THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Within every successful slasher film, their success suffers from consistent sequels. For the 2000s, the best example went to the Torture Porn franchise that is Saw. This was a problem because it would take a while to answer plot hole related questions. By the time we made it to Saw III, a few questions were left unanswered: Is there another Jigsaw accomplice, did Eric Matthews actually die and did Jeff Denlon save his daughter? Thankfully, the fourth film in a row answered those exact questions. But was it worth the time? I guess.
PLOT
Saw IV opens up seeing the autopsy of John Kramer. An audiotape is found inside his body, implying that he swallowed it before he died. Detective Mark Hoffman hears it and it is a message from Jigsaw himself, implying that his work was far from over. The rest of the film takes place within the same time as the third film, before the autopsy. Hoffman and Officer Daniel Rigg discover the corpse of Detective Allison Kerry (Dina Meyer), who had been missing for four days. This leads to FBI agents Peter Strahm and Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis) getting involved with the case. When they see the crime scene where Kerry's body was found, they are certain that there was another accomplice involved with Kramer. Rigg has been suffering from depression since the absence of his friend Eric Matthews, only getting worse when losing Kerry. When his wife leaves their apartment, he is quickly subdued by the masked accomplice. When he wakes up, a Jigsaw video plays in his television, informing him that Matthews is still alive and must finish a new game in 90 minutes if he wants to save him. When he exits his room, the timer starts and his first level begins. He finds a pimp named Brenda (Sarain Boylan), who is strapped to a mechanical chair. His attempt to save her activates a trap that tears her scalp off. He figures out the combination in time to free her. She attempts to kill him with a knife, but he kills her out of self defense. He than finds a tape where Jigsaw told Brenda to kill him, believing he would turn her in anyway. Rigg then leaves his home and moves on. At a hideout, Matthews and Hampton are held captive by who appears to be the Jigsaw accomplice Art Blank (Justin Louis), a lawyer who had also survived a game of his own. Matthews is standing on an ice block while being hung, while Hoffman is standing on an electric chair. They are on opposite ends of a seesaw and if Matthews is off the block or if melts too much, Hoffman will be electrocuted. Rigg moves along to a motel to begin the next level. He finds another tape that instructs him to abduct Ivan (Marty Adams), the motel proprietor who is a serial rapist. When entering the room, he has him hooked up to the prearranged trap. Ivan must gouge out his eyes in a minute or his limbs will ripped apart. His gruesome fate occurs when unable to gouge a second eye in time. After that event, Rigg moves on again. He goes to a school and finds a married couple he recognized. Years prior, the husband Rex (Ron Lea) was accused of abusing his wife Morgan (Janet Land) and his daughter Jane (Alison Luther). Now, the two are impaled back to back by metal spikes. Morgan survived the test by removing spikes that resulted in her husband's death. She was able to not die from her wounds because they were non lethal. Rigg chooses to give her the key to free herself as he moves on once again. As he plays the game, Strahm is called in to investigate the crimes. When finding Brenda at Rigg's house and discovering Ivan all over the motel room, he suspects that he could be the new Jigsaw recruit. In between, he brings in Jill Tuck, John's ex wife for questioning. He does find Morgan at the school since Rigg set off a fire alarm before leaving. At the school, he and his partner Perez find the ventriloquist puppet from the Jigsaw videos. When getting too close, its face explodes and Perez gets hit with shrapnel. Originally, Tuck chose not to comply with Strahm but after Perez's injury, she starts talking. She shared how she once was pregnant with John's baby. She lost it in miscarriage when a drug addict crushed the door on her stomach, after robbing a medical clinic she worked for. This is what broke the couple apart and lead to their divorce. After his suicide attempt, John created his first trap on the addict that killed his baby. Since the baby's name was 'Gideon', Strahm deduces that the new hideout is GIdeon's Meatpacking Plant. As he takes off, he leaves with Kerry's key that Perez gave him at the hospital. Rigg gets there first and sees his friend held captive. He makes the mistake of opening the door to the other room, as this leads to two other ice blocks crushing his head. He than fights off Blank and despite getting shot in the stomach, he ends up shooting him in the head when pulling out a weapon. The weapon was actually a tape to let him know that he failed the game. Hoffman reveals himself as the accomplice when freeing himself from the chair and leaving Rigg for dead. As that happens, Strahm shows up and uses the key to enter a locked room. There, he encounters Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfayden), who just killed John. When he points his gun, Strahm shoots him out of self defense. Just as that happens, the film ends with Hoffman locking him in the sickroom.
THOUGHTS
After watching the first three in a row, I had some level of excitement when making it to this point, but I'm lying if I say that I love this one too. With the return of Darren Lynn Bousman directing, I would assume that things would go smooth. But with new writers instead of keeping the original co-writer Leigh Whannell involved, it felt out of hand in some way. The movie's spirit of appreciating life is there, but it's not strong enough here because this film questions our morals instead, as in questioning if we can be comfortable to let the guilty walk among us when they don't deserve it. We're being approached as if we shouldn't which is understanding, but you're twisting our words if you're involving death traps. You don't want to make viewers become serial killers by saying the guilty deserve to be tortured to death. Speaking of which, the traps here are the obvious highlight of this sequel. Thanks to the the Scalping Seat, I lost comfort in a haircut. Because of the Spike Trap, it is brutal but somehow intelligent because this is the only hint to the last person to be behind it all by The Final Chapter. Other than that, I do think the cast is decent to keep the pace going. Daniel Rigg is approached as the main character here and is a good choice since his presence was minor in the other films. Here, Lyriq Bent succeeds in making this protagonist the most compassionate, but that becomes his greatest flaws as that results in making him temperamental. He loves his friends, but he puts himself at risk when hoping to save them. Considering that he was technically responsible for Eric's death, it is arguably one of the biggest tragedies in the franchise. It is so heartbreaking to witness because of how his good intentions backfired. Had he took friend's advice to not open the door and found another way in the room, things would've been a little smoother. Because I didn't see the trailer, I had no idea Donnie Wahlberg would return. Whether or not you liked him from before, you felt that his character lost his will to live after being a prisoner for so long. Considering that he never called for his son and begged for it to be over, you just knew he was ready to go. It was hard to like Scott Paterson as Agent Strahm because despite being dedicated with his job, he always came off as a hothead within every conversation. It makes sense when interrogating someone, but not everything else. We only respect the guy because he is the only person to figure out where Rigg would go in the end of the game and it's a shame he couldn't find him in time. We all enjoyed seeing Tobin Bell in the John Kramer flashbacks, but that would've not happened without seeing his metaphorical heart that is Jill Tuck. Thanks to a wonderful performance by Betsy Rusell, we felt that she can come off reserved, only to not share the devastating moment in her life that can make her so emotional. Losing an unborn child is terrible and during her interrogation, you feel that she was still feeling she had felt that day. Our new antagonist is Mark Hoffman and I gotta admit, I was very surprised that he is the new Jigsaw because I didn't catch a single hint at the time. With the performance by Costas Mandylor, he goes from honorable to despicable within seconds and it gets me every time when he leaves Rigg behind. Seeing him say 'Game Over', I knew I was ready for another complex character. I respect the movie for answering questions that had to be answered, there were more moments throughout I ended questioning. First off, while I question why didn’t the pathologist stay with Hoffman as he listened to the tape, My real question is why did John swallow the tape? He could’ve mailed it elsewhere and Hoffman still would’ve gotten the message any other time. The autopsy may have been intriguing to witness, but we honestly didn’t need it just for a message to be played. Also, I know Rigg isn’t at the best state of mind after losing Kerry but since Jigsaw could be anywhere in his perspective, he should’ve barricaded his house after Matthews went missing. I even found it weird how he puts on the pig mask to keep his identity secret before confronting Ivan, but then taking it off before the confrontation. I really didn’t see the point there for him to have it off when he has keep his cover. If anything confused me about Brenda was how did she hear the tape when her hands were tied? Did it have an automatic setting like the TV did? If so, it would’ve been nice if we saw that. If you want to talk about a big ‘Bruh’ moment in this franchise, it is when one agent dusts the loaded crossbow. That guy should’ve announced what he was doing whether or not he knew it would go off. So when it goes off and kills another agent, I just roll my eyes so hard because it’s irritating on how easy it could’ve been avoided. And lastly, as I wonder how could have Rigg avoid entering the front door Eric urged him not to enter, what would Hoffman do if he won? He has to keep his cover, so would he kill them all or pretend like nothing happened and try another trap next time? I mean some characters contingency plans , so I can’t help but wonder how that would go. However, I still think this film can be watchable when ignoring said flaws. In short, Saw IV is a solid sequel but doesn't exactly outdo itself like it should have. If you still dig Saw at this point, good luck with this one.
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