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] 

Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)

You can never be sure what horror films will emerge as the decade's most influential until it is all thoroughly in the rear view mirror. I don't think anyone anticipated "Halloween" completely changing the face of horror in 1978, for example. If I was a betting man, however, I'd say "Get Out's" effect has been sizable, at least within the industry. By winning an Oscar, it made "elevated horror" an identifiable trend. It also totally redirected Jordan Peele's career, taking him from a beloved comedy star to the hottest horror director in Hollywood. You can tell other funny men were curious if they could similarly reinvent themselves. John Krasinski, David Gordon Green and Zach Cregger all seem to have made the leap. Another example that wasn't so popular was Chris Rock. Did you know Chris Rock is a horror fan? Did you know he likes the "Saw" movies? A chance meeting with the vice chairman of Liongates had Rock expressing his interest in the series. Eventually, a pitch from "Jigsaw's" Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger would be fused with Rock's ideas. The resulting script was described more as a spin-off than a direct sequel, the connection being solidified with the somewhat ungainly title of "Spiral: From the Book of Saw." Rock managed to convince Darren Lynn Bousman to return to the franchise he swore he had retired from. The addition of Samuel L. Jackson to the cast further built up what was promised to be a complete reinvention of the long-running franchise. 

All throughout the city, dirty cops are awakening in elaborate traps that force themselves to self-mutilate in order to survive. A copycat of the infamous Jigsaw Killer claims responsibility, confronting their victims in a familiar pig mask and marking the crime scenes with the spiral symbol last seen on Billy the Puppet's cheeks. Detective Zeke Banks – son of retired police chief Marcus Banks – is assigned to the case with a new partner, William Schenk. The games continue, more bodies piling up in further vicious traps. Each time, the killer who has quickly earned the nickname Spiral sends mocking messages and clues to the cops. As Banks and Schenk dig deeper into the new Spiral killer, they discover personal connections that become increasingly difficult for Zeke to shake. 

"Spiral" – which is not to be confused with any of the adaptations of "Uzumaki," the 2019 horror indie, Adam Green's 2007 thriller or any of the other movies of the same name – is definitely a horror movie. It's definitely a "Saw" movie too. Within the opening scene, a lying detective is prompted to rip his own tongue out or get splattered by an on-coming subway. He doesn't make it and the resulting bloodshed is theatrical. As the trap scene plays out, cinematographer Jordan Oram and editor Dev Singh replicate the spasmodic visuals of the first "Saw" and its 2000s era sequels. The camera spins around the victim as they freak out. This same approach is repeated for most of the other self-mutilation games throughout the film. The spin-off doesn't lack the gore and terrifying situations that have always defined this franchise. However, "Spiral" seeks out a totally different tone than what we might expect. This is thoroughly a detective story, focused more on the cops trying to stop the killer before they kill again over the victims trapped in sadistic scenarios designed by a fanatic who believes they have the moral ground. 

In other words, the strand of "Seven" DNA that has always been a part of "Saw" is much more prevalent than in the other sequels. Much like Fincher's gritty nineties classic, "Spiral" is also a buddy cop movie. Like a hundred partner films before it, Zeke is the hardened and cynical veteran while Schenk is the inexperienced newbie who is still learning the ropes. Not that the interplay between the two men make up that much of the movie. Max Minghella's Schenk exits the film about halfway through, robbing the apparent buddy cop movie of its buddy. Minghella is fine, as the somewhat nervous sidekick, but he barely gets a chance to play off Rock as the lead. The new partner subplot of "Spiral" is, without a doubt, it's most half-assed element. Inserting that idea into a "Saw" sequel could've been fun but the material simply doesn't support it. 

By focusing so much on police corruption, "Spiral" foregrounds the ACAB subtext that has been apparent throughout "Saw" for a long time. At times, it almost feels like the serial killer-ifed version of "The Departed." This, unfortunately, does not mean "Spiral" is an especially compelling mystery. In a traditional "Saw" movie, we already know who is responsible for these crimes. "Spiral" continues down that path, giving its killer a distinctive pig motif – another reoccurring element given fresh meaning here – and even gifting Spiral with a little puppet pal like Billy before him. When the time comes to unmask the killer's true identity, it happens after all other suspects have been cleaved through. That leaves the reveal without much impact, the audience thoroughly underwhelmed by "Spiral's" last act as it careens towards a weirdly abrupt ending. 

That's because "From the Book of Saw" isn't really about uncovering its criminal mastermind's identity and stopping their reign of terror. Instead, this is a dramatic vehicle for Chris Rock. Rock has the chops to carry a gritty crime movie. "New Jack City" proved that and is name-checked here. In the early scenes, when playing a smart-ass and hard boiled cop, Rock almost convinced me this could work. When playing off an equally quick-witted Samuel L. Jackson, the movie does come alive. However, as "Spiral" goes on, it focuses more in the character's dramatic backstory, emphasizes his persecution complex. While that might've been an insightful peek into the mind of a crooked cop, Rock repeatedly hits the wrong note in each dramatic moment. Zeke comes across as righteous, rather than conflicted, petulant rather than rebellious. By the end, I was instead convinced that Chris Rock probably wasn't the right leading man for this particular film. But it was his idea, right? Why does a movie designed to display Rock's ability serve him so badly? That is when it hits you that "Spiral" is less a "Saw" sequel than a misconceived vanity project for a star eager for reinvention. 

If "Spiral: From the Book of Saw" fails as a mystery, a buddy cop movie, and a chance for Chris Rock to show off his range, what does the film do right? Suggesting all the attempts at reinvention in the sequel were misplaced, "Spiral" is most successful as, well, a "Saw" movie. While his previous entries in the series were Darren Lynn Bousman's first, second, and third movies, "Spiral" was his twelfth. While I've never heard much of anything good about films like "11-11-11" or "The Barrens," he clearly has gotten a little better in all that time. Rather than the obnoxious shock rock video antics of his earlier sequels, "Spiral" actually looks fairly slick. There's a sun-drenched quality to the visuals that show a clear inspiration not only from David Fincher but from the Michael Bay movies that don't look like complete dog shit. "Spiral" is not quite as timid about the explicit gore as "Jigsaw" was, though it definitely remains tamer than earlier installments. (If a movie with a flayed body in it can truly be thought of as "tamer.") While the Spiral Killer, their pig mask, and little marionette guy undoubtedly lack the style of Jigsaw's classic duds, the film does return a sense of irony to the traps that has felt missing for a while. A liar ripping his tongue out and someone who planted evidence tearing off their own fingers feel thematically fitting. Making a "Saw" movie where most of the victims are dirty cops certainly makes for more coherent social commentary than forcing a guy with depression to crawl through barbwire or what have you. 

"Jigsaw" made plenty of money but it failed to reignite a public hunger or fan speculation for these movies. This caused Liongates to present "Spiral: From the Book of Saw" throughout production as the bold reinvention the series needed to catch people's attention. Unfortunately, the world had other plans. The real life horror of the COVID-19 pandemic kept the spin-off on a shelf for over a year. When "Spiral" finally released in October of 2021, movie theaters were still far from a proper recovery. The prospect of a new "Saw" starring Chris Rock was not enough to get people to leave their homes. Subsequently, "Spiral" became the lowest grossing "Saw," only the second to fail to break the 100 million mark at the global box office. Looking back at it several years removed, it's a film with some interesting ideas and a half-way decent execution that is derailed by several key elements. The Chris Rock dramatic vehicle, a buddy cop thriller, and the ninth entry in a notoriously grim horror franchise probably didn't all need to be the same film. [6/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Jigsaw (2017)

Never trust a final chapter, ya dummy. Many times over the decades, producers have tried to goose the falling box office numbers of a long-running horror series by promising this is the last one. As soon as 2011, only a year after "Saw 3D" was advertised as the end of the story, Lionsgate was already discussing doing another one. Eventually, a pitch from Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger convinced the studio to revive the series after six short years. Deciding the talent behind "The Hungover Games" and "Good Luck Chuck" was not cut-out to relaunch their star horror series, the Spierig Brothers would get the directing job. That's the Australian duo behind "Undead" and "Daybreakers," who had an indie hit with "Predestination" the year before. The brothers promised that "Jigsaw" – a better title than the initially considered "Saw Legacy" – would be a "Saw for 2017." What they meant by that can only be guessed at but "Jigsaw" is notable for being the only entry in the series to receive an R-rating from the MPAA without any further cuts. I guess the start of the Trump years left us all thoroughly desensitized, bloody games of torture and self-mutilation no longer phasing the moral guardians. "Paranormal Activity" had also burnt itself out by this point, meaning Lionsgate was able to grab the traditional Halloween weekend release date for "Jigsaw," providing some certainty in an uncertain world. 

Ten years have passed since the death of John Kramer, the twisted avenger known as the Jigsaw Killer. A criminal in a speeding vehicle is caught by police holding a remote trigger, claiming "the game" is beginning again. This is when Detectives Halloran and Hunt begin to discover bizarrely mutilated bodies, each one wearing a bucket-like helmet. They conclude that a Jigsaw copycat is continuing Kramer's plan. In an isolated location, five individuals have awoken in a barn outfitted with deadly traps, forced to play through each one by the familiar puppet avatar and to confess their sins as they try to survive the ironic punishments. Halloran and Hunt team with pathologist Logan and Eleanor, the latter a part of the obsessive Jigsaw online fan base, to try and stop the games before more bodies pile up and find out the truth about who is continuing Jigsaw's legacy. 

Whether "Jigsaw" can said to successfully reinvent the long-running franchise for the mid-2010s is debatable. However, the Spierig Brothers do ditch the aesthetics of the earlier films. The nu-metal visuals of Slimer green lighting, filthy industrial equipment, grungy locations, and obnoxiously "extreme" editing have been left behind. "Jigsaw" is mostly set out in a barn, with lots of hay and a key scene in a grain silo, exchanging the traditionally urban settings of these movies for a more rural location. Cinematographer Ben Nott mostly keeps to a brightly lit and widescreen look, that thrusts bladed instruments and swinging body parts right into the camera. (Weirdly, the sequel was not released in 3D, despite this.) However, the scenes of cops and detectives following clues and trying to stop Jigsaw's twisted game are fairly flatly presented. The question of what is "Saw" without the stylized, in-your-face edginess of the early 2000s is answered by "Jigsaw" mostly looking like a network television show. The gruesome post-mortem examinations of mutilated bodies aren't that much more graphic than what you'd see on any "CSI" spin-off, showing that the culture had truly caught up with "Saw's" extremity by 2017. 

It is weird seeing Billy the Puppet in such brightly lit environments, without the jittery camera work. Otherwise, "Jigsaw" doesn't feel that different from the previous entries in the series. By the end of "Saw 3D," the series had become a continuity-heavy soap opera about the competing apprentices of John Kramer, the various detectives and victims of the twisted gamemaster. "Jigsaw" has a mostly new cast of characters, new cops and coroners on the killer's trail and new bickering captives of Jigsaw's masterplan. The characters are familiar, however, with Halloran as the dirty cop and Ryan as the belligerent asshole pushing through the game. A compelling protagonist never emerges, which makes the scenes devoted to moving the plot forward tedious. A moment when Logan talks about details of the case with his obsessive Jigsaw fangirl sister feel utterly route and tedious. The idea of an online fandom of Jigsaw devotees is an interesting idea but the sequel never makes any of its generic characters or investigation feel all that novel or fleshed-out. 

That reveals a depressing truth about "Saw" as a franchise. John Kramer and his network of disciples had basically emerged as the protagonists of the later sequels. The people navigating the elaborate murder devices were interchangeable, often unimportant victims to watch get brutalized. The gory traps are ostensibly the stars of these movies anyway, right? Probably out of a desire to shed the franchise's reputation as mindless torture-fests, "Jigsaw" reels back on the graphic violence. There's a fairly gnarly shot of a leg sliced off in a wire snare but most of the scenarios are more psychological. The focus is on the moral dilemmas the characters must make, forced to choose between spilling their own blood and watching someone else die. However, the people trapped in the barn range from vaguely defined to deeply unlikeable. As always, there are twisted moral justification for each game, all of them being responsible for some "sin." That makes it harder to root for anyone to survive. When that is combined with the less elaborate and gruesome devices, the result leans more towards tedium than thrills. The Spierigs seem to lack the sadistic eyes of previous "Saw" directors. Some of the scenarios here – a duo trapped in a slowly filling grain silo as bladed instruments fall from above – show the sick creativity we've cone to expect. However, someone being lowered into a spinning spiral of blades or tightening chains lack the visceral presentation of past films. "Jigsaw" doesn't want to be mindless gore and sadism but it doesn't offer us much else either, sure to leave the Fangoria crowd deeply underwhelmed. 

Of course, convoluted on-going storylines and elaborately gruesome violence are only the main things "Saw" has offered fans over the years. The series is also known, I guess, for its twist endings. Horror villains like Jason, Chucky, and Michael Myers have all returned from the grave multiple times. "Saw" is ostensibly more grounded than those series. Flashbacks and absurd planning ahead has kept Tobin Bell as John Kramer in these movies, despite the character technically being dead since part three. "Jigsaw" teases throughout the possibility that Kramer has somehow returned from the grave, his terminal cancer diagnosis somehow not being so permanent. The sequel clearly knows fans are expecting the character to return. When Bell appears on-screen again, as solemn and grim and compelling as ever, it would seem "Saw" has finally crossed that improbable bridge. Stolberg and Goldfinger's script, however, has one genuinely clever ace up its sleeve. Trying to decipher the moral code of the killer remains as nonsensical as ever. However, I will give the eighth installment points for catching me off-guard and finding a way to bring Jigsaw back that doesn't involve contrivances like resurrections from the grave, identical siblings, time travel, or undoing the importance of being near-death to Kramer's motivation. 

That clever last minute twist – which should not be thought about too hard in the context of previous movies, of course – at least takes "Jigsaw" out on a memorable note. The sequel should also be commended for building on the A.C.A.B. subtext of the previous entries. It seems wrong to root for the sadistic toymaker and his twisted games of death but he still seems to have a stronger sense of justice than the fucking cops. Six years both is and isn't a long time, in terms of cultural memory. "Jigsaw" attempts to acknowledge the stylish changes that had passed since 2010. At the same time, it keeps doing most of what the previous "Saw" movies had already done, resisting any claims to bring an actual reinvention of the series. Maybe that is why "Jigsaw" – while still easily making back its modest production budget at the box office – failed to reignite the public's appetite for carnage like this. Perhaps not enough time has passed after all for us to feel like we were missing this particular type of butchery yet... [6/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw 3D (2010)

"Saw VI" grossed only 69.8 million at the global box office. Still a healthy profit against its 11 million dollar budget but a considerable drop from prior films, part six remaining the lowest grossing non-pandemic era entry in the series. A few factors could be considered for why that is. Maybe part five kind of sucking had less people turning out for six. Maybe the yearly release schedule left the creative team burned out and audiences' appetite for gore finally satisfied. The sixth film was topped opening weekend by "Paranormal Activity 2," suggesting that a new horror franchise had stolen Jigsaw's title as the box office champ of Halloween. Whatever the reason, Twisted Pictures decided they better wrap it up while some sort of demand still existed. The release of "Avatar" the year before had officially kicked off the modern 3D fad, giving the franchise some other coat tails to ride. "Saw 3D" would launch traps and giblets at theater goers in 2010, the additional promise of being the concluding installment in the story giving it another gimmick to draw ticket buyers in. (Which was taken further when the film was released on flat DVDs under the hilariously presumptuous name of "Saw: The Final Chapter.") The tactic paid off, in terms of earnings, but few seemed to find this a satisfying end to the series. Like far too many horror hits, "Saw" seemed to be going out on a whimper and not a bang.

Jill, the widow of the late John Kramer, strapped unworthy apprentice Mark Hoffman into the reverse bear trap at the end of the last movie. The would-be Jigsaw survives and Jill turns herself in to the FBI, in hopes they can protect her. Now with nothing to lose, Hoffman goes on a roaring rampage of revenge, with Jill as his final target. He also takes aim at internal affairs agent Matt Gibson, an old colleague tasked with protecting Jill. Meanwhile, the games continue as Bobby Degan – who has falsely claimed to be a Jigsaw survivor to gain fame – is thrust into an actual series of traps, forced to try and rescue those that assisted his hoax from deadly contraptions.

Lionsgate had originally planned to split the so-called final "Saw" installment into two parts – another unfortunate cinematic fad of the time – before the mediocre box office for part six made them reduce it to one movie. This strikes me as odd, considering Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan's original master plan was supposedly a second trilogy spanning through the fourth, fifth, and sixth movies. Indeed, "Saw 3D" makes it clearer that this story could have easily wrapped up with Hoffman getting his head wrenched apart by the reverse bear trap. The only plot thread that truly remains to be resolved is Hoffman seeking revenge on Jill. This results in him stabbing his way through a police station, in a decidedly un-Jigsaw fashion. Once that plot anticlimactically wraps up, the film abruptly ends with the entrance of another character that barely misses qualifying as a deus ex machina. The sequel hastily introduces Agent Gibson to give Hoffman someone else to scheme against. I honestly wondered if this guy might have been an established personality from the previous films, given the "Saw's" series habit of expanding on minor characters from past movies. Nope, this is Agent Gibson's first and last appearance in the "Saw" universe, another guy Hoffman has a years long grudge against despite him never being mentioned before now. That subplot is also resolved bluntly and without much fanfare. 

All of "Saw 3D" reeks of this feeling, of simply wanting to be done with it. The formula – of a chosen asshole being forced to decide the fate of captured victims, running parallel to the Jigsaw soap opera– is maintained. However, the disconnect between Hoffman's storyline and Bobby Degan's trial comes across as massive. You never get the impression that Hoffman is particularly interested in this game nor does it have much effect on the rest of the plot. Truthfully, the scenario pushes "Saw" into preposterous territory. Some of the traps are so elaborate and big – such as a CGI brazen bull building itself around a woman – that you wonder how any one person could afford to build and assemble it by themselves. Much less a serial killer who is on the run from the law through the entire movie. If a "Saw" movie leaves you asking the question "Wait, when did he have the time and resources to set all that up?," something has gone seriously wrong.

The film is repeatedly pulled between this general lack of ideas and energy and a desire to be the biggest, craziest "Saw" yet. The results come across as more desperate to be intense and shocking than actually upsetting. An opening trap – of a woman descending towards her boyfriends fighting over a table saw – takes place in a public square, once again making you wonder how that was pulled off in-universe. Meanwhile, the sequence ends up feeling uncomfortably sexist. A group of Neo-Nazis suspended in and around a speeding car is similarly mean-spirited in its ferocity while seeming so elaborate as to strain believability. These complex gags of death stand in contrast to the actual "game" once it gets going, which consists mostly of people in contraptions that impale them on spikes. In other words, it sure felt like the "Saw" team had run out of good ideas for death machines that are creativity gruesome and feature the trademark ironic punishment element of Jigsaw's schemes. Which has been all but abandoned by this point, as you're never quite sure what point exactly the engineer is trying to prove here.

As the last dying gasp of "torture porn" as a popular subgenre, "Saw 3D" represents the supposed goal of the style being all but abandoned. The highly realistic gore effects, in service of pushing the horror genre to extreme new heights, have given way to more rubbery looking violence. This is exacerbated by the sequel being in 3D. Obviously, that leads to bladed devices being jabbed towards the viewer and bloody meat spurting through the air. Both such scenarios play out in a nightmare sequence, a totally gratuitous moment included simply to shove another murder scene into the film. Such a theatrical presentation inevitably bends towards camp. However, "Saw" would be remised if it didn't maintain its trademark mood of taking its own ridiculous bullshit with utmost seriousness. This creates a mean-spirited atmosphere, most evident in when we finally see the reverse bear trap work as intended. Shattered teeth and bloody threads of flesh are tossed at the viewer, a desperate attempt to shock or impress that comes off as feeling more than a little sweaty. 

A better movie would embrace this undercurrent of humor. Honestly, I almost wonder if "Saw 3D" was trying to do that. The idea of a support group for survivors of Jigsaw's deadly games, that there are enough of them now to support such a venture, feels like an especially dark "Saturday Night Live" sketch. The scenes devoted to this set-up almost move towards comedy, as the past victims debate whether Jigsaw was a monster or a genius who saved their lives. The answer to that question seems self-evident but "Saw 3D" seems to have unironically embraced the idea of John Kramer as some sort of well-intentioned cult leader. So totally bereft of ideas, Dunstan and Melton incorporated an extremely popular fan theory of the time into "Saw 3D," that a character unseen since part one is not only still alive but willingly became another of Jigsaw's apprentices. I like Tobin Bell too but playing Kramer as this irresistibly magnetic, quasi-cult leader who brainwashes people into following his inconsistent philosophy – which the sequel presents as better than Hoffman's revenge driven methods – is baffling. John Kramer sure did a lot of revenge too! It's a twist that makes no sense, moving towards an ending that is nothing but an act of shallow fan service. 

That is ultimately all "Saw 3D" has to offer. Having exhausted all other ideas, the sequel represents the series spiraling towards a hashed together resolution of its own melodramas and a couple of attempts to goose the audience with familiar faces or bloody special effects. I definitely recall at least a few "Saw"-heads loving that final twist at the time. Unless you are thoroughly invested in the series' mythology, you're unlikely to get much out of the film. Greutert and his team trot out the same old visual quirks and musical cues but any effect they once had has long since worn out. "Saw VI" showed that incorporating some social satire and more chances for Bell to ham it up could've kept this series rolling for a while. Instead, "Saw 3D" has the horror franchise chasing its own tail on the way to a thoroughly underwhelming ending. After seven years, it was time to wrap the game up. [4/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw VI (2009)

The common wisdom is that the first entry in a long-running horror series is some sort of critically acclaimed genre classic while the endless sequels were increasingly derided by the mainstream press as nothing but senseless gore. This is sometimes true but I was actively reading a lot of critics in the 2000s and recall the original "Saw" as being considered pretty dumb by most professionals even then. Once the moral panic around "torture porn" kicked in, the yearly "Saw" sequels became an excuse for writers to clutch their pearls and search their thesaurus for as many synonyms for "mindless drivel" as they could find. That was certainly the case by the time we got to "Saw VI," which Liongates did not bother to screen for critics. However, to considerably surprise, the sixth film actually received some better notices than the previous sequels by incorporating some social commentary into its explicit violence. The installment is also beloved by fans, with many considering it a late-in-the-series highlight for a franchise that was terribly close to being totally wrung out by this point.

With the FBI agent on his tail dispatched, Mark Hoffman has officially established himself as the successor to the mantle of the Jigsaw Killer. He tries and frames his dead nemesis for his crimes while harassing John Kramer's widow, Jill, for hints about the latest game. Director Erickson and Agent Perez – who survived her encounter with an exploding Billy the Puppet doll in part four – are quickly putting the pieces together about Hoffman's deception. Meanwhile, Jigsaw's most elaborate game is getting underway. William Easton, the health insurance executive who denied John's policy, awakens in a labyrinth. His colleagues are strung up in fatal devices that will force Easton to confront the life and death decisions he makes every day up close, as he moves towards rescuing his family in the maze's center.

As I remember it, horror fans were very receptive to the annual tradition of new "Saw" movies. I seem to recall posters on the Bloody Disgusting and MovieManiac.net forums enthusiastically accepting Hoffman as the new Jigsaw. This is funny as the sequels themselves increasingly seem to regard him as unworthy of this legacy. Maybe the clear gulf in charisma between Tobin Bell and Costas Mandylor was more evident to the producers. Either way, "Saw VI" agrees that Mark Hoffman sucks. While John Kramer kept the authorities fumbling around in the dark for years, Hoffman seems to have screwed up by the start of his second "game." Rather than attempting to teach people the value of their own lives and push their will to survive to the limit, Hoffman acts more directly as a vigilante punishing criminals. More pressingly, Hoffman is using the Jigsaw identity to destroy his enemies, get revenge, and get himself promoted at work. Incoherent and contradictory as his philosophy was, John Kramer was a fanatic with a mission and a point to make. Hoffman is a self-interested bully, a power-hungry supervillain, and kind of an idiot who has given himself a lofty, unearned sense of superiority. 

Saying this engineer of sadistic torment machines is morally sounder than this other torture master is ridiculous, of course. While the initial hook of the "Saw" series was that Jigsaw's justification for his crimes were unreasonable, the sequels have aligned himself more and more with his twisted mission. Now, in this pitch black moral universe, we are rooting for one serial killer to fail to confirm himself as the heir to another serial killer's title. I have to wonder if this isn't Kevin Greutert – promoted from editor to director – making some sort of commentary on the different audiences for these movies. Is he comparing the gore hounds who show up every October merely to see more elaborate methods of mutilation to Hoffman, who uses Jigsaw's games for selfish or petty purposes? As opposed to those that actually engage with the twisted lessons John Kramer was trying to teach his victims? Horror villains becoming fan favorites is basically impossible to avoid but Jigsaw becoming an antihero this admired suggest somebody's wires got crossed along the way. Or maybe this is Twisted Pictures throwing shade at the other "torture porn" films that imitated "Saw" and deeming them unworthy. Whatever the purpose, "Saw VI" is clearly distinguishing one type of bloody maiming as holier than the other. 

Whether this was intentional or not is debatable but "Saw VI" clearly does have weightier ideas on its mind. The sequel came out five months before President Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare Act into law, prompting unfounded fear mongering from the right-wing noise machine and endless debate about how healthcare is distributed in America. A humble horror sequel has no deep reflections on this but clearly communicates one message: Health insurance workers are fucking assholes. Jigsaw turns his wrath on the executives and pencil pushers who cynically decide who lives and who dies, forcing them into grisly challenges as a metaphor for their own corporate greed and lack of empathy. Literally, as Jigsaw has Easton decided whether a healthy young man with no family is more worthy of life than a woman with pre-existing conditions and several kids. In this current era, where Luigi Manigone can become a folk hero overnight for capping the CEO of UnitedHealthcate, it's not hard to be on Jigsaw's side here. The sequel's most stirring moment isn't any of its brutal gore sequences. Instead, it's when Tobin Bell goes on a fiery rant about the callousness of insurance companies, ending by directly comparing them to predatory fish. 

Taking target at the kind of real life villains that probably do deserve some torturous lessons in humanity brings something back to the "Saw" series that hasn't been present since the second film. There's a kind of joyful ridiculousness to the grim traps that are thought up this. A Billy the Puppet doll swings towards a glass window, as if the protagonist is venturing through a jump scare filled haunted attraction. The central set piece of the film involves people tied to a rotating platform with a shotgun pointed at it, a very silly set-up that actively invites the comparison to a carnival spectacle. While the traps in the last two movies could get a little too conceptual at times, Greutert cuts the scenarios down here. Having to chop off a literal pound of flesh or navigate a corridor full of spewing steam are straight forward enough concepts. The climatic murder device is so over-the-top that it pushes "Saw," for the first time, almost into the realm of campy gore comedy. It's not only CEOs and insurance agents that are punished here but also some predatory lenders and a gossip magazine columnist, all played as thoroughly despicable characters by leaning on overwrought emotion. 

Not that this was an intentional move on "Saw VI's" behalf. As always, these movies take themselves very serious. The degree of continuity between sequels and the number of past events to keep track of remain dense. Whenever "Saw VI" focuses on Jill trying to fulfill her husband's twisted plans or Hoffman's manipulative tactics, we've definitely reached soap opera territory. The level of melodrama, when added to the grim subject matter, does result in the first decent twist ending in a while and a finale that puts a novel spin on one of the classic "Saw" gimmicks. Greutert sticks to the hyper-grim visual palette that has been long established by now. Admittedly, the spastic montages and dingy lighting aren't utilized quite as much, these visual clichés starting to fall out of popularity by 2009. 

Honestly, one has to wonder if Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures themselves weren't aware of how silly this series was starting to get. Before "Saw VI" went before cameras, there was an accompanying VH1 reality show entitled "Scream Queens," in which the winner got to be a special guest victim in the sequel. Competing to be graphically tortured in a horror movie strikes me as a weird premise for a game show but I guess that was the state of both the horror and reality TV genres at the time. (The winner, by the way, was Tanedra Howard, who does a decent job of hacking her own arm off in the opening trap.) Whether "Saw VI" knowingly started to embrace the overly edgy element of the series for humor or at least incorporate a tiny bit of social relevance, it did inject some energy into a horror series that was starting to run its course. [7/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw V (2008)

One of the taglines used to sell “Saw IV” was, simply, “If it's Halloween, then it must be Saw.” There's no doubt that part of what made the grisly series such a reliable box office presence in the 2000s was the yearly ritual of a new one being in theaters in time for Halloween every October. Horror fans loved having a new gore-fest to watch during their favorite holiday and I bet the average movie-goer appreciated it too, for a while anyway. To maintain that consistent schedule, Twisted Pictures was basically working on “Saw” non-stop. Melton and Dunstan envisioned part four launching a new story arc to run through the next two installments. Once the opening weekend numbers came in, it was full-speed ahead on “Saw V.” A script was locked by Christmas, with filming taking place through March and April, with the finished product ready to go by October. David Hackl, the production designer who almost helmed four, was now leading this bloody machine. At a certain point, however, the question must be asked: Does cranking a sequel out so quickly produce compelling results?

In the aftermath of Jigsaw's reign of terror, there are seemingly few survivors... Except for Detective Eric Hoffman, who is quickly praised as the hero who broke the case. This is all by design, as Hoffman was one of John Kramer's disciples and the man who will inherit the mantle of Jigsaw. The only person who suspects anything is FBI agent Strahm. He was supposed to die too but survived the trap he was placed in. He starts digging through Hoffman's past, discovering that the detective killed his sister's murderer and staged it to look like one of Jigsaw's "games." When John Kramer discovered this, he took Hoffman under his wing. As Strahm closes in on the new Jigsaw Killer, another game – involving five people connected by shady property deals – is playing out. 

Part of why Wan and Whannell's original "Saw" spawned so many sequels and imitators is because it presented an easily copied blueprint. Not only in its premise of gruesome torture games but also in its visual style. In his sequels, Darren Lynn Bousman did little to change the dank settings, gritty lighting, and frantic editing that the first film established. "Saw V" keeps the same cinematographer and editor that have stuck with the series from the beginning, so it features plenty of the trademark "Saw" ugliness. The expected jagged camera movements, "Jacob's Ladder" style freak-outs, and Nickelodeon slime lighting are all present and accounted for. However, David Mackl shows notably different influences than Wan and Bousman. "Saw V" opens with someone being cleaved in two by a swinging pendulum. One Edgar Allen Poe references deserves another, as the film ends with someone crushed between two advancing walls in a shrinking room. This suggest more of a gothic horror vibe, which is also evident in part five starting on a dark and stormy night. The underground tunnels and industrial warehouses are lit like dusty, dark castles and the blood is noticeably a brighter red than last time. I couldn't shake the feeling throughout that "Saw V" was going for some Hammer horror or Corman's Poe Cycle vibes. 

Embracing a more baroque fashion of horror like that than reheated "Seven" would've been a good way to keep "Saw" fresh this late into the series. Unfortunately, the fast-paced production cycle for this franchise resembled TV more than anything. Which is also what "Saw V" resembles. Not only in its flatly shot and presented scenes of cops and FBI agents lurking around stations and crime scenes either. Special Agent Strahm is more-or-less the hero of "Saw V," from the moment he saves himself from drowning via improvised tracheotomy. That causes Scott Patterson to put on an even gruffer voice than he did last time, making the already hard-boiled detective into more of a case-obsessed hard-ass. It's easy to imagine this same actor and character starring in some CBS cop show. Strahm has the same degree of depth that implies too, being a totally indistinct tough guy who exists to uncover all the clues that will reveal the story to the audience. 

This is because, like a serialized television story, "Saw V" is far too invested in its ongoing lore to make this installment stand alone. Jigsaw is the real protagonist of the "Saw" series anyway and Hoffman is our new Jigsaw. Much of the sequel is devoted to flashbacks, showing how and why Hoffman became John Kramer's other protégé and how he helped set up many of the traps from the first two movies. This allows Tobin Bell to remain present in the series, despite his character being dead by now. There's a problem however. Bell was already a veteran character actor before becoming a horror icon. He knew how to command the screen with a gravelly, Lance Henriksen-esque charisma. Hoffman is played Costas Mandylor, whose C.V. is, I guess, not any more or less distinguished than Bell's. However, his performance comes off as a lot more one-note. As incoherent as John Kramer's philosophy was, it was still something that made him different than the slashers and supervillains that came before. His games of torture were twisted tests of character, meant to show if his captives had a will to survive. Mark Hoffman, meanwhile, is your run-of-the-mill asshole vigilante. His victims include a Neo-Nazi, an asshole land developer, a rich junkie, a tabloid reporter, a low level government crony. The kind of people you won't mind seeing dismembered, continuing the antihero-ification of Jigsaw that started last time. Moreover, Kramer being driven by his cancer diagnosis and perverse desire to prove a willingness to live was interesting. It showed a bizarre world view, elaborated on through the previous film's backstory, and given life by Bell. Hoffman has none of that and the sequel never truly justifies why he is so eager to take up the Jigsaw mantle. Mandylor's performance, meanwhile, is grunting and sinister and gives us little in the way of any sort of inner life. 

"Saw V" is truly all about establishing the new central baddie for the series going forward. Dunstan and Melton's script uses the fanfiction-like device to make us think the new guy is important by inserting him into past events, to convince us he's been here all along. That means tying "Saw V" to the previous installments, leading to revisits of past traps and an almost amusing rundown of all the dead cops Jigsaw has left in his wake. (It also means completely brushing away the cliffhanger ending we've been waiting two movies to see resolved.) However, "Saw V" devoting so much time and energy to establishing its new killer presents a serious flaw: Aren't these movies supposed to be about normal people trapped in games of mutilation and execution? 

Jigsaw's latest "game," with all its bloody traps, is shoved into the subplot of the film. The group of people forced to play or die are all largely unlikable. Their story, a convoluted and totally off-screen tale of shady property deals, is uninvolving. The cast plays the gang as self-interested and melodramatic assholes. Considering the obvious attraction of these films are the gory death traps, those seem uninspired too. A system of pulleys yanking an unlucky loser into a guillotine blade is clever. However, the other tests feel like ultra-violent "Double Dare" challenges, concluding in unexciting dispatches like an explosion or electrocution. The intended goal of this game is to make all these selfish jerk-wads realize they need to forge meaningful connections with other people and put aside their greedy self-interest to survive. Considering the extremely cynical world-view of the "Saw" series, how this plays out should come as no surprise. 

If the biggest problem facing "Saw IV" was the series being consumed by its own continuity and need for plot twist, part five shows a similar self-absorption with the backstory of this gory crime saga. To the point that it has officially overtaken the bloody challenges as the primary focus. I guess that's better than wallowing in sadism and nihilism, though it's also a lot harder to care about. At least part five skips the timeline scrambling twist ending antics. In fact, "Saw V's" ending feels rather routine, a half-hearted promise that the story will continue in next year's installment and that Jigsaw's sick trials are far from over. I suppose the sequel gave fans what they wanted, as it was another reliable money maker for its producers. However, the feeling that extending this story past the original villain's death was maybe a fool's errand is starting to sink in. "Saw V" isn't totally without its moment, I guess. Bell is still doing a lot with a little and the opening and closing death scenes are grimly executed. However, the franchise doldrums are setting in. [5/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw IV (2007)

Jigsaw was dead. However, “Saw III” grossed 164 million dollars at the global box office, meaning “Saw: The Franchise” was very much alive. James Wan and Leigh Whannell were ready to hang up their bloody hacksaws, stepping into the roles of executive producers. Liongates set out to find a new writing duo to keep their yearly torture machine chugging along. A spec script by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan – the team behind Dimension's ill-fated “Feast” – was briefly considered as the blueprint for a “Saw” prequel. However, the decision was made to move forward, rather than backwards. Besides, what horror villain worth their salt hasn't come back from the dead? Thus, “Saw IV” was set in motion. Production designer for the last two films, David Hackl, was the first choice to direct but dropped out for personal reasons. Darren Lynn Bousman wasn't interested in directing at first, fearful of being pigeon-holed as a horror sequel guy, but they talked him into it. (Probably because he was trying to fund his weirdo passion project, “Repo! The Genetic Opera,” which Twisted Pictures ended up producing and Liongates distributed.) In many ways, as John Kramer himself would say, the games were only beginning. 

In the autopsy room, a cassette tape is pulled out of the stomach of the deceased John Kramer, promising that his plans will continue after his death. FBI agents Strahm and Perez are assigned to the case, quickly deducing that the sickly Kramer must have had multiple assistants helping set up his torture machines. Meanwhile, SWAT team leader Rigg – obsessing over the Jigsaw case since Detective Kerry's death – is drawn into a new game. He must complete tests that see him encountering criminal faces from his past. At the end of the trail, is Detective Matthews and forensic specialist Hoffman in a trap of their own. Strahm becomes increasingly convinced Riggs is the assistant they are seeking, on his trail in hopes of rescuing the captured Hoffman and Matthews. 

If any franchise runs long enough, it inevitably reaches a point where the story becomes consumed by its own mythology. You're going to get installments that reference previous installments, if they aren't built entirely around remaking them. Part four represents that turning point for "Saw," when the franchise disappeared up its own ass. You have to remember who the – not that distinctive, it must be said – various cops and detectives from the last two movies were to make sense of this one's story. The plot juggles several competing threads, all of which are playing out at the same time as each other... While also occurring alongside a number of flashbacks. That's before the last act twist, the utterly self-involved reveal that "Saw IV" is taking place at the same time as the events of "Saw III," the two films crashing into each other in their final minutes. Part three's ineffectual protagonist, Jeff, wanders into this sequel with the expectation that you'll immediately recognize him. This means that part four frustratingly does not resolve the previous film's cliffhanger. "Saw IV" is so wrapped up in its narrative trickery and dependency on continuity, that the eventual reveal of John Kramer's true heir comes off more as a shrug than a perfectly executed surprise. 

Honestly, it's a lot to ask of the audience for films that aren't much more than especially nasty, elaborate slasher films. If Dustan and Melton were hoping to elevate the series beyond that, they don't resist another tradition of a long-running slasher series. The normal people in these stories usually end up dead, defined more by their deaths than their personalities because each sequel must be bloodier than the last. Jason, Freddy, and their murderous brethren become the main attraction for the audience. If we are here to see the killers off folks, might as well make the victims obnoxious or dumb, to make it easier to root for their inevitable destruction. In the first two films, John Kramer mostly stuck people with common problems or who had made simple mistakes into his deadly games. If you thought it was fucked-up that Jigsaw targeted addicts or people with depression, that's cause it was. We were supposed to place ourselves in such a scenario, targeted by a lunatic for a "crime" that exists only in their head. However, the need to make every "Saw" more fucked-up than the last invites anticipation on the viewers' behalf. The horror fans want to see the blood and guts and mutilation, right? With every sequel, the chances of Jigsaw becoming a twisted anti-hero of sorts increased. 

"Saw IV" represents Wan and Whannell's creation reaching that quantum of sadism. This time, the people placed into Jigsaw's contraptions of agony include a dirty lawyer, a sex trafficker, a serial rapist, an abusive husband, and a crooked cop. It's hard to be upset when such people gouge their eyes out, get their limbs ripped off, have their scalps torn away by grinding gears, are run through with metal spikes, or crushed by giant blocks of ice. It is much easier to read such events as a twisted form of justice, these people getting what they deserve. Which undermines the entire point of the series, confuses what exactly the point of Jigsaw's machinations are here, and makes it harder to care if any of these folks live or die. It also means the audience gets a hall pass on finding the excessive gore and creative torture implements entertaining, driving away the potentially confrontational aspect of these movies. "Saw IV" is the fictionalized extrapolation of French peasants watching loyalists get guillotined and just as morally justifiable. Maybe Ebert was on to something when he compared "dead teenager movies" to carnival geek shows. Who goes to the geek show and feels bad for the chickens? 

Since "Saw IV" isn't even pretending to have us sympathize with the unfortunate people strapped in the torture machines, the role of protagonist is placed on an outside observer. As in part three, a random guy must run through the gauntlet of death, choosing whether to help the imprisoned victims or simply sit back and watch. Rigg, played by a very sweaty and serious Lyriq Bent, is at least less of a dispassionate observer than "Saw III's" Jeff. With the exception of the serial rapist – who he actually helps strap into the dismemberment machine – he at least tries to help people before they are torn apart. He's just kind of an idiot, who repeatedly barges into scenarios long past the point when he should have learned not to do that. The script also takes it for granted that he cares about rescuing Donnie Wahlberg's Detective Matthews, long since established as an asshole. Similarly, we are definitely suppose to relate to Agent Strahm's belligerent, blustery quest to unravel Jigsaw's plan. Which he intends to do largely by interrogating Kramer's widow. It's difficult to assign any sort of A.C.A.B. subtext to these plot threads but who knows. Whether the latter narrative does anything for you might depend on if you think there's any novelty in seeing "Gilmore Girls'" Scott Patterson or "Cheerleader Camp's" Betsy Russell in a movie like this. 

Russell – whose performance is better than Patterson's, who goes way too grouchy – is part of the one element of "Saw IV" that actually makes it a somewhat interesting film. As I said, "Saw IV" was almost a prequel, the script that became "The Collector" nearly serving as its blue print. Part four pushes the story forward but is still a prequel of sorts. Tobin Bell is guaranteed a paycheck thanks to extensive flashbacks to John Kramer's life in the time leading up to him becoming Jigsaw. This is a good move, largely because Bell is a compelling presence who is given juicy material to enact. Seeing what made a high successful engineer and toymaker into a sadistic quasi-serial killer is a transformation worth watching. The path "Saw IV" lays down is heavy-handed. A contrived scenario involving his wife's work at a clinic, a botched robbery, and an aborted fetus is specifically planned out to create Jigsaw as we know him, the screenwriters clearly working backwards from the conclusion we already have. These scenes also establish John Kramer as a big ol' hypocrite, his first "game" proving that this was always about revenge for him. (How intentional that is depends on how much credit you're willing to give the people who make these movies.) Still, it's more interesting than the convoluted on-going plot. The sequel even provides an explanation for Jigsaw's weird obsession with pig heads.

From what he's said in the topic, you get the impression that Darren Lynn Bousman had consigned himself to simply delivering fans the bloodshed they've come to expect by the time he made "Saw IV." The film opens with a graphic, extended autopsy sequence, seemingly an admission of sorts that we are only here for the gory special effects. The arm-ripping trap strikes me as similarly uninspired. The wife speared to her abusive husband and forced to either kill him or save herself is almost clever. I do kind of like the scalping machine, because it plays on fears of getting your hair caught in industrial machinery. Bousman's juvenile visual edginess does seem to have relaxed a little. "Saw IV" isn't as ugly as the previous two films, featuring less toxic waste green lighting. The Nu-Metal montages of people screaming while the camera swirls around them and the flashing lights as transitions are still here. There is a neat moment though, when a body tossed through a mirror leads us right into a flashback. Maybe this guy has some talent after all...

Ultimately, you're probably only watching "Saw IV" if you are a fan of this kind of thing or if you are the kind of person who watches every entry in a horror series after they've watched the first. Guess which one I am! Both audiences, admittedly, are exactly the kind of people who can keep track of plot points this unnecessarily dense. "Saw IV" filled me with less loathing towards the human race than the third but still falls short of the camp of the second or whatever genuine merits the first had. The series devoting itself to insular continuity, instead of merely having fun with ever-more improbable death machines, would eventually be its undoing. Lionsgate still got 139 million in box office, against a mere ten million budget, meaning the sequel did exactly what it was designed to do: Find a way to keep the money train rolling. And Bousman got to make his weird musical about live organ donation – which I kind of like – so the only losers were the people who stupidly expect something different from the fourth "Saw" movie. I do like the flashbacks centered on Bell and will admit some of the cruelty on display is creative. Whether that is enough to get me through the next six entries remains to be seen... [6/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw III (2006)

Gregg Hoffman was one of the major producers behind the original “Saw,” scraping together the one million dollar budget and founding Twisted Pictures alongside Oren Koules. He was also one of the voices pushing for a sequel to be made. While “Saw II” was in production, Hoffman was admitted to a hospital with some neck pain. Despite only being 42 years old, he unexpectedly died shortly afterwards. James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Darren Lynn Bousman initially figured they would pass on further sequels. That they didn't want to push their luck. However, while at a dinner to remember Hoffman, the trio realized that “Saw III” was going to happen regardless. If that was the case, they wanted to make sure it was a fitting ode to their late friend. When you consider “Saw III” is another super gory horror movie full of maiming, torture, and brutal executions, it feels like kind of a weird tribute to a dead friend... I guess that's how it goes sometimes though. If loss and grief were on Bousman and Whannell's minds, it would certainly explain how the third film, grim even by the standards of this series, turned out the way it did though. 

Detective Kerry investigates the grisly aftermath of another one of the Jigsaw Killer's fatal games. She notices that the exit to the trap was welded shut, meaning the victim had no chance at all to survive. Shortly afterwards, Kerry is captured by the villain and falls prey to a similarly impossible to escape trap. At the same time, Dr. Lynn Denton – whose son was recently killed in a traffic accident, leaving her husband Jeff heartbroken – is kidnapped by Amanda, John Kramer's apprentice. Kramer is nearly at the end of his life, succumbing to his inoperable brain tumor. Denton is forced to operate on him, an explosive collar around her neck that will go off if Kramer dies or she tries to leave. Meanwhile, Jeff is undergoing his own trial. Jigsaw has captured the man who drove the car that killed the Denton's son, the witness who fled the scene, and the judge who let the culprit go. Jeff now has a choice: To either find it in himself to forgive those he blame for the death of his son or watch them die in Jigsaw's elaborate traps. However, more is going on than either know, John Kramer and Amanda playing their own game.

As only Darren Lynn Bousman's second feature film, it's tempting to say his style has gotten stronger, straying further from the obnoxious music video techniques so noticeable in "Saw II." I guess this is true. Aside from an overly dark opening scene and a scuffle that's hard to follow, I suppose "Saw III" looks more stable than the proceeding film. However, the sequel in no way leaves behind the ugly, annoying visuals tics that were already a series trademark. David A. Armstrong once again lights the movie in toxic waste green and Walmart-at-2 A.M. florescent beige. An additional touch of shit stain brown is added to emphasize the extra groddiness of the slaughter house setting. Kevin Greutert throws in perhaps more flashy edits than last time, with lots of white flashes, close-ups on photos and text, and the expected rocket-sled paced montages of people freaking out. If there was an occasional goofy charm to it last time, this style has now worn out its welcome for me. 

Maybe the always-ugly visuals grate on the nerves this time because "Saw III" is, so far, the most mean-spirited and nihilistic entry in an already extra-grim franchise. A lot of this has to do with our apparent protagonists this time around, introduced twenty whole minutes into the story. Lynn Denton is in a deeply depressed funk, becoming numb to pain and any other feeling. Bahar Soomekh plays her as often half-asleep. As depressing as Lynn is to be around, Jeff is much worse. This is a man so frozen in grief, so consumed by revenge, that he confronts everything interaction with screaming anger or whispered scorn. Being depressed or bereaved can feel like that but it's hard to take "Saw III" as a serious mediation on grief. The film employs hoary clichés like the dead son riding a tricycle or happier flashbacks to better times. Angus Macfadyen's petulant, gassy performance as Jeff is an exaggerated take that leaves little room for sympathy. 

Being able to sympathize with Jeff, to feel his tormented state of mind, would have helped the sequel a lot. Jigsaw's tests place Jeff into the role of observer, forced to sit back and watch the people he blames for his son's death as they suffer through elaborate tortures. He debates and angsts about what he should do before, always too late, deciding to help. What this means is that "Saw III" sticks us with an utterly ineffectual protagonist who is miserable to be around. The movie has nothing to say about overcoming grief or depression because Jeff doesn't do any growing or healing. Jigsaw's trial reduces him to either a dispassionate watcher or a hapless rescuer, forcing his hand or causing him to embrace his worst tendencies. You are left wondering what Jigsaw is trying to prove with these trial. I thought his whole modus operandi was forcing people to stop wasting their lives by making them fight for survival? How does making Jeff either embrace his need for vengeance or activate his basic human empathy achieve any of that? Moreover, why does Amanda drag Lynn in to perform surgery on John Kramer, when we already know that his condition is critical? She's giving him a few extra hours of life at most. 

The answer to many of the questions that "Saw III's" half-assed narrative presents are easy to find. The script is nothing more than a sketchy justification for more deadly games, to place more shrieking meat bags into industrial torture devices that rip them apart or force them to mutilate themselves. The violence in "Saw III" is notably wetter than in previous films. The opening trap involves Bousman's old buddy J. LaRose tearing metal rings from his body, his flesh stretching and blood spurting. The frantic montage that ensues during the second trial scene includes a lingering close-up on oozing intestines. Limbs are twisted around until bones burst though the skin and, in an especially vile touch, mulcified pig guts are used to drown someone. When someone does survive one of Jigsaw's traps, a random gun blast is introduced to kill them anyway. A female victim is left nude, adding an extra layer of uncomfortable sexualization to the violence that follows. And you can't introduce an explosive collar in the first act without the expectation that it will go off in the third. 

That's the sense all throughout "Saw III," that the movie wants us to anticipate the violent undoings. The question is never whether someone will survive but, rather, in what way will they die. So who gives a shit about what happens? The result is a horror film with an especially nihilistic tone, leading towards a hopeless ending filled with death and blood. How can we care about any of these people when they only exist to die in hideous ways? The sequel is so desperate to top previous installments, to be nastier and bloodier and meaner, that it devotes a lengthy scene to depicting chop-shop brain surgery in lingering close-ups. Critics often denigrate the horror genre by saying it's nothing but gruel tossed around on-screen to titillate a sadistic audience. "Saw III" embraces that label, rather than fighting it. 

Leigh Whannell still has the sole writing credit on "Saw III" and you kind of get the impression that he had to crank this one out in a hurry. The sequel's structure is weird, devoting its first several scenes to wrapping up lingering plot threads from previous films before moving ahead with the new story. I also suspect he was starting to run out of ideas, as part three seems preoccupied with revisiting scenes from the earlier films. (Not to mention the gory executions are largely taken from medieval history books.) Looking back does provide the sole compelling element of the film though. We see more of John Kramer and Amanda's relationship. How does a person end up becoming a devoted student of the man who nearly killed them? We still learn little about Amanda's past, other than her being a recovering addict and cutter, but it's clear that she's a person who never had any direction or emotional support in her life. Jigsaw is clearly a fanatic, too invested in creative ways to mutilate people, but he still gave Amanda a meaningful purpose. He cared about what she did with her life. 

Both Whannell and Bousman have referred to "Saw III" as a "twisted love story" about these two's "father and daughter relationship" but it reads a lot differently to me. Shawnee Smith's performance veers towards ugly histrionics, playing Amanda as still a desperate addict but now hooked on Jigsaw's validation, instead of junk. Tobin Bell, meanwhile, increasingly turns Jigsaw into a diluted monk of a religious order only he understands. This relationship is not one of a father and a daughter. It's of a cult leader and his most devoted disciple, of an obviously vulnerable person being manipulated by the man who has power over them. Considering Kramer is a dying man whose hobby involves a lot of construction and welding, he probably needed people to help him carry out his plan. Who better than a woman with nothing else to live for? Yes, I am implying that Jigsaw "groomed" Amanda into being his sidekick. If "Saw III" explored this dynamic more, it would actually be an interesting film. 

I've enjoyed plenty of sick movies. I've gone to bat for films that aren't much more than glorified effects reels. I defended "Terrifier 3" and "Cannibal Holocaust," both grosser movies than this one. I don't necessarily think fiction asking us to embrace our inner psychopaths and enjoy some violence is a bad thing. But you've got to temper it with something else. Commentary on the human condition or society or just some fucked-up jokes or a sense of momentum or wit. There's an ugliness to "Saw III's" approach, an insistence that none of this matters and that life is only suffering and sorrow, that I find distasteful. Moreover, it's boring. If everyone in the film is only there to die, there's no suspense. Only the efforts of Bell and Smith to add some substance to the only interesting pair of characters in the film raises this from an utterly miserable experience to a movie with something to offer. However, "Saw III" made 150 million dollars more than its budget at the box office, so I guess the sequel did honor Gregg Hoffman's legacy. [4/10]