RECENT WATCHES: Saw X (2023)

Since ostensibly bringing the series to an end with 2010's “Saw 3D,” Lionsgate had made two attempts to rebirth the grisly horror cash-cow that kept the lights on all throughout the George W. Bush administration. While neither “Jigsaw” nor “Spiral” failed exactly, they also weren't greeted with much enthusiasm. Still, when a series has been as profitable as this one, producers aren't willing to give up so easily. Returning to an idea Mark Burg and Oren Koules had before Chris Rock intervened, “Saw X” would be designed as a throwback to the series' roots. Neither a reinvention nor a legacy sequel, the film would instead focus on John “Jigsaw” Kramer as a protagonist. Peter Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg were back on scripting duties with Kevin Greutert in the director's chair again, the former editor now established as the new Darren Lynn Bousman. I guess, by 2023, enough time had passed to make people nostalgic for what they liked about “Saw” in the first place. Somehow, the tenth installment in this long running blood-and-guts show ended up being the best reviewed “Saw” thus far and the first in a while to truly resonate with fans.

Set after the events of the first “Saw” but before any of the sequels, the story focuses on John Kramer, his terminal brain cancer leaving him only months to plan and design his elaborate games of ironic punishment. At a support group, he's told of an experimental treatment that might cure his disease. He flies to Mexico City and cashes out his entire bank account to Dr. Cecilia Pederson. He is told the surgery has cured him totally. Afterwards, upon returning to give a gift to the team he's so thankful for, he discovers the entire operation has been a hoax. He is still dying of cancer, just a lot poorer now. He once again recruits Amanda Young to help him orchestrate his most personal game yet. Cecilia Pederson and her team of swindlers – a bogus anesthesiologist, nurse, surgeon, and prior “patient” – awaken in the same abandoned building that acted as their phony operating theater. They are put through bloody, brutal trials to prove they are still worthy to live despite their crimes, John and Amanda arguing about the ethics of what they are doing and his mortality all the while. However, not every thing goes according to plan.

While watching my way through the “Saw” series, I've reflected on the probably unavoidable cycle of the reoccurring villain of a horror franchise slowly becoming its hero. While Michael Myers, Chucky, and the rest of the modern monster Mount Rushmore have long been the star attractions of their respective films, most series are reluctant to totally turn their deranged mass murderers into full-on heroes. Considering “Saw” was originally founded on its criminal mastermind being an especially vicious and sadistic bastard, you'd think it would be hard to redeem Jigsaw. Except that's exactly what the sequels did, slowly convincing audiences that John Kramer was actually justified in the insane shit he did, at least in comparison to his pettier apprentices. The moral integrity of this is highly debatable but it did acknowledge something unavoidable: Jigsaw was and always has been the most interesting character in these movies. His weirdo bond with Amanda was an especially fruitful, and still largely unexplored, element. 

With “Saw X,” the franchise dispenses with all pretenses and turns Jigsaw into a hero really no more brutal than Liam Neeson in "Taken" or Denzel Washington in "The Equalizer." In order to characterize someone who routinely makes “games” of forcing people to savagely mutilate themselves into a protagonist, the script cooks up a group of cartoonishly evil villains. The crooks that end up in these traps have built a convoluted con job around robbing the sick and dying of their last bits of cash, all while giving them false hope. If “Saw VI” mined some vicarious thrills by turning its tortures on health insurance company stooges, “Saw X” does the same thing with a far more preposterous band of heartless thieves. Synnøve Macody Lund plays Cecilia Pederson as the most selfish, conniving person imaginable. In every line of dialogue, you can see her operating in a strictly self-interested, ruthless fashion. Most of her cohorts are similarly opportunistic, caring not at all about the desperate, already doomed people they are ripping off. They are characters so vile and ethically vacant that you easily root for John Kramer to cut them up. I kind of doubt that such a scam would actually be profitable in real life and setting it in Mexico City brings some unsightly racial connotations to mind. However, I will say that “Saw X” successfully creates some suitably despicable rivals to Jigsaw's machinations.

Another side effect of watching all the “Saw” movies is realizing that Jigsaw's modus operandi isn't exactly coherent. In the original movie, he was forcing people through tests to prove they valued their lives. By the third installment, this changed to his victims being sent through elaborate trials to make murky moralistic points, a formula most of the other sequels stuck to. John Kramer did a shit load of revenge and vigilante justice in there too, often targeting people who had wronged him, dirty cops, or other scumbags along the way. “Saw X” doesn't truly address the wild inconsistencies in Kramer's philosophy. The main sticking point of his game is that his victims, no matter how rotten they are, always have a chance to escape. I guess the idea is that everyone deserves redemption and a second chance, contrasting against Amanda's insistence that some assholes should die. Which doesn't really seem to track with literally all of Jigsaw's other brutal actions and apparent sadism. At one point, the script has the gamemaster describing himself as a life coach of sorts. It's such a ridiculous hypocrisy, that someone fascinated with putting people in complex torture devices is depicted as having the moral high ground. I guess that is the pitch black world "Saw" inhabits. 

Then again, maybe that was a deliberate move on the script's behalf, to make Jigsaw more sympathetic. Don't think too hard about the ethics of this horror movie villain now being our hero, you guys. What “Saw X” truly does is provide a proper starring vehicle for Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith. This is a compelling idea. Bell's gravelly, weirdly sincere take on this ridiculous character has always made John Kramer a lot more nuanced than the material around him. He carries a bereaved sadness throughout paired with a righteous anger, showing a frustration with his imminent death and the cynicism of most people. This peaks during a monologue where he admits to Amanda that his death is inevitable and she'll have to grapple with that. The timeline dictates that this story is set shortly after the original but Shawnee Smith is obviously twenty years older, her voice noticeably deeper. This actually pairs well with Amanda's status as a recovering junkie, thoroughly traumatized, and sharing a co-dependent relationship with a quasi-serial killer. Smith plays Amanda as far more haunted and barely clinging to functionality than in previous films. I wish the script focused on that more, on the weirdness in this two-person cult they've got going on. Acknowledging that Amanda is clearly being manipulated by a maniac would run counter to the strictly pro-Jigsaw viewpoint of the sequel. By the end, these two have developed into misfits – yes, really! – against a wicked world, somehow emerging as the most decent characters in the film. In other words, after ten movies, the "Saw" movies have finally convinced me that Jigsaw is a pretty cool guy. 

The jagged aesthetic of the original run of “Saw” movies – their ooze green lighting, grungy settings, caffeinated editing – trademarked the series as an obvious product of the Nu-Metal era of pop culture. By the time we got to “Saw 3D,” this was already looking out-of-date and the subsequent reboots have run from that approach. "Saw X" nods at these hallmarks. When imagining a trap for a hospital janitor with seemingly sticky fingers, the cinematography jerks all around. It happens once or twice after that, strictly as nods to franchise history. However, this tenth entry goes for an overall subtler approach, though no less grim looking. Charlie Clouser's score is also a little less bombastic than usual too, while still featuring the themes fans have come to expect. In general, you can tell an amount of effort was taken to make "Saw X" a little more like a traditional drama and a little less like an in-your-face horror show. This is further evident in the smaller role for Billy the Puppet, though he still gets a big entrance. 

Which isn't to say that the film doesn't pack in the sickening gore. By reeling in the detachment of the edgy visuals, the violence has become a lot more disturbing. In the twenty years since the moral panic over "torture porn," actual sickening footage of war, accidents, suicide, and murders have proliferated across the internet. You can tell Greutert and his team applied some of that hyper-realism here. The blood is darker, the sinew rawer, the flesh and muscle more convincing. The sound design is bracing. When fingers are snapped, it's with a sickening crack. When a leg is sliced off at the thigh with a Gigli saw, the hollow thud of the severed limb hitting the floor is puke-tastic. The sequel's most extreme moment involves a bound man ripping out a bit of his own brain matter. If the goal was to make even hardened horror fans flinch, "Saw X" succeeds. Whether all this extreme violence means anything is debatable. The script draws parallels between Jigsaw's torture and the ancient Aztec ritual of human sacrifices. Kramer himself is forced into his own game, which sees him waterboarded with blood. If this is some attempt to bring the original's accidental subtext on the War on Terror full circle? If so, I don't see a cognizant point there. 

Considering "Saw X" – I can't help but pronounce that as the letter, not the number – is fully on Kramer's side, maybe we aren't meant to feel any sympathy for his victims. Jigsaw is our friend now. We enjoy spending time with him and watching the relentlessly clever special effects unfold. I have no problem with rooting for the monster but make it make sense within the film's universe. Some passing mention of the innocent people that died, or the survivors left scarred and traumatized for life, during Jigsaw's past and future trials would've been nice. At the same time, "Saw X" is easily the best sequel in the entire series, maybe the best "Saw" movie period. It achieves this simply by shifting the focus to Bell and Smith and having assured direction and a concise script. Though there's still a twist ending of sorts, which is a non-event, and a shout-out to that other Jigsaw. (Not anyone from the other reboots though, which this one has no interest in acknowledging.) Inter-producer squabbling seems to have derailed production of "Saw XI." Considering Tobin Bell is 82 years old, it's hard to say if he has another starring role in him anyway. If this ends up being the final "Saw" – extremely unlikely, I know – at least the series went out on a highpoint. "Saw X" makes no argument for the fucked-up moral relativity of these films but it is a brutally efficient gore-fest. [7/10]