FILM REVIEW: Saw X

Blood, guts, mutilation & enjoyment galore! Cast: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Renata Vaca, Paulette Hernandez, Octavio Hinojosa Martine...

Blood, guts, mutilation & enjoyment galore!

Cast: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Renata Vaca, Paulette Hernandez, Octavio Hinojosa Martinez, Synnove Macody Lund

Rating: 3.5/5

 

The Saw franchise is known for coming up with innovative ways to kill someone from basically the beginning of its life, and it holds that reputation to date and Saw X might be the best film in the series. It’s gory, fun to watch, totally crazy, funny, and melodramatic, basically, everything you crave when you go to watch a body-horror film.

Between the events of ‘Saw’ and ‘Saw II’, a sick and desperate John Kramer travels to Mexico for a risky and experimental medical procedure in hopes of a miracle cure for his cancer, only to discover the entire operation is a scam to defraud the most vulnerable. Armed with a newfound purpose, the infamous serial killer returns to his work, turning the tables on the con artists in his signature visceral way through devious, deranged, and ingenious traps.

This is an attempt at resurrecting a long-dead franchise but not a vain one. The film has everything a fan would expect - a melodramatic core and lots of blood and guts. It’s also a good film for serial killers to watch to learn new ways to torture someone. The kills in this oscillate from gory to tame. Some kills are innovative while others are predictable.

Kevin Greutert does an almost great job of directing the latest gore fest in the series. He knows when to cut and when not to, what to show and how much to show to get an R-rating, how to make the viewer squirm in their seat, and how to make the viewer be glued to their seat with their mouth agape. The camera moves around like a rabid dog in certain scenes. The background score is average. Tobin Bell is really good as John Kramer A.K.A. Jigsaw. He gets the screen time to flex his acting skills, which he didn’t in Saw VI

Saw X could’ve been a whole lot better but is perfectly fine as it is.