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Saw IV

See what I see. Feel what I feel. Save as I save.
Starring: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Lyriq Bent, Donnie Wahlberg, Betsy Russell
Rating: 7/10
Directed By: Darren Lynn Bousman
Runtime: 95 minutes

The creative team behind the Saw franchise must be doing something right, because lady lascivious STILL refuses to watch them with me. Don't ask me why, something about "too much gore" (as if that were even possible!) and "far too horrific" (ain't that the point?). Oh well, all the reasons she won't watch it are the reasons I wanna see it. It's called torture-porn for a reason, after all.

I'm happy to report that if an hour and a half of torture-porn sounds like a good time for you, then Saw IV is where you want to be. To be honest, it may be the weakest in the franchise to date, but with the first three outings being as good as they were, that's not necessarily an indictment of this film. Let's be serious, what do you go to a movie like Saw IV expecting? First and foremost, some really good kills, and you get those in spades. I went to see Saw IV for 95 minutes of creepy bloody escapism, and that's just what I got. The plot may be a little stretched and hard to follow, but in my mind, it's still better than 90% of what the horror genre has offered us in the last 30 years. The Saw franchise has been built on complex plotting and a somewhat twisted moral center that demands the victims face their moral flaws, confronting their failures to cherish their own lives. I can still remember the moment when I realized the franchise was aiming higher than it's peers . . . in the original film, when Amanda (the wonderful Shawnee Smith) is being interrogated by the police after her "rescue" (oh, what a glorious kill that would have been!), and she exclaims "He HELPED me!" . . . I knew then that these guys were going for something a little deeper.

Some have said the traps and devices aren't as creative as in Saw II or III, but let's not forget the creepiest part of the original Saw involved a guy taking his foot off with a hacksaw . . gruesome, horrific, sometimes the simple things are the best. I found several of the kills in this one disturbing, especially the one involving a guy pushing his face into a set of spring loaded knives, and the voyeur torture was rather creative. The movie actually opened with one of the creepiest scenes of all, though . . . Jigsaw has died, and we get to view the autopsy in all of its gory gory glory. And our first game was rather creative, involving two victims chained to each other, one with his eyes sown shut so he can't see what's going on, one with his mouth sown shut so he can't tell the other guy what's going on. Throw in some random weapons and a device that pulls them towards each other, and you know you're in Jigsaw country!

Once again, the best part of the movie was Tobin Bell's performance as Jigsaw, one of the creepiest, most compelling villains to grace the horror screen. That's right, even though he's dead, Jigsaw still steals the movie. All of the "games" that are played in the current film were set up prior to his death, so of course we get to hear several introduction tapes, including one that's found in . . . a place I refuse to divulge. We also see quite a bit of Bell in flashback, as we are treated to Jigsaw's "how I became a serial killer" back story.

So lighten up and enjoy Saw IV for what it was intended to be. At the end of the day, it delivered exactly what I wanted. No, it's not as good as the previous films . . . but still lives up to the Saw legacy, and that's a good thing.

if you missed it, the "red band" trailer featuring the Jigsaw autopsy is available in the Rants section.