saw x

From 2004 through 2010, horror fans were literally greeted each October with a new Saw entry - as steadfast a harbinger as the leaves changing color or the start of football season when it came to the transition from summer to fall. In a strange way, given the gruesome subject matter, the series became almost like comfort food - reliable, rib-sticking torture porn. Even as the sequels increasingly devolved into a mess of grisly traps and overwrought mythology cluttered with ancillary characters no one particularly cared about, the appetite for these films seemed insatiable. It honestly felt like we’d get another dozen more.

Of course, the box office returns eventually began to taper off and Lionsgate elected to pull the handbrake after part VII (the obligatory 3D entry). In recent years, the studio has fitfully attempted to reignite the franchise with 2017’s Jigsaw and 2021’s Chris Rock-led spin-off Spiral, without much fanfare. Saw X, on the other hand, may be the tenth installment of the series, but it actually serves as a follow-up to the original… falling somewhere before the events of part II on the Saw spectrum, which allows for the much-needed return of fan favorites John Kramer (Tobin Bell) and his protege Amanda (Shawnee Smith). In retrospect, one could argue the decision to kill off Jigsaw at the end of part III was a miscalculation that the series has been paying for ever since… though the void likely would have been mitigated had the producers simply committed to Amanda instead. Smith always had a twitchy ferocity in the role… like a junkie who’d been raised by wolves. Her long-term potential was largely untapped; there’s little question she could have shouldered the franchise.    

At any rate, Saw X begins with another marvelously twisted contraption, as its would-be victim is forced to willingly allow his fingers to be splintered one-by-one, lest the vacuum tubes attached to his face suck out his eyeballs like pickled eggs. From there, however, the film shifts into uncharted emotional territory as Kramer seeks a miracle cure for his terminal brain cancer at a clinic outside Mexico City… only to discover he’s the victim of an elaborate con. The perpetrators - led by the poshly statuesque Norwegian Cecilia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund) - are systematically rounded up and placed in a warehouse-of-horrors to be “tested”… but this time the proceedings are charged with a raw and righteous fury we haven’t really seen before. It’s the rare instance in which we feel an emotional stake in the victims’ transgressions… in the graphic mutilations that ensue. 

Not all Saw fans will be onboard with the film’s surprisingly slow build in the first half… but it does afford Bell - whose Jigsaw tended to be more concept than character - a rare opportunity to explore Kramer’s more vulnerable, flesh-and-blood dimensions. The script brushes up against all sorts of juicy character potential… such as this earlier iteration of Amanda still wavering ever-so-slightly in her commitment, terrified of inheriting Kramer’s mantle, and experiencing a guilty spark of kinship with the troubled Gabriela (Renata Vaca), who - like her - has seen her life crippled by drug addiction. But it proves difficult to fully extract the marrow (to reference one of the film’s more fiendish traps, one involving a Gigli saw). It’s hard to explore such concerns with any appreciable depth (or breathing room) when people are busy fishing chunks of grey matter from their frontal lobes while strapped to a chair.​

Saw X nonetheless - more so, arguably, then any entry since part III - feels like a considered story, rather than a mechanical exercise in the grime-and-rust aesthetics of grunge torment. Still, the underlying emotional ethics are a bit tricky to parse. Celia, with her sculpted Scandinavian features and haughty smugness, is a prize antagonist… we’re practically slavering over the prospect of her receiving a richly deserved comeuppance by the end. But her accomplices - largely undeveloped as characters - are a different matter. Jigsaw, per his standard modus operandi, isn’t about retribution, but rather “teachable moments.” But are we rooting for them to be redeemed… or simply to suffer? It’s not entirely clear (neither is the question of whether we’re simply abandoning any remaining pretense of moral nebulousness and simply embracing Kramer as a lovable antihero). However, none of it really matters once the climactic reckoning is at hand and Charlie Clouser’s iconic “Hello Zepp” theme initiates like clockwork… a moment which blew the roof clean off the theater. It’s easy to be jaded, but experiences like that are still genuinely exciting. To the uninitiated, Saw X may seem like a bald-faced attempt to wring the last few remaining bucks from a depleted franchise… but it feels more like a second wind. I’m ready for a dozen more.