.
As the case goes to trial, Saeed gains strong public support. When offered the opportunity to plead insanity, he reinforces his religious motivations, insisting he is only "crazy" about the eighth Imam and God. When Rahimi interviews Saeed in prison, he confesses to killing 16 women and ominously declares that Rahimi would have been his 17th victim. The following day, Saeed is found guilty and is sentenced to 100 lashes and death.
Later, Saeed is visited in his cell by his father-in-law Haji and his lawyer, who assure him that he will be spared the death sentence and that on the day of his execution, he will be secretly whisked away in a car. When the day arrives, Saeed is spared the 100 lashes, but when taken into the execution room, he panics when no one comes to his rescue, instead being executed by hanging.
After saying goodbye to Sharifi, Rahimi boards a bus back to Tehran. While traveling, she reviews video evidence gathered during the case, pausing over an interview with Saeed's teenage son, Ali, in which he proudly describes how his father overpowered and choked his victims, before re-enacting his father's killings with his younger sister playing the role of the victim.
