Saw 4 Movie Review – Where the Tide Turns

Runtime: 93 minutes

Release Date: October 26, 2007

Rating: R

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Following the events of the last film, the police send John Kramer's body for an autopsy after they find him dead in the room with all those other bodies. The coroner finds a tape in his body and passes it along to Detective Hoffman. Lieutenant Rigg later finds Detective Kerry and begins his own investigation into the Jigsaw killings. This becomes more complicated when a new body appears and he learns that a man actually escaped the trap.

The problem with the later Saw movies is that there is usually too much going on. Most of the early films featured a few traps and gave us more information about Jigsaw, which kept us interested and entertained in the movies. This one had so much going on that I found myself drifting off into la la land and trying to keep up when I came back.

One of the best scenes in the film is the end of Donnie Wahlburg, aka Detective Eric Matthews. Though most of us assumed that he did in one of the previous films, it turns out that he's still alive, for the time being anyway. The new killer leaves him tied up on a block of ice with a noose around his neck and Hoffman strapped to a series of electrodes next to him. As the ice melts, he keeps slipping and sliding, but if he falls off the ice, the trap will kill them both. When he finally does slip and gets his head smashed in, it was probably the best moment of the movie. Unlike poor Amanda's death, this one really does fit the character.

Rigg, who we barely saw in any of the other movies, suddenly becomes the main focus of interest. The new Jigsaw killer sends him on a mission across town, and he must complete a series of different tasks in the hopes of saving Matthews. Given what I said in the last paragraph, you can guess how well he does.

The problem isn't Rigg the character, it's the fast that we don't really know him. I wish they left Kerry alive long enough for her to get her own movie. Since she really did have a connection to each film, it would have been nice to see her stick around a little longer. Rigg suddenly becomes our lead character, but I care as little about him as I do about Hoffman. Speaking of which, Hoffman is no substitution for the original Jigsaw.

I do like Agent Strahm played by Scott Patterson. It's probably the Gilmore Girls fan inside me, but I think he actually brought something new/good to the series. Though watching Saw 4 now and knowing what happens to his character later made me a little sad, it was nice to see him in this one.

The same can't be said about Jill Tuck. As the former wife of Kramer, she should have a lot of insight into him, but she really doesn't add anything to the film. She's really only there to talk about things we already know and set things up for her role in the next movie. Her character is completely bland and a little boring.

As much as I love the first three films in the series, Saw 4 makes me wish they had just made a trilogy.

Saw 3 – Jigsaw is Back Yet Again

Runtime: 108 minutes

Release Date: October 27, 2006

Rating: R

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Remember when Detective Matthews went missing at the end of the last film? Well, he's still missing. Though Detective Kerry feels guilty and blames herself for his disappearance, she promises to work with Detective Hoffman and Lieutenant Rigg to find Jigsaw and hopefully bring Matthews back home again.

During an investigation of the latest victim, Kerry is the only one who realizes there is something different. Unlike all the previous traps, this one was set up in such a way that the victim could not escape. Kerry herself then becomes the next victim of the so-called Jigsaw Killer.

We then find ourselves introduced to Lynn, a doctor who is seemingly unhappy with her life. While working in a hospital, she finds herself abducted and later wakes to see Amanda watching over her. Amanda fits her with a collar designed to blow up if she attempts to escape before introducing her to Jigsaw. It turns out that our favorite crazy killer is dying and Lynn is his last chance for survival.

At the same time, a father named Jeff wakes in a strange house. Still dealing with the loss of his child who was killed by a drunk driver, he can't move on with his life. Jigsaw and Amanda created a series of rooms designed to test his ability to forgive and forget. Each room features someone connected to the case, and Jeff only has a limited amount of time to either help each person or walk away.

Like I said before, the later Saw movies get a lot of flack for being too confusing or just plain bad, but Saw 3 was actually a lot better than I remembered. One of the worst deaths is easily what happens to Kerry. She finds herself stuck inside a butterfly trap with the key stuck in the bottom of a glass of acid. Since the trap was designed to fail, she naturally loses. Seeing a beloved character die by having her insides literally ripped out of her was almost a little sad.

Then we have some of the deaths that occur when Jeff is moving through the building. There is one with a woman who actually freezes to death slowly with cold water sprayed over her body in a freezing cold room. Plus, we get the scene of the man getting literally twisted to death one body part at a time. I give you props if you can get through that scene without wincing or screaming.

Since a Saw movie isn't complete without at least one twist, the twist in this one comes near the end. Though I'm sure many people saw it coming, I definitely did not. We learn that Lynn is actually the wife of Jeff. As we first see her in bed with another man, most of us naturally assumed that the two had no connection.

This is also the movie where Amanda finally dies. Though she's an evil bitch character, her death didn't exactly seem fitting. To have her die via a brand new character shooting her in the neck was somewhat of a sad end to her. We also get to learn a little more of the backstory of Jigsaw/John Kramer, including his life before he became one of the most infamous killers in fictional history. Say what you want, but Saw 3 had a lot going for it and was probably the last great film in the franchise.

Saw 2 Movie Review – Jigsaw is Back

Runtime: 93 minutes

Release Date: October 28, 2005

Rating: R

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Look forward to seeing reviews for all, or at least the first five, movies in the franchise in coming weeks. Though I own them all, we're in the process of working through the series on Netflix right now.

A man wakes up in a dirty room with a spiked collar around his neck and face. A video playing informs him that he has one minute to find the key hidden behind his eye to remove the trap. Like most of us, he fails in his task, and the mask/collar slams shut on him, hopefully killing him instantly.

In a disgusting building across town, a group of strangers wake up disoriented and confused. They find a recording that tells them they were all given an injection that will kill them unless they find the antidotes hidden all around the house. Xavier, the largest and quite possibly scariest of the group, receives his own note that urges him to use a key and escape on his own. Instead, the key causes a gun to fire that kills the first man.

In yet another part of town, Detective Eric Matthews is tasked with finally bringing an end to the murderous Jigsaw killings. He and his team find and arrest John Kramer, the man behind Jigsaw. Kramer tells him how he was diagnosed with life ending cancer and tried to kill himself by driving his car off a cliff. His survival made him realize that everyone deserves a second chance at life. That led to him creating his traps and testing others. At the same time that Detective Matthews learns that his son in trapped in the house, the others learn the connection the boy has to the man who arrested and brought them all down.

I cannot think of Saw 2 without thinking of a few key scenes. The first involves Amanda, one of the survivors of the first film. Claiming that she's a junkie who climbed back on the wagon after the events of the last movie, she's the one Xavier picks to climb into a pit filled with needles to find one of the antidotes. When he pushes her into that pit and you see the needles sticking out of her skin, I can't help cringing.

While a lot of people had problems with the later films and with the outlandish nature of the traps, Saw 2 had some really unsettling moments. Addison, a prostitute, discovers one of the antidotes inside a glass box with two holes in the bottom. When she can't get the vial with one hand, she pushes the other one inside, only to find that razor blades will slice her wrists off if she attempts to move, leading her to bleed out while still trapped partially in the box.

And let's not forget the poor man who was burned to death when he entered a furnace that locked him inside and turned itself on. Those three death scenes alone make the movie worth a watch, and that doesn't even include the ending, which features one of the last great twists in the series. Say what you want about the Saw flicks, but the first two were unbelievably great.

Saw Movie Review – You Know This One

Runtime: 103 minutes

Release Date: October 29, 2004

Rating: R

Director: James Wan

You already know the plot of Saw, but if you're like me and haven't seen it in a few years, let's go way back to the very beginning of one of the top grossing horror movie franchises in history.

Dr. Lawrence Gordon and a photographer named Adam wake up locked in a dirty and disgusting bathroom. Adam is chained by the ankle to a bathtub, while Lawrence is chained all the way across the room. When they first wake up, they find the body of a man with his head blown open laying in the center of the room. Though Adam does have two large saws, neither one is sharp enough or big enough to cut through his chains.

Through flashbacks, we learn all about a killer known as the Jigsaw Killer. Instead of shooting or stabbing people, he kidnaps them and places them in traps he designs himself. They need to do something serious in order to escape. He believes he is testing them and making them better. Both men have tape recorders that reveal messages for each one, letting them know that they are in a Jigsaw trap and that they have a limited time to escape. As the movie progresses, the two men learn the connections they had to the killer and find that they cannot trust the other...

Let me tell you the story about the first time I saw this movie. Everyone in real life and online kept talking about The Grudge, which I hadn't yet seen. I went to the movies, saw it, and had some time leftover with the next showing of Saw about to start. Went in, watched the movie, and didn't talk for a good 10 minutes after. Everything about Saw was so amazing that I couldn't believe more people weren't talking about it!

A lot of people talking about the Saw franchise in terms of the newer films without remembering how great the original was. The very first trap we see, which is the reverse bear trap Amanda wears on her head, sets the tone for everything that came later. We know that there's no way she could ever get out of that, which is what makes it so shocking when she actually does. We also get to meet Detective Kerry, who has one of the most gruesome death scenes later.

Part of what made Saw so great wasn't just the twist ending. By the way, I don't care what people say, NO ONE would have ever guessed that the dead man on the floor would get up and walk out later. It was the atmosphere of the film that made it so amazing. It showed that you didn't need a lot of fancy sets or effects to make a great movie. Leigh Whannell Cary Elwes literally carried that movie on their backs. They made us want to root for them and for them to escape, which is what made the ending so heartbreaking.

If you haven't seen Saw in awhile or still have memories of the later films in your head, it's time to head over to Netflix or pop in a copy of the first film.