Jiggy's Horror Corner

Directed by David Hackl [Other horror films: Into the Grizzly Maze (2015)]

Ever since I first saw Saw V, I thought it was noticeably lacking. It’s not a bad movie, but you can very much tell it’s a part of a bigger picture, more so than with any of the previous films. Certainly the gore is okay here, and you could probably watch this stand-alone if you don’t mind being confused, but I do think of the first five movies, it’s the weakest.

I should also say that while I strive to not spoil anything in my reviews, I do have to touch on some major spoilers for the fourth movie, and so I state here: if you’ve not seen the fourth movie, then this review may not be for you.

We find out, at the end of Saw IV, that Detective Mark Hoffman is an accomplice of John’s. Much like how Saw III fleshed out Amanda and John’s working relationship through flashbacks, we’re shown in this film how Hoffman came to be one of John’s underlings. We also follow Hoffman present day, as he finds himself in a dilemma.

For those of you who have seen Saw IV, you know that the finale of that film and the finale of Saw III take place during the same time period and at the same location. Many important figures are there, among them Hoffman, FBI Agent Peter Strahm, John himself, Amanda, SWAT guy Rigg, Detective Eric Matthews, Lynn, and Jeff. It’s a crowded time, brahs. The point is, though, that of all the people there, Hoffman was supposed to be the only one to survive (well, technically, John could have survived, but trusting Amanda to not kill Lynn and set off Jeff to not kill John is madness, brahs).

Hoffman wasn’t the only survivor (and to be clear, I’m discounting Jeff and Lynn’s daughter) – Agent Strahm managed to survive. And following events that shortly follow, he becomes deeply suspicious of Hoffman’s actions. Apparently Hoffman has been involved in the Jigsaw case from the beginning (we, as an audience, don’t see this – Hoffman only pops up in a brief scene in Saw III, and we never hear people like Detective Tapp or Kerry mention him beforehand), and being the last of a dying breed, Hoffman could get away clean.

Much of the film is a game of cat-and-mouse. Strahm all but tells Hoffman that he’s suspicious of him, and because of that, Hoffman tries to cover his tracks and frame Strahm for the crimes he’s committed, all while trying to focus on another game that John had set up before his untimely demise.

The thing with the Saw films is that I can’t review them in my typical way. It’s impossible. There’s too many plot and story elements that need to be delved into, and so, despite the fact I rarely dive into the plots of film as much as I have in the paragraphs above, I don’t really see a choice, because for movies like this, you need that information for the whole picture.

One thing I did want to note – I’m delighted that we saw both a picture of Detective Tapp and Sing (both from the first movie). The first Saw sometimes feels so disconnected from the ones that follow, so it warmed my heart to see Sing and Tapps’ faces. Obviously, we’d seen references to Lawrence Gordon in the previous films, and this movie does show more detail regarding the events of the first three movies vis-à-vis Hoffman’s involvement, but it’s great to see the classics representin’.

I guess a lot of this can be boiled down to the fact that much of this film feels like set-up for future films, not to mention it can feel like filler. There’s traps in the film, and people fighting for their survival, but I’m far more interested in what happens to the main characters than I am the random people we see in traps here.

And honestly, the traps aren’t great. Part of it does work thematically, and the final test for the group, which deals with a saw and a toll of blood, is pretty solid, and rather gruesome to boot. The compressing finale was beast also. The rest, however – well, the pendulum at the beginning was okay, but it’s impact is lessened by the nature of whom built it. Otherwise, we don’t have many interesting pieces of gore here – far more of the film is focusing on filling in backstory and the cat-and-mouse aspects than it is the traps.

To be fair, it probably had to come to a point where the movies took more a focus on the increasingly complex story they’re trying to tie together. In the beginning, it wasn’t that bad – there was a guy named John who wanted to play games. But now, John has friends like Amanda and Mark over, and even John’s plans have plans.

Scott Patterson made a decent focus, though I wish his character would have approached some of these things differently. It’s nice to see Costas Mandylor’s character fleshed out. Tobin Bell, as always, is a pleasure to see. Less plot-relevant individuals I rather enjoyed include Carlo Rota, Julie Benz (Locusts: The 8th Plague, Satan’s School for Girls, Havenhurst), and Greg Bryk (Bloodthirsty, Living Death).

Oh, and I wanted to give props to John for another favorite quote of mine: “Killing is distasteful… to me.” In fact, John’s arguments with Hoffman over the philosophy of rehabilitation was all kinds of fun, so though I do think this is the weakest film of the first five, don’t let that deter you from giving it a go.

Certainly Saw V does move the overall story along, and though I think it could have used some work, it’s not a bad movie at all. Compared to the others, though, it does feel decidedly average to me.

7/10

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

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman [Other horror films: Saw II (2005), Saw IV (2007), 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)]

Much like the second film in this franchise, Saw III takes a look back, filling in some information relevant to the events of the first film. I don’t think this one is quite as good as the second, but it’s still a solid film, and one that I’ve always enjoyed.

I think part of not caring about it quite as much is the increased focus on Amanda (Shawnee Smith), which does make sense, given that John’s (Tobin Bell) cancer is so bad that he’s practically bed-ridden. Personally, though, Amanda seems almost like Harley Quinn at times – she’s not quite as insane, but boys, she ain’t stable, neither. I get that John doesn’t have a plethora of options (or does he?????), but a man of his patient nature having to work with someone like Amanda saddens me.

Still, the movie and it’s two-pronged focus is fun. On the first prong, you have Amanda abducting a doctor, Lynn (Bahar Soomekh). in order to keep John alive and comfortable, as his health is failing. Meanwhile, you have a random man, Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), who is grieving (poorly) over the loss of his son, forced to go through Jiggy’s traps and face his insatiable thirst for revenge.

It’s a fun plot, and especially once all the pieces are placed together, and you see the whole picture, it becomes even funner. I also appreciate the route they take for the twists – many are simply ways to interpret sentences. John’s time with Lynn and Amanda have plenty of clues to the finale, as do the careful messages that John leaves for Jeff. It’s nothing as bombastic as the twist to the first movie (and honestly, what really could be?), but it’s fun, and the finale here can be quite shocking with your first viewing.

Tobin Bell did great in the second film, and I think he does a stellar job here too, despite the fact (or perhaps because of) his character’s entirely bed-bound. He has a lot of emotion to display, and he does a great job with it, despite his character’s failing health. His anger at doctors (prompting a reference to Lawrence Gordon), and his forceful “Look at me!,” is genuinely delightful.

When it comes to emotional performances, though, Bell’s not alone. By far, this is Shawnee Smith’s best performance in a Saw film. Her character goes through the emotional wringer, and though she’s cuckoo for cocoa puffs, or, as the kids are saying nowadays, cray-cray, you can’t help but feel a little bad for her. True, Bahar Soomekh doesn’t have quite as much emotional material to work with, but playing a grief-stricken father, Angus Macfadyen (She Rises) was the bee’s knees.

We do get some more returning faces here too – both Dina Meyer and Lyriq Bent appear, shaken over the fallout from Saw II, but neither are focused on much (and you have to wait until Saw IV to really see more of Bent). Costas Mandylor, who later becomes quite an important character in the franchise, appears here briefly, but doesn’t do much. We do see, in the opening, some more Donnie Wahlberg, which was nice (albeit painful – those foot scenes, tho).

Also, we get images of a woman that John sees while going toward the light – we don’t know who this woman is to John, but it leads into more exploration of his backstory in future movies. On a side-note, it’s interesting to see what’s revealed when in these films. I’ve seen the first seven Saw movies (still have not seen Jigsaw or Spiral, not to mention Saw X), but it’s been a while for some of them, and seeing when certain connections and revelations are brought to light is interesting. For example, I expected to see John eat that tape he was covering in wax at some point, as I remember that scene so clearly, but I suspect that’s perhaps shown in a future film.

As far as the traps go, well, I can say that the worst would likely be the twisty boi, or the Rack, a personal favorite of John’s. It’s all the worse because the guy in the trap can’t do anything to escape – his fate is entirely in another’s hands. However, personally, I wouldn’t want to drown in liquified rotten pig entrails, and that sequence has always been the toughest for me. That opening with the chains looked hella unfun, and that ribcage trap struck me as unfair.

Oh, and perhaps the magnum opus of the film is the surgery sequence. See, John has cancer, and in it’s advanced stages, his brain is compressing against his skull. To give John some relief, Lynn first cuts John’s scalp open, cleans off his skull, and using both power drills and a bonesaw, cuts a portion of his skull off. This is all shown in pretty good detail, and though it doesn’t sicken me near as much as those awful pig carcasses, it was very well done.

I also appreciated the flashbacks to the events of the first films. Well, technically predating the events of the first film, but it comes to the same. We see the bathroom that Lawrence and Adam are trapped in being set up, and I just love seeing more of that classic time. As someone who really enjoys the story in these films, even when it ends up somewhat complicated, I love the use of flashbacks to flesh things out, and this one does that well.

Lastly, kudos for John’s apology to Lynn regarding Amanda’s aggressive behavior, which goes, “I apologize for her behavior. She swims in my sea.” I forgot how poetic John could be, and I dug that.

Saw III does have a cleaner focus than the second movie did, and unlike the second film, does a decent job giving most of the focal characters some depth, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s quite as strong as the second. To be certain, I don’t think it’s much weaker – both are probably deserving of the same rating, which will be reflected in, well, my rating – but if I had to say which one edges out a victory, I’d lean toward the second. Still, this is a solid entry, and that finale was hella fun brahs.

8/10

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman [Other horror films: Saw III (2006), Saw IV (2007), 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)]

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I enjoy Saw II – I didn’t take the moniker ‘Jigsaw’ for no reason – and watching it again for the first time in at least six years, I can say it’s definitely a fun movie to revisit.

Given I’ve seen it as many as six times, there’s no longer any shocks to be found in the multiple little twists, but that doesn’t make the story any less enjoyable. In fact, seeing the set-up and playful dialogue for these twists may even add a little something, and I can say that I had a blast with this one.

This wasn’t always the case. When I first saw the movie, I didn’t love it. I suspect it’s because I was such an admirer of the first movie, and its more limited scope (focused on only three characters, really), and then this one throws us in a house with a bunch of characters, few of whom really get depth to them. It’s just a bit jarring.

It’s also true that, save a reference or two, the events of the first film aren’t really brought up here. Sure, we saw the flashback with Lawrence Gordon’s name, and naturally, the bathroom from the first movie takes prominence in the finale of this one, but the fact that, for instance, Detectives Tapp and Sing aren’t mentioned at all, even though Detective Kerry (Dina Meyer) appears here, seems odd.

However, I’ve grown to really appreciate this one. I can’t say I enjoy it as much as I do the first movie, but I do love the story here. You combine that with the performances and the gore, and you have a pretty good time.

Donnie Wahlberg (Dead Silence) does beautifully as an aggressive cop who is the perfect picture of police brutality. Shawnee Smith (The Stand, The Blob, I Saw What You Did) returns, and is much more involved here than she was in the first film. Related, Dina Meyer (Starship Troopers, Bats, Crazy Eights) pops up here too, though she doesn’t bring quite as much plot relevance as some may hope. Oh, and Lyriq Bent’s (Acrimony) here also as an aggressive SWAT guy – he doesn’t really do or add a lot, but he becomes important later…

As for many of the people trapped in the house – well, only a handful really get their characters explored. Honestly, Erik Knudsen (Darker Than Night, Stickman) had the most depth, and even he didn’t have a ton. Otherwise, Timothy Burd (The Hexecutioners) was interesting, lurking about but never doing much, Glenn Plummer (Teeth and Blood, The Day After Tomorrow, VooDoo Curse: The Giddeh) seemed to have potential, and Franky G was fine as a generic, aggressive asshole, but others, such as Emmanuelle Vaugier (The Fear: Resurrection, House of the Dead 2) and Beverley Mitchell (Toxin, The Lost Episode) didn’t really make a deep impression.

Of course, Tobin Bell always makes an impression (well, nearly always – he didn’t do a ton to help The Sandman, not that many could have), and he was great here as well. He had some solid dialogue, and we even delved a bit into John Kramer’s past, which I appreciated. As the sequels go on, we delve more and more into his past, along with the backstories of others, and it’s done well here.

As for the best trap, well, I have to admit I’ve always found the syringe pit absolutely horrifying. That scene pisses me off anyway, as it wasn’t meant for Amanda, but that’s beside the point. That pit looked awful (and that whole room striking, given the significantly different color tones), and I wouldn’t care for a dip in it. Otherwise, that furnace looked hella hot, and that safe place that John mentioned was, as the kids say, #trolly.

I also think a special mention can go to that razorblade box – such a simple solution, but a drug-addled mind leads to an unnecessarily gruesome death, so kudos there.

There’s a lot to like in Saw II, and though I may not have appreciated everything with the first viewing, all of the subsequent ones have been of quality. It’s a solid movie, and though it’s different than the first one in some ways, Saw II is a great sequel, too.

8/10