Saw X
Year: 2023
Directed by: Kevin Greutert
Starring: Tobin Bell, Stephen Brand, Synnove Macody Lund, Shawnee Smith & Renata Vaca
Runtime: 118 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 02/10/23
Directed by: Kevin Greutert
Starring: Tobin Bell, Stephen Brand, Synnove Macody Lund, Shawnee Smith & Renata Vaca
Runtime: 118 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 02/10/23
Since the mainline Saw films ended in 2011 with the seventh entry, ‘The Final Chapter’, the franchise has been in a state of limbo. Two spin-off sequels, 2017’s Jigsaw, and 2021’s Spiral, underperformed critically and financially (though both fared better than The Final Chapter, and I’m an avid defender of Spiral). It seemed like Lionsgate didn’t know what to do with the franchise anymore, but when a tenth entry was officially announced late last year, it came as a surprise to all that Saw X would be a prequel and see the return of John ‘Jigsaw’ Kramer as a living antagonist for the first time since 2006’s Saw III.
But nineteen years is a long time to leave a prequel, especially when bringing back the same actors. Does Saw X recapture the magic of the original films, or is it another floundering failure for the once beloved horror juggernaut?
Set between the events of Saw and Saw II, John Kramer (Tobin Bell) discovers a miracle treatment for his terminal brain cancer. Travelling to Mexico to undergo the surgery, John soon finds that he has fallen victim to an elaborate scam that has ruined dozens of lives.
Calling in the assistance of his apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith), John creates a new Jigsaw game to teach these scammers the value of life, hope, and faith in humanity.
But nineteen years is a long time to leave a prequel, especially when bringing back the same actors. Does Saw X recapture the magic of the original films, or is it another floundering failure for the once beloved horror juggernaut?
Set between the events of Saw and Saw II, John Kramer (Tobin Bell) discovers a miracle treatment for his terminal brain cancer. Travelling to Mexico to undergo the surgery, John soon finds that he has fallen victim to an elaborate scam that has ruined dozens of lives.
Calling in the assistance of his apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith), John creates a new Jigsaw game to teach these scammers the value of life, hope, and faith in humanity.
Saw X is a film I never thought I’d see. A Saw that refocuses its attention away from the gory elaborate traps popularised by Saw III, to deliver a genuinely great story about John Kramer.
He is a horror icon akin to the likes of Freddie Kruger and Michael Myers, and to do a film focused solely on him, and presenting his side of the story is a bold choice that pays off fantastically.
I did find it weird that the script is so adamant to affirm that this isn’t revenge, it’s not personal, but it really is. But that’s just one of many John Kramer logic holes that’s plagued the franchise ever since the first film. Remember guys, he’s not a murderer! (Yeah right).
But Saw X does a really good job of putting John in a position to be the hero of the story, it gets you on his side and you really get to see how his particular method of cruelty might be considered justified. A lot of the previous Saw films fell into the problem of the people being tortured weren’t really all that bad, and their punishments therefore seemed unjustly harsh. Here though, you’re made to feel that every single person John puts into the trap is worthy of being there because they’re nothing more than bottom feeders.
It does feel like the perfect bridge between Saw and Saw II, blending both of their styles of filmmaking into something that eases the transition from detective drama into full blown torture porn. It doesn’t do much for newcomers though and whilst that may sound silly because this is the tenth instalment in the franchise, this is now the second film canonically, and considering the first came out nineteen years ago and John Kramer is hardly in it, it would probably be quite weird going from Saw, to Saw X, then to Saw II and have X do basically no explanation as to who this man is or why he’s doing what he’s doing.
The first half of the film has almost no traps in it, the eye vacuum which you see on the poster is the opener to the film and it’s by far the one I found to be the most wince inducing, but I also hate eye stuff. From here it takes a very long time for any more blood to flow whilst we explore John as a character and his struggles fighting cancer. Then the main game comes into play for the second half of the film, and it never gets as gratuitously gory as even the third Saw film. I have to say I was a little disappointed by how few traps there were, and the comparatively low level of gore, but this wasn’t a dealbreaker. It’s just something I wish I knew going in. I did very much appreciate the return to practical effects though, following Jigsaw and Spiral where CGI was overused and unconvincing, it’s nice to see the real thing make a comeback because it looks so much better.
Kevin Greutert returns to the director seat, and that’s a pretty big deal because this guy was the editor for the first five Saw films, and then directed VI and The Final Chapter. So, he knows how to make a good-looking Saw film, and the fact that he’s also the editor for Saw X means that it really does feel like a return to classic saw. The film looks great, or as great as a film about torturing people in a dingy basement can look. The editing is frenetic, and the pacing is on point as it gradually ramps up throughout the entire film until the staple final twist that recontextualises the film. It feels like fan service through and through, but the right kind of fan service. It’s not just throwing a cameo from a beloved character in, or picking up the threads of the old story, but this feels like a film that was always meant to be there in the mainline canon.
He is a horror icon akin to the likes of Freddie Kruger and Michael Myers, and to do a film focused solely on him, and presenting his side of the story is a bold choice that pays off fantastically.
I did find it weird that the script is so adamant to affirm that this isn’t revenge, it’s not personal, but it really is. But that’s just one of many John Kramer logic holes that’s plagued the franchise ever since the first film. Remember guys, he’s not a murderer! (Yeah right).
But Saw X does a really good job of putting John in a position to be the hero of the story, it gets you on his side and you really get to see how his particular method of cruelty might be considered justified. A lot of the previous Saw films fell into the problem of the people being tortured weren’t really all that bad, and their punishments therefore seemed unjustly harsh. Here though, you’re made to feel that every single person John puts into the trap is worthy of being there because they’re nothing more than bottom feeders.
It does feel like the perfect bridge between Saw and Saw II, blending both of their styles of filmmaking into something that eases the transition from detective drama into full blown torture porn. It doesn’t do much for newcomers though and whilst that may sound silly because this is the tenth instalment in the franchise, this is now the second film canonically, and considering the first came out nineteen years ago and John Kramer is hardly in it, it would probably be quite weird going from Saw, to Saw X, then to Saw II and have X do basically no explanation as to who this man is or why he’s doing what he’s doing.
The first half of the film has almost no traps in it, the eye vacuum which you see on the poster is the opener to the film and it’s by far the one I found to be the most wince inducing, but I also hate eye stuff. From here it takes a very long time for any more blood to flow whilst we explore John as a character and his struggles fighting cancer. Then the main game comes into play for the second half of the film, and it never gets as gratuitously gory as even the third Saw film. I have to say I was a little disappointed by how few traps there were, and the comparatively low level of gore, but this wasn’t a dealbreaker. It’s just something I wish I knew going in. I did very much appreciate the return to practical effects though, following Jigsaw and Spiral where CGI was overused and unconvincing, it’s nice to see the real thing make a comeback because it looks so much better.
Kevin Greutert returns to the director seat, and that’s a pretty big deal because this guy was the editor for the first five Saw films, and then directed VI and The Final Chapter. So, he knows how to make a good-looking Saw film, and the fact that he’s also the editor for Saw X means that it really does feel like a return to classic saw. The film looks great, or as great as a film about torturing people in a dingy basement can look. The editing is frenetic, and the pacing is on point as it gradually ramps up throughout the entire film until the staple final twist that recontextualises the film. It feels like fan service through and through, but the right kind of fan service. It’s not just throwing a cameo from a beloved character in, or picking up the threads of the old story, but this feels like a film that was always meant to be there in the mainline canon.
However, there are two pretty big issues I have with the film, and they may just break the entire experience for me. The first one doesn’t spoil anything to do with the story, and it’s just the fact that Bell and Smith are reprising their roles as John and Amanda respectively, however they are both very visibly significantly older than they were in their final appearances of said characters. I had to do a bit of googling and Smith is in her mid-fifties now and she’s supposed to be playing a woman in her early-mid thirties, and it stands out like a sore thumb. With John/Bell it’s a little easier to pass it off because he’s made to look so sickly and frail in Saw II onwards that the fact that he’s now in his eighties just meant that they clearly didn’t have to do quite as much makeup work on him. As much as I wanted to look past it and enjoy the film, I just couldn’t help but look at them both and think how out of place it was to have these people pretending to be the same age they were in the 00’s, and it felt oddly like Grease where everyone’s just way too old to be at high school.
The second issue I have could be a bit spoilery, but I’ll keep it as vague as possible. John’s whole plan for the game going to plan hinges entirely on one very specific thing happening, and it’s something that could not be controlled. Had anything cause that one specific variable to not go exactly the way it did then the whole game would have been ruined. I don’t like to get hung up on these things because a lot of the Saw films rely on convenience to work, but the difference is that I normally don’t spot those things until I’ve watched it a couple of times, but here it was the first thing I thought about once the twist reveal happened. But yeah, if one particular person did not fail their test and got killed, and had their dead body not fallen exactly in the position it did, and had one other specific person not used said dead body as a tool, then the whole game would have been rendered unwinnable for everyone else. It’s just too many conveniences all at the same time and it sucked me right out of the experience.
The short of it is that if you like the Saw films then Saw X is going to be a winner for you. It’s a return to classic Saw, and the decision to focus on John Kramer as a human being and not a monster was a risky move that paid off immensely. However, I’m mildly disappointed by the low number of traps. Plus, I have two massive issues regarding the ages of Tobin Bell & Shawnee Smith in relation to their characters ages, and how the entire second half of the film hinges on a set of very specific things to happen that nobody could control in order for the game to even work. These two big issues potentially ruin the entire film for me, and I hate getting hung up on details like that but when it’s as glaring as this then it’s clearly an issue.
I think Saw X makes it clear that the worst thing the franchise ever did was kill John Kramer off, and whilst I’d like to see more Saw X style sequels come from the franchise, it would feel wrong to just keep artificially inflating the start of the mainline series just to keep him around.
The second issue I have could be a bit spoilery, but I’ll keep it as vague as possible. John’s whole plan for the game going to plan hinges entirely on one very specific thing happening, and it’s something that could not be controlled. Had anything cause that one specific variable to not go exactly the way it did then the whole game would have been ruined. I don’t like to get hung up on these things because a lot of the Saw films rely on convenience to work, but the difference is that I normally don’t spot those things until I’ve watched it a couple of times, but here it was the first thing I thought about once the twist reveal happened. But yeah, if one particular person did not fail their test and got killed, and had their dead body not fallen exactly in the position it did, and had one other specific person not used said dead body as a tool, then the whole game would have been rendered unwinnable for everyone else. It’s just too many conveniences all at the same time and it sucked me right out of the experience.
The short of it is that if you like the Saw films then Saw X is going to be a winner for you. It’s a return to classic Saw, and the decision to focus on John Kramer as a human being and not a monster was a risky move that paid off immensely. However, I’m mildly disappointed by the low number of traps. Plus, I have two massive issues regarding the ages of Tobin Bell & Shawnee Smith in relation to their characters ages, and how the entire second half of the film hinges on a set of very specific things to happen that nobody could control in order for the game to even work. These two big issues potentially ruin the entire film for me, and I hate getting hung up on details like that but when it’s as glaring as this then it’s clearly an issue.
I think Saw X makes it clear that the worst thing the franchise ever did was kill John Kramer off, and whilst I’d like to see more Saw X style sequels come from the franchise, it would feel wrong to just keep artificially inflating the start of the mainline series just to keep him around.