Most people would say that, as a film critic, it really doesn’t matter what I have to say about Saw IV.
I would agree.
The ones who want Saw IV are going to regardless if I like it. It will top the box office with millions and millions of dollars even if I don’t like it. And, it will encourage even further installments in the franchise whether I like it.
But as a tremendous fan of the horror movie genre, it does matter what I have to say about Saw IV. As the kind of person who actually wanted to see this movie, it does matter what I have to say about Saw IV.
As one of the few film critics in the entire country who listed the original Saw as one of the Top 10 Films of 2004, I really do think that it matters what I have to say about Saw IV.
So while this film may have not been screened for critics because "it wasn’t made for critics," they fail to realize that some of us actually do enjoy our fair share of gore-happy, torture-bound and utterly grotesque trips into the nightmarish world of Jigsaw – making my supreme disappointment with the film more legitimate than the producers of the film may want to admit.
Saw IV begins with the dead body of our favorite sociopath, Jigsaw, lying on an autopsy table. As he is brutally (how else?) cut open by the coroners, a small tape is discovered in his stomach (apparently, objects are easily edible when soaked in wax).
When a detective is called in to play the tape, Jigsaw whispers in his demonic, pain-soaked voice that his "games have just begun." So sets into motion 95 minutes of bloodletting and dozens of tortuous contraptions with the intent of making us flinch while watching through the cracks of our fingers.
When it comes to fourth installments of horror franchises, Saw IV is not nearly as bad as it could have been. For a decent portion of the film, it maintains a sense of tongue-in-cheek thrills with a string of "sinners" being punished in the most macabre and horrific ways imaginable. Jigsaw’s back-story, told through his ex-wife in a confession room, shines a new – though not entirely necessary – light onto the man we’ve gotten to know throughout the years.
It’s the first time the man has been predominantly called by his real name, John, rather than his alias.
While a sense of "been there, done that" reigns supreme over the film, Saw IV still remains a shade better than most of the garbage (including this year’s Hostel: Part II) that prances around the silver screen as "horror" these days.
Still, calling the film "a shade better" is simply the highest accolades I can give it. When it comes down to it, the film remains nothing more than a "so-so" sequel of a genius original that provided horror with a sense of intelligence, but has shown that, in the end, it just wasn’t smart enough to leave well enough alone.
While I was "entertained" (i.e. distracted) throughout its 95 minute running time, the utterly disgusting forced-surprise ending absolutely ruined everything that had come before and made me realize something: This movie is absolutely unnecessary.
Not in the sense that any of the Saw sequels are "necessary," but while the writers worked so desperately to fool us with another final minute twist, they have done nothing more than making us realize that, for the first time in a series that has maintained a constant, if not halfway decent, continuous story line, we made absolutely no progress at all with this film.
You walk out of the theater in exactly the same spot in the Saw story that you walked in: You’ve walked in a circle for 95 minutes.
Saw IV is the worst of the franchise and, after blowing a perfect chance to go out on a high note with the surprisingly decent Saw III, proves that this series is quickly on its way to become another punch line in the horror genre, along the lines of the endless installments in the Halloween, Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street series.
The scares are less than decent, with a handful of "quiet-to-loud" moments to arise a cheap jump from the audience. While the torture sequences in the original were subtle and spine-tingling works of macabre horror art, these are eye-rolling gadgets that prove nothing more than the fact that the writers are really starting to stretch to come up with new and creative ways to kill people.
For a film that requires you to remember so much from the previous installments (a repeat viewing of Saw III is highly recommended before venturing into IV), the payoff for fan loyalty feels more like highway robbery than an actual reward. We’re robbed of $8.50, slapped across the face, and then told to wait until next Halloween so it can happen all over again.
Film critics have a reputation for writing off the horror genre as nothing more than the black sheep member in the cinematic family. For me, however, it’s the genre that I grew up with, and more importantly, the genre that made me fall in love with movies in the first place, which is why writing this review is nearly as painful as seeing one of the most potentially classic horror series be reduced to a punch line simply to make a quick dollar.
What was a potentially decent and surprisingly entertaining installment in the Saw series proves that, through a simple twist ending, we were fooled. Not fooled with a clever twist or a cinematic revelation, but fooled into thinking that we were paying for a new Saw film, rather than a rehash of all the others.
When I look at my DVD shelf and see all three Saw films sitting on my shelf, I am reminded of a time when going to see a Saw movie guaranteed a great time at the movies for a horror fan – now, the news of a confirmed fifth and sixth installment make me realize that Jigsaw really did say it best: "Suffering? You haven’t seen anything yet."
