Saw IV (2007)

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman [Other horror films: Saw II (2005), Saw III (2006), Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), Mother’s Day (2010), 11-11-11 (2011), The Devil’s Carnival (2012), The Barrens (2012), Angelus (2014), Tales of Halloween (2015, segment ‘The Night Billy Raised Hell’), Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival (2016), Abattoir (2016), St. Agatha (2018), Death of Me (2020), Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021), Cello (2023)]

I think that Saw IV is the first Saw movie which really isn’t up to par. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s an above-average film, but both the second and third are better, and naturally, the first is God. Saw IV is still a fun and twisty time, filling in more backstory on John’s character, but it’s not exactly stellar.

Certainly the idea of focusing on Rigg (Lyriq Bent), the SWAT guy who’s appeared in the last two movies, and looking at the aftermath of the second film (much like aspects of the third movie did) was a fun one. It’s also tragic, in that it brought back Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), who looks like he’s been through Hell following the opening of Saw III. It’s not a bad plot, but the twists here, or at least some of them, have a been-there, done-that feel to them.

In fact, this movie can feel at times like Saw II, which isn’t a bad thing, but while the endings of both the first and second Saw films stunned me, I don’t think the finale of this one has quite the same impact. I don’t mean to say that the ending here isn’t surprising, it’s just that it has more a familiar quality to it, in some aspects.

I’m not someone who spoils movies in my reviews – I try to make them as inclusive as possible, save a few exceptions (A Nightmare on Elm Street); I’ll carry on that trend here, and avoid discussing the finale in detail. What I can say is, though, that one of the twists is really quite good (despite feeling somewhat similar), and puts the film into a whole new perspective. In fact, I saw this one in theaters, and I distinctly remember, waiting in line to see the movie, that the audience in theaters before us came out confused by what they’d seen, and I can understand that. The movie plays with the audience a bit, as a good Saw movie should, and that should only be expected.

The third movie hinted at more backstory from John, and this movie filled us in quite a bit. We learn of a miscarriage suffered by his wife; we learn, in fact, that he had a wife. He wasn’t all flowers and roses before both the cancer diagnosis and the loss of his child, but one could assume he was happier, and after that was stripped away, his life philosophy changed drastically.

We learn a lot of this from Jill (Betsy Russell), who we see briefly in the third movie, as she’s being interrogated. She goes into a lot of John’s history, and we in fact see his first trap, aimed at the man who caused the miscarriage of his wife’s child. We also learn that aside from those we already know, John may have another accomplice in the wings.

Two FBI agents – Agents Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis) – come to assist the police in the capture of those responsible for these ongoing crimes. By this point, with Matthews missing for some time, and Kerry being out of the picture following the events of the previous film, Officer Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), who first appeared briefly in Saw III, is the last one standing. I appreciate how this film throws more characters into the mix, and though sometimes it takes a while to flesh them out, you can usually trust the series to do so.

Lyriq Bent was one of the focuses here, but I don’t think that quite makes him the star. A lot of focus is given on Scott Patterson also, as he tries to unravel John’s past via Betsy Russell’s character. Russell (Camp Fear, Mandrake, Cheerleader Camp) had some good scenes, but being in an interrogation room for most of them sort of limits what she can bring to the table. I wish we got a little more Athena Karkanis, and thinking of Donnie Wahlberg hurts too much.

Tobin Bell doesn’t get quite as much material here as he did in previous films, but it’s great getting a look into what makes his character tick. We get to learn a bit about Costas Mandylor’s character too – certainly more than we did from his brief appearance in the third film, anyways – and others, like Louis Ferreira (Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, The Marsh), all played their roles.

I don’t know if most of the traps here are quite up to par. Toward the beginning, we get a trap that involves two people – one has their mouth sewn shut, the other has their eyes sewn shut – and no tape player to be seen. They just gain consciousness,and without any explanation given, must find a way out of the predicament they find themselves in. It looked cool – I’m not sure where it was filmed, but kudos to the scouting agency – but it also felt somewhat thin.

In fact, many of the traps are dependent on multiple peoples’ participation. This isn’t new – in the first film, Zep’s game was explicitly tied to that of Gordon’s, and the whole point of many of the traps in the third film was to force Jeff’s character to risk his own pain to save others. Still, at some point, I feel like all of this micromanaging may be a bit much, even for someone like John.

The spike trap was decent, in which man and wife were bound together by some painful spikes. The trap toward the end, which involved multiple characters we know, was fun too, and those ice blocks hurt me in ways people aren’t meant to be hurt. Overall, though, the gore here didn’t seem too gnarly, the best example perhaps being the face-blade trap (Cecil’s “I don’t have a fucking soul” is a classic quote). Well, save the opening, that is.

See, this film opens on a scene of an autopsy, and it goes into grisly detail about what goes down in the final surgery of one’s bodily existence. Sure, the body looks a bit rubbery at times, but seeing the skull removed, the brain placed in a pan, the rib cage spread open, the stomach cut into – no one can say that this movie didn’t open with a bang. It might be fair to say that somewhere along the way, the movie lost that bang, but the finale still had elements of fun to it.

I’ve never disliked Saw IV, but I’ve never thought it represented the best of the series. It’s a perfectly solid follow-up, and I enjoyed how they delved more into John’s character, but at least of the first four films, I do think it’s among the weakest, while still holding on to a perfectly respectable score.

7.5/10