THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When a franchise goes on longer than it should, you could worry if they should keep it up. Many horror franchises go through it and while Saw did by the end of the 2000s, it later got the chance to regain momentum with spin-offs that turned out to be surprisingly entertaining. Once those became refreshing, the door was open to keep things rolling.
PLOT
Saw X takes place before the serial killer himself, John Kramer aka Jigsaw, targeted Detective Eric Matthews. Four months after being diagnosed with brain cancer, he encounters Henry Kessler (Michael Beach) who had apparently recovered from a terminal diagnosis. He shares with him that it worked thanks to an experimental treatment conducted by Doctor Finn Pederson (Donagh Gordon). Feeling inspired to be cured, he reaches out to the doctor’s daughter Cecilia who refers to him in a private clinic in Mexico City. When flying to Mexico and being driven to the clinic by a taxi driver named Diego (Joshua Okamoto), he gets to meet Cecilia and her team: Mateo (Octavio Hinojosa) and Valentina (Paulette Hernandez) who take part of performing the surgery, a woman named Gabriela (Renata Vaca) who was recently cured and another patient named Parker who just underwent surgery. John would feel like gaining a new lease on life when the surgery is deemed a success according to Cecilia. John would eventually make the decision to return to the clinic for the sake of giving a gift to Gabriela. Sadly, he would discover the building to be adandoned, confirming he was scammed. With the help of his accomplice Amanda Young, he is able to kidnap everyone involved in scamming him. They first target Diego, who John deduces was part of the fake surgery as the third doctor, Cortez. He puts him in a trap where he must remove explosives wired to his arms by cutting through his arms, which he succeeds in a limited amount of time. After this, Kramer and Young target the other four, trapping them in the same abandoned building where the scam took place. Valentina would be tested next by severing her leg with a Gigli saw and extract enough bone marrow to free herself. However, she gets decapitated by another Gigli saw when being unable to extract enough bone marrow in time. Cecilia would take advantage of disemboweling her body and using her guts to reach her phone. However, Amanda confiscates it after shocking her with her collar. Parker would show up demanding his money back, deducing he was scammed as well, but Amanda would restrain him and make him watch the rest of the game. The game would continue with Mateo being tasked to drill into his skull and remove a portion of his brain tissue to retrieve his key to freedom. However, the tissue doesn’t dissolve in time, causing a mask covered in heated coils to close on him. Gabriela would then be tasked to break her shackled limbs while being suspended in the air and be exposed to ionized radiation. Just as she succeeds, Parker reveals himself to be part of the scam, holding Kramer and Amanda at gunpoint with the intent to rescue Cecilia. When the latter is freed from her restraints, she breaks Gabriela’s neck, killing her. Now free, she forces John to be chained into his own trap. She would also have Amanda be strapped to another shackle afar from her mentor. Just as this happens, a child Kramer met named Carlos is outside playing with his soccer ball. Cecilia would bring him in and force him to be part of Kramer’s trap. He and Jigsaw would be chained on a seesaw like trap where they are forced to waterboard themselves with blood. Cecilia & Parker would try to escape with the money they’ve originally took from those they scammed, but the bag they assume contains it would trigger a tripwire that would seal them in the room. A deadly gas would begin filling the room and Cecilia would kill Parker to breath through only one ventilation hole, forced to watch Kramer, Amanda & Carlos leave with zero effort. This was possible due to Diego outing everyone involved in the scam, including Henry and Parker, meaning that they tricked Cecilia into luring the latter. The only thing that wasn’t planned was the presence of Carlos, as Amanda was originally supposed to be part of the seesaw. On the way out, John would give all the defrauded money to Carlos. The film would end with Jigsaw killing Henry for faking his illness, with the assist of his secondary accomplice, Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), tracking him down.
THOUGHTS
I was very hesitant to check this out upon hearing Kevin Greutert would return to direct, due to not being impressed with the last two times he was involved with (Saw VI and Saw 3D). Once I saw the trailer for this one however, I remembered there is always room for improvement, which he does exponentially. At this point in time, it’s known the sub genre of torture porn ain’t for everyone. So if you’ve been tolerating this platform fictional entertainment since 2004, you know what you’re in for. Every time we assume the violence couldn’t be topped, the next entry does so and you get it here with a new set of traps we witness. Even when looked at as simple, they’re all looked at as effective in their depictions. The eye trap didn’t even happen for real in the opening, but it was still quite shocking. Narrowing down to the ones that actually occurred, the most gruesome has to be the Brain Surgery trap. I’ve seen a fair share of fictional violence involving head trauma, but I was never prepared to see someone cut up their skull to survive. This franchise has been defined off of theme to appreciate life, and what this entry does differently from the past is its way to tell us how we can still be able to seek connection with others when we are at our lowest. But at the same time, we need to maintain a balance where we still have humanity left in us compared to those who lose it completely. Oddly enough, Tobin Bell still nails it in making Kramer just that despite being a serial killer. The man still has the moral to punish those who don’t appreciate their lives and not those that are innocent in comparison. We don’t want to root for someone who is looked at as intelligently sadistic, but after being screwed over when he didn’t deserve it, there’s no regret saying you can’t blame him. And since his victims have it coming more than others we’ve seen, they are the true villains that make it a fire with fire scenario. It’s easy to hate the likes of Mateo, Valentina & Gabriela for screwing over John the way they did, but you end up respecting their will to survive. Gabriela is the one I end up applauding of all people because like Diego, she survives and that earns her second chance. It’s really Cecilia to hate on the most because not only is she selfishly shameless for her actions, she acts so cowardly she avoids taking part of a trap. Even if that was part of Jigsaw’s plan, you hate her for refusing to own up to her sins and Synnøve Mackey Lund owns it in making her the most despicable thus far. And to follow it up, Steven Brand would pull off in making Parker a deceitful scammer yet still dumb enough to think Cecilia cared about him, hence making his death so laughable for being played out very predictably. The only one who was truly kind to Kramer was the one kid who wasn’t in on the scam, Carlos. Jorge Briseño stole my heat for just naturally having a heart of gold to a guy he didn’t even know, showing he was definitely raised right compared to everyone else we’ve seen in this franchise. You feel bad for him going through such trauma that was a bloody diversion because it wasn’t supposed to be there. Despite this, he was willing to try saving Kramer once he figured out how the seesaw trap worked. You would feel bad for Kramer again because it’s obvious he didn’t want him involved, proving how protective he is like the father he could’ve been. Since he tried to make it right by giving him the money, I hope gets the chance to emotionally recover and have a better life than what he already had before they met. Since this story took place before Jigsaw died, it made sense for other familiar faces to return as well. It was one thing for Hoffman to pull up in the mid credits, but it was honestly Amanda that had me the most excited. Shawnee Smith really made the best of it in showing her as one who may be unstable for being an accomplice to a serial killer, she still has respect for the morals at this point. It’s really here where she does appreciate him for giving her her own new lease in life and is choosing to return the favor through these actions. Had it not been for the presence of Carlos, she would’ve drowned for him which says a lot to her devotion to the cause at the time. Had she had the chance to seek better care for herself, she likely would’ve lived a longer life. I probably had more fun with this movie than I should have, which doesn’t surprise me when finding a few issues storywise. For example, how has Henry not been recognized by other people who’ve been scammed? They make it come off like everyone except Kramer figures it out just when they die, which I don’t buy because Jigsaw can’t be the only one to be so smart. I don’t even understand why didn’t Parker shoot Kramer sooner? If he’s so sure of being in control, he should’ve not worried of making a mess on the way out before realizing Kramer replacing the bullets with duds. That’s more surprising than him not seeing when the swap happened. It was also smart for Kramer to get info out of Diego, but I think he still should’ve killed him because it’s not like he wouldn’t report what happened. Even if he had to admit he was part of a scam, he likely would’ve been exonerated for stopping a serial killer. I then wonder why was Kramer still designing traps after believing he was cured? I feel like if he had a new lease on life, he wouldn’t be thinking of killing people anymore. And we all know damn well Cecilia and company likely would’ve gotten away with it if the equipment wasn’t abandoned because even if they don’t know they’re scamming Jigsaw, it’s asking to get caught. And it’s worse than using their real names instead of aliases because John still tracked them down thanks to his accomplices. Had that happened, it would’ve been harder for Kramer to track them down with or without help. On top of that, I thought he was being too risky when trying to reach out to Cecilia. I know he’s playing it out because he wants her to think she has the upper hand when she really doesn’t, but she could’ve stabbed him incase Parker didn’t shoot. And why aren’t there cameras in hospital rooms in the opening? It is a clever fakeout Jigsaw would want to torture someone for theft, but this wouldn’t have been a factor to worry of if there were cameras in the room the custodian who attempted to steal from an elderly patient. I hate being that guy but this is a big continuity error when looking back at Saw VI. John did mention in that film via flashback he was talking to someone in Norway for the surgery, but the difference is the success rate. The preceding film claimed to have been 30-40%, whereas this one said 90%. If this is supposed to imply he was talking to two different people from Norway for treatment, I don’t think it’s clear enough. We know John is smart to find the place based on his past life as an architect, but would it have been a bad idea to ask where to go? He’s lucky there was only one chemical plant in the are for him to find. I don’t even see why John had the money in the building because despite knowing Cecilia would try to outsmart him, the luck goes too far in her not finding it. And lastly, where did John get all the blood for the last trap? Did Amanda or Hoffman get that from the dark web or was he able to get it in a local area with no questions asked? I mean it’s crazy how this ain’t answered either. Ignore this, then you’re still in for a bloody good time. In short, Saw X is another solid entry in the torture porn franchise for being smarter at the least expected. If you’re somehow still a fan since 2004, I hope you still have enough will to get to here.
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