Riot’s Reviews: Saw X
Blood, guts, terrifying traps, incredible twists and ultimately…life lessons? As far as horror movies go, the Saw Franchise has certainly made its mark on the genre. It’s very common to hear from people that they’ve seen a number of the initial entries but that they eventually lost interest. Having seen a majority of the films (I skipped Saw VI, Jigsaw, and Spiral) I felt like I was educated enough in the Saw world to see its most recent iteration. Coupled with the fact that the general online opinion was shockingly positive for Saw X, I felt like it was one I couldn’t miss. I’d come to believe that a few of the previous entries deviated too far away from the unique storytelling and shocking twists that made the original Saw such a hit. They chose to lean a little too hard into the gore, sacrificing acting quality and relegating themselves to the “snuff film” category. Could Saw X get back to the elements that made the franchise great and still find new ways to make audiences squirm in their seats?
As it turns out, is absolutely did, but not in the way I was expecting. I’d read a number of opinions online that spoke about Tobin Bell’s performance specifically. Considering the entire franchise is centered around Bell as the Jigsaw killer, John Kramer, he isn’t featured in the previous films as much as you’d think. Saw X seeks to remedy this, prominently featuring Bell throughout the entire film and allowing him to really flex his acting chops. What’s particularly fascinating about this is that the character himself isn’t necessarily given any more depth than the previous films laid out. At the end of the day though, you don’t need to learn anything more about Kramer when the plot is so absorbing. His motivations are exactly the same and his methods are just as deadly. Sure, it’s morally questionable whether or not audiences should be rooting for a murderer (spoiler alert, we shouldn’t), but the events of the story dictate in this case that we will. Also, because it’s a prequel, Saw X brings back familiar faces in Kramer’s assistants Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) and Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) who provide ample amount of nostalgia for fans of the series.
Now anyone that’s watched the Saw films is wondering, “how were the traps?” In this, I would say it was a bit of a mixed bag. They were innovative as usual, but fluctuated pretty broadly from clever/interesting to that “snuff film” category type. Kramer’s method and motivations for why he designs each trap for each subject is sacrificed a little more than I would like, but it still makes sense within the context of the plot. This set of “victims” aren’t really meant to learn all that much. The severity/difficulty of each trap is also inconsistent, which inevitably makes things a little predictable in terms of survivability. What I can say for certain (perhaps this is simply my age showing) is that this was the first Saw movie that actually made me nauseated whilst watching a trap unfold, but that’s about all I can reveal on that front. Viewer beware.
When it comes to negatives, the elements I came up with feel a little nitpicky to be honest. There were some character and dialog choices made for Synnove Macody Lund specifically that came off as forced and poorly performed at the climax of the story, but for the majority of events she was actually pretty great. The pacing for the first half of the film is slower than I would have liked but the details are necessary to the plot. The creators interjected an imaginary trap/game to try to keep things popping, but there certainly is a breaking point where the audiences might be checking their watches. Finally, having the plot be a prequel also makes Tobin Bell’s advanced age obvious but that critique is undercut by the fact that he actually looks frail, like an older patient with advanced brain cancer might. There are minor plot holes that will very briefly take you out of the film, but by the end everything ends up making a sort of weird, twisted sense.
Riot’s Rating: 8.5/10: I’m not going to pretend that Saw X was some paragon of horror or cinema, but I will certainly take the deviation towards higher quality for a series that had lost its way. Also, don’t feel like you need to watch all the previous films if you want to see this one as a casual understanding will likely be enough.
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