The Saw movies are great for what they are; a grimy, very ’00s answer to splatter fare with buckets of goo, goofy traps and soap-opera level drama. But if there’s one consistent missing link, it’s the franchise’s complete inability to cast a compelling villain following Tobin Bell’s unceremonious end. Something many of the series’ “torture porn” descendants also failed to master. But which director DW Medoff and his team very happily upend, with their own (forgivably) shameless Saw clone, Your Host.
Fronting none other than Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen’s Rorschach, the terrible Elm Street remake’s very not-terrible Freddy Krueger), as the movie’s central torture artiste, Medoff’s film is almost immediately more charismatic and exciting than a lot of what occupied the genre before it (not least Saws 4 through 9).
A mostly single-location movie about a psychotic quiz show host, lopping off chunks of his contestants/captives, there’s oddly whispers of Scorsese’s The King of Comedy in here too. Unlocking more humour, more playfulness, and much more tragedy, from not just the oddly delivered emotional nuance of Haley’s Pupkin stand-in, but Ella-Rae Smith’s spiky lead Anita (a rare ‘final girl’ type that’s given the space to be just as problematic as the bad guy).
That’s not to say that Your Host is some sort of multi-layered drama though. Anything extra that Joey Miller’s script and Haley and Smith’s performances bring to the common formula, isn’t exactly enough to totally unpick it from the legacy of the franchise it’s very clearly cribbing from. This is still gory hedonism through and through, and those looking for an unaffiliated Saw follow-up, with a lot of the same fun and games, will 100% find what they’re looking for. Even if the obviously tighter indie budget has to be put to very clever use.
But considering what Medoff and his team are trying to do here; echoing that old adage of ‘give them the same thing, but different’, Your Host really does nail the execution. Hyper-focussing on the most impactful parts of the Saw structure – the killer, the traps, the twists (there’s even the predictably wonky flashback, that reframes Haley’s host as something of a misguided antihero) – and giving each of them that little bit more depth and detail.
The traps (or games, as they’re presented here) get perhaps the least impressive upgrade. Smaller and less imaginative overall, but (thanks to some early characterisation) they are largely more impactful in the way they play out. Medoff is clearly less interested in the gory spectacle than he is the emotional effect, and that pretty much sums Your Host up overall.
Maybe not quite as nasty or preposterous, but far more layered and exciting in the way it approaches its characters. Haley’s clearly having a ball, not only chewing the scenery as a maniacal Jigsaw-type, but taking that very same oddball to a surprisingly dark and emotionally disturbing place. It’s not exactly original, but sits as a very entertaining stab at “torture porn” lore.
Your Host screened as part of FrightFest 2025.
