At the close of the Saw trilogy, none of the key players behind the franchise were set to return. However, return they did as Darren Lynn Bousman takes his seat for a third time behind the camera. Yet co-creator Leigh Whannell finally gets to rest his weary hand as he passes his screenwriting pen over to the ink responsible for John Gulager’s Feast, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. But, alas, in so doing we come to learn where the prowess of Saw lies: in its conception. Though a good run, the series finally dies out as the novice screenwriters, God Bless ’em, wind up trying too hard to keep up the pace and, as a result, exhaust themselves midway through the race. Yeah, Whannell made it look easy, eh?
Following storyline protocol, an innocent, one SWAT Commander Rigg (Lyriq Bent), is lured into one of Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) life-lesson traps as the clock counts down.
I was skeptical as to whether Saw IV would be able to maintain the rhythm in respect to imparting a new variation upon the ethics theme that is Saw’s feather in its horror cap. Fortunately, it is revealed early in the work that Rigg’s lecture is to be over, in Tyler Durden’s words, “Just let[ting] go.” As an earnest police officer, Rigg’s Achilles Heel is that he is trying to save the world at his own expense. Thus, the motifs of the value of life, the cost of hubris, and the consequences of vengeance are joined by another potentially substantive mediation upon morality. Unfortunately, the moral of the story is lost amid, in the words of my learned British HR colleague, Steven West, “over plotting” (hyperactive plot convolution is my phrase for what occurs) and the horror no-no of demystifying the villain and, at that, at the expense of the protagonist.
Knowing they had big plot shoes to fill considering Jigsaw had died at the end of Part III, the co-writers make the sequel-killing mistake of attempting to compensate–not with a new, better antagonist (which is bad in and of itself when you are dealing with a legend)–but with the same one. The true rub is that they allot more time to Jigsaw than they do Rigg, thus dissipating the tension for we are never forced to care about the character because we know nothing about him. Moreover, by hero-worshipping Bell’s iconographic figure, all of the magic is broken in the process. Of course, this might be excusable if the viewer is a die-hard Saw aficionado but when Melton and Dunstan arbitrarily issue Jigsaw yet another m.o., and–at that–one which deprives him of his ethical motive for killing and replacing it with one based upon revenge, they shamefully relegate the God of postmodern horror to being nothing more than a simple, run-of-the-mill (albeit a clever one) murderer.
Yes, in the process the writers do manage to explain the genesis of the Jigsaw doll and, huffing all the while, pay their respects to their predecessors by including and correlating storylines during their flashback sequences, but this is mere set dressing as the framework remains shaky. While subplot upon subplot distractingly dispels the potency of the main storyline, even the synchronization of the victims’ deaths to their respective sins are deprived of their symbolic import in favor of mere sadism. What’s left is very little, which is stunning given how much the writers had to work with going in. Lastly, like most every other bad sequel, Saw IV cannot stand on its own two feet for, in order to make any sense of what is taking place, the audience must, must revisit Part III.
Perhaps the greatest disappointment with the feature is that, just as we think we see the picture coming into focus as “How to Become Jigsaw” is being revealed, a wholly unsatisfactory plot twist is presented, one which foolishly omits its justification using the unforgivable ruse of making an easy segue into the next installment (loose minor threads are fine, but when concluding a thriller, one must connect the main waterline before calling it a day). Furthermore, as we sit, pissed off, at the less-than-foolproof death traps, we are given an alibi for their architectural flimsiness yet, however plausible, such fails to make them convincingly terrifying, i.e. just because the baker is new at his game doesn’t make the pastries taste any better.
Darren Lynn Bousman’s Saw IV does accomplish one thing: It establishes that the Saw trilogy should be remembered as three solid, very accomplished films which seek, and largely realize, their vision. For the sake of one’s fond memories of the Jigsaw of yesteryear, merely enter Saw IV with the mindset that it is the beginning of a new chapter in, or a spin-off of, James Wan’s groundbreaking tour-de-force. This is the only manner in which you’ll be able to garner any satisfaction with this amateur production which tries very hard to detract from its forerunners.
Trivia tidbit: Since the premier of the charter installment in the franchise, the annual Saw Blood Drive has collected almost 38,000 pints of blood, which helped to save approximately 112,500 lives.
– Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
