I will be honest; I lost any interest in this franchise a long time ago. And even when the studio tried to do something new and “fresh” with Spiral (2021), I thought it was okay but nothing to write home about. So, imagine my surprise when Saw X came out in late 2023 and was getting positive reviews, many calling it the best Saw film since Saw II (2005), and some went as far as to say the best since the original Saw (2004)! Needless to say, my expectations were slightly higher, and I knew I wanted to see this, so when it came to streaming, my night was sorted. The result just shows how often less is more.
The biggest problem with this franchise was that it became a parody of itself to the point many were calling it “torture porn”. Each new movie tried to top the previous one with more gruesome traps that can spill the most blood, and given they killed off their main protagonist, who is also an antagonist, in Saw III (2006), they had to get messy and needlessly convoluted with each new story too, trying desperately hard to tie him with this franchise when he was supposed to be dead. It was just a series of bad decisions pilling on top of each other until that house of cards collapsed, and nobody cared about this franchise. That was until this movie came out and seemingly revived the franchise by positioning itself between Saw and Saw II while giving Tobin Bell the lead role for the first time in this franchise. I am not sure whether I have learned anything new about his character per se; however, we see more of him and his dynamic with Shawnee Smith (Amanda), and I liked that aspect.
I thought the idea to make this more drama rather than “let’s see how we can brutalise the next batch of humans” also worked. At this point, I don’t think there is anything this franchise can do but gross me out, so I liked that there were fewer traps, and we focused on John’s journey and his revenge on people who scammed him. Don’t get me wrong, there are some brutal traps we get to expect and love (?) from this franchise; however, if that is all you look for in your Saw film, you will be disappointed. Besides one dream sequence where John imagines a trap, it takes a while for this movie to do what we signed up for. For the first half of this movie, we focus on John, his battle with cancer, and his latching onto this new hope these scammers give him, only for him to realise he was scammed, and that is when he goes back to being Jigsaw again.
I was enjoying this movie until the last act. I will try to talk about it without spoilers, so I ask for forgiveness if some of what I am about to write is too vague. My first and biggest issue is the “big twist” this franchise became known for. I would still argue we haven’t had a better twist since the original film, and I am talking about all the films, not just horror movies. I tried to think of whether we have had a movie twist so mindblowing and iconic since 2004, and honestly, I came up short. Some movies came close, but I still remember how blown away I was by that ending of the first Saw movie. Back to Saw X, because this franchise taught you well, you can see this twist coming from a mile away. On top of that, if you remember that this movie takes place in the past, you understand neither of our protagonists is in any real danger because they must survive. But even if I tried to move past that, it seemed a bit more convoluted than necessary, with a few things John couldn’t plan for, no matter how smart he was.
My second problem is a tinier one because it is a bit more complex. It is not really a problem, as logically, it fits with Jigsaw’s philosophy. But narratively, it pissed me off. Thinking about it, I can’t talk around it without twisting myself in knots; so I will spoil this part a bit, so…
BEWARE, SPOILERS ARE COMING!!!
This movie has a phenomenal villain in Synnøve Macody Lund. The more this movie progresses, the more you realise how truly evil and despicable she is, and you love to hate her. That is what makes it all the more painful to see her survive. I was looking forward to seeing her die for everything she’s done wrong, only for her to prevail. Part of me hoped that the final trap would be impossible to survive, but when she survived, I realised that it would go against the logic of not just this film but the entire franchise. Well, at least the better sequels. The twisted logic has always been that nobody is beyond redemption, and all traps should be survivable if you sacrifice enough. And she did. So even though I couldn’t fault the movie’s logic for her surviving, part of me was furious that she did, and that is what made her a great villain. This complaint is, admittedly, a lesser one, but I still thought it was worth pointing out.
But other than these two things, I had a good time with Saw X. This movie is (as the title suggests) the tenth movie in this franchise and had no right to be as good as it was. Luckily, the people behind this film decided to take a step back from all the nonsense of “we need to out-torture the previous movie” and grounded this sequel. For the majority of Saw X, we are in one singular location. And when we aren’t there, there is no blood, traps or horror stuff happening, but I was invested in this story because finally, we got to see Tobin Bell take the lead (legend he is), and they gave him an awesome opponent to go up against. I know we are getting Saw XI (2025), and I can only hope the people behind this film will remember what made this one so good and won’t lose themselves (again). However, I don’t know where and whether they can take this further, especially if they want to keep John Kramer around. Let’s hope the history won’t repeat itself and all the lessons have been learned already.
Overall, Saw X is probably the most unique Saw sequel we have gotten up until now. It scaled everything back without seeming cheap, built the world with characters we recognised in a timeline that made sense and gave us a group of (mostly) unlikeable people, so when they would eventually lose the game, we wouldn’t be too sad about that. On top of that, we’ve gotten probably the strongest villain ever. I will agree with the majority here and say this is the best Saw film since Saw II. If you are like me and haven’t enjoyed any of these movies in a while, give this one a chance.
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke
