Film Review: Saw X
SAW X FINDS A FRANCHISE HIGH WATERMARK WITH THE RETURN OF TOBIN BELL
Director Kevin Greutert returns to the franchise that birthed his feature-length career with Saw X, a precise and brutal high watermark that knows exactly what its audience wants. Top-tier Tobin Bell, top-tier Shawnee Smith, top-tier traps: it’s the best Saw in years and perhaps since the original. Minor spoilers ahead…
17 years after James Wan and Leigh Whannell first fitted a reverse bear trap on Amanda Young’s (Shawnee Smith) dome, 2021’s Spiral: From the Book of Saw aimed its sights at revitalizing the floundering horror series. Eschewing the increasingly labyrinthine mythology and convoluted lore, the ninth entry in a series feeling increasingly long in the tooth - anchored by a goofy, guilty pleasure performance from Chris Rock - understood the need for a clean state. Spiral jettisoned the secret apprentices and scattershot time shenanigans, but its reconfiguration only got it half right: it was still mired in a tepid whodunit and undercooked reveals. At least the main attractions - the gruesome traps and gnarly deaths - had some bite.
Whatever shortcomings Spiral had, Saw X almost fixes in full. Continuing the refreshing trend of excising fat and unknotting continuity, the latest installment also terminates - with prejudice - the longstanding guessing game mysteries of the Saw franchise. Who are the victims? What did they do? Which Jigsaw acolyte is responsible? Will John Kramer (Tobin Bell) make an appearance? It’s all taken to the woodshed in the most streamlined, no-nonsense Saw yet. Dispensing its simple pleasures in the most economical way possible, Saw X gives us exactly what we want: the most wince-inducing traps and the return of the original, legendary Jigsaw.
“…Saw X gives us exactly what we want: the most wince-inducing traps and the return of the original, legendary Jigsaw.”
Let’s face it, you don’t show up to a Saw movie to be emotionally invested in the fodder being pulverized, roasted, or dismembered; on the long-tail of every horror franchise, eventually your villain will become your protagonist. Saw X takes this tenet to the bank by bringing back its two most familiar faces: Tobin Bell as John Kramer and Shawnee Smith as acolyte Amanda Young. Rewinding to a setting between the first and second films, franchise mainstay Kevin Greutert’s return to the director’s chair finds the Jigsaw Killer on his last gasp for desperate air: cancer is riddling his body, and he just might have found salvation in an off-the-books experimental procedure in Mexico. Of course, the surgery - down to a plant in John’s cancer support group - is a nefarious scam, and it’s up to Jigsaw himself to dole out bloody retribution against those who cheated him out of a second chance. Saw X doesn’t so much put the finger on the scale as it demolishes the apparatus entirely; admittedly, the film sidesteps the thornier questions of whether Jigsaw actually deserve their punishments of self-mutilation (always the shakiest, silliest, and most inconsistent aspect of the series anyway), but there’s a satisfying glee to witness Bell’s sadistic schemer plot against some of the most unsympathetic perps the series has ever had to offer. Shattered bones, shredded limbs, and barbecued flesh: Saw X has it all.
Saw X won’t convert non-believers, but it is a lesson in reviving a flagging, moribund franchise. Reorienting the series back into its filthy, grimy aughts-core stylings, it all comes back to Tobin Bell and to a certain extent the unhinged, and empathetic, charms of Shawnee Smith’s Amanda. With Jigsaw back in the picture actually interacting and wagging his finger at his victims, hindsight becomes crystal clear what’s been missing from the Saw movies all these years: pairing the most viscous, unpleasant surgical nastiness with Bell’s unique command of the screen is a revamp match made in heaven.
