Saw X is bonkers, batshit, and fucking brilliant.
I’ve been a fan of the Saw franchise for the better part of my entire life at this point, and I doubt it would have been easy for director Kevin Greutert to make an entry into this canon I didn’t like. Even the bad movies of this series, I have a huge soft spot for, and honestly, it was something in line with that badness I was expecting when I strutted my way into the cinema over the weekend to see the tenth entry in the series.
But I have to come clean with you: I think Saw X might be the best movie to come out of the franchise since the first couple of entries into the canon, and I am so damn happy about that. It’s not the first time the tenth entry into a horror series has been the best one, but it’s still a genuine achievement to have pulled off something that’s not only really entertaining and in-line with the tone of the franchise as a whole, but actually brings something new to the table.
Because this outing centres on John Kramer himself (the inimitable Tobin Bell), as he faces his terminal cancer diagnosis and, desperate for more time, drops a fat stack of cash on a treatment that promises to work – only to find he’s been scammed, and take his revenge on the people who stole his time and money. When I first saw this premise, I was concerned it was just going to read as a mash-up of the sixth film’s medical plot and the seventh’s hoax storyline, but the approach here is so different and really rewarding.
A big part of this, I think, comes down to how bloody brilliant Tobin Bell is as an actor. We’ve mostly seen him in his full Jigsaw mode for the rest of the series, aside from some brief flashbacks, and the chance to really see another side of him is a smart way to bring something fresh to the story. Tobin Bell plays John Kramer here as a real person, not the image of himself he created, but the human who’s scared to die and fearful of losing out on the rest of his life. He’s polite, quiet, thoughtful, even loving – it’s a credit to both Bell and the writing here that the first act, as he goes through the so-called treatment, actually hits home, and I’m glad the movie (the longest in the franchise to date) took it’s time with this aspect of the plot.
This is also the first major return of Shawnee Smith to the franchise in more than a decade, and I do really love what Saw X does with her as a character. She’s almost too rich a character for a franchise as goofy and campy as Saw to really delve into – an ex-addict who has deified her violent abuser as a saviour, the ultimate disciple to Jigsaw’s legacy – but Smith finds those fascinating corners to her as a person and shines a light on them in this outing, especially in her scenes with fellow addict Gabriella. Those moments she shares with a dying John are somewhere between heartfelt and stomach-churning, the strange sentimentality between them one of the most impactful moments of genuine emotion I’ve seen in the series as a whole.
Then, we get to the meat of the piece (pun intended): the traps. As ever, Saw X relies on brilliant special effects and a twisted genius approach to these torture devices – there is certainly a subset of the fandom that comes just to see the gruesomeness and gore, and they won’t be let down here. I heard someone fully gagging three rows away from me during the bone marrow sequence, and I don’t blame them.
Perhaps the most innovative thing the movie does, though, is introduce an antagonist who’s neither John Kramer nor one of his disciples. Synnøve Macody Lund stars as Cecilia, the faux-doctor behind John’s fake treatment, and an all-round cackling panto villain – and my God, is she great fun. Her amorality acts as a great counterpoint to John’s bizarre sense of justice, and her absolute commitment to the bit is one of the most entertaining parts of this movie. As ever, I am here for women in STEM: slaughter, terror, evisceration, and murder. Saw is at it’s best when it embraces the camp at it’s core, and she is a perfect encapsulation of that.
The only thing I would have changed was the inclusion of a character who’s a sex worker, who faces an attempted sexual assault within moments of her profession being revealed – it felt too heavy for a film as silly and over-the-top as this, too real-world in terms of Saw’s batshit universe.
Greutert, as a whole, brought an incredible entry to the franchise in Saw X. The direction is tight and clean, the aesthetic reflective of Saw’s beginnings as a grungy, industrial slasher, the performances some of the best in the series, and the plot just as bloody and bloody ridiculous as you would hope. I loved it to as many pieces as the cast ended up in, and I’m already looking forward to the inevitable sequel.
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By Lou MacGregor
(header image via Bloody Disgusting)
No But Listen 