For a franchise that’s spanned two decades, ten instalments and several peaks and troughs, it’s refreshing to find the latest entry, Saw X, a surprising highlight.
Set between the first and second films, Saw X reunites us with John Kramer (Tobin Bell), the sick, quiet, maniacal, death-trap constructor who is offered a new kind of experimental cancer treatment. The procedure goes wrong so Kramer sets out to build traps, right wrongs and seek revenge on those who failed him. To reveal more than that would ruin it a little but Saw X does much more than expected.
Once antagonist Kramer is twisted into an antihero, similar to what they did with Stephen Lang’s Blind Man in Don’t Breathe 2. Heightening his plight after being woefully wronged, to help viewers empathise and see his acts as he does: “helping people overcome their inner obstacles to make more positive changes in their lives” by digging out bits of their brains and skull.
Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger’s script is bolstered by character depth/growth, plot development, comedy (“we have a rope”), twists, potent drama between gnarly death scenes and a little less slaughter than we’re used to, despite wavering a little in the final third, while Kramer’s contraptions are crude and rudimentary, as we find him in earlier, living years, not operating dead behind the guise of his mechanical puppet.
The writers and director Kevin Greutert focus more on pivotal areas to make Saw X a character driven, despair-laden affair: a reflective follow-up the franchise needed to crawl from the doldrums of derivative spin-off/predecessor, Spiral.
Latter half contrivances do stunt its growth when the story shifts focus to flat supporting characters and crude death/torture traps, reinforcing the notion there’s something sketchy about backing a character who forces people to mutilate themselves (an ingenious Saw franchise facet is that Jigsaw never kills). This was exacerbated further by being part of a novelty cocktail warped audience of influencers/critics gleefully goading on the gore/torture scenes like bullfight spectators.
Morals aside and with brain on auto-pilot there’s much fun to be had and a lot done right in this Saw prequel/sequel that’s more engaging, funny and insanely entertaining than it had any right to be.
