Review: Saw X

Director:  Kevin Greutert

Stars:  Shawnee Smith, Tobin Bell, Synnøve Macody Lund

Giving longtime Saw editor Kevin Greutert the utmost benefit of the doubt, he inherited a mess first time he stepped up to direct. Installments IV and V had their strengths, but both floundered in the wake of the series killing off John Kramer (Tobin Bell) at the end of Saw III. Costas Mandylor’s dubious Jigsaw successor Detective Mark Hoffman never fully convinced enough to sustain the ensuing sequels, which supported themselves with evermore convoluted flashbacks to the dying wishes of John. Greutert took the helm with the weak Sav VI – a muddled rebuke of America’s health insurance institution – and stuck around for the funniest/flimsiest entry Saw 3D: The Final Chapter. Aping a style he had a good hand in designing, Greutert followed the lacklustre scripts, spilled the fake blood for the gore hounds, kept the gears turning, but his entries are Fans Only propositions.

Series creators Leigh Whannell and James Wan have long since moved on to bigger and better things, and with Saw II and III‘s Darren Lynn Bousman having had his own belated encore with 2021’s Spiral, it makes some sense for Greutert to take his turn. The marketing for Saw X has been strong, from a number of striking teaser posters to an almost M3GAN-scale social media presence. But then the trailer for the movie itself looked like old hat. Quite what to anticipate this turn of the wheel became tricky.

The unexpected news is that a lot of the lacklustre elements of prior sequels have been addressed head-on. Not enough Jigsaw? Hell, Saw X sits sketchily between the first and second movies, and places Bell front and centre (you just have to squint and pretend the character is still 52). Victims as anonymous fodder? Saw X spends almost half its running time establishing who these people are in relation to John, then traps us with them in his pressure cooker for the remainder. Missing Amanda? The a-chronological approach allows for Shawnee Smith to return to the franchise (again, squint and pretend). Editing too intense? This is the most deliberately paced Saw has ever been. Too much emphasis on police procedural elements and associated mop up? There’s not a moment of that here. Coming from the same writers, its surprising that we could call this the anti-Spiral.

Speaking of the script work, this is still a Saw sequel, so a certain amount of hokey dramatic licence is to be expected. For all Kramer’s gifted insight into human behaviour, he is conned relatively easily into giving over $250k for an off-the-books surgery to remedy him of the brain tumour that’s due to kill him. Taken in by the remorseless Dr. Celia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund – a Norwegian author and film critic!), Kramer coughs over the dough for a trip to Mexico only to find himself fleeced and left with nothing. Already in the midst of what I like to call his Taskmaster era, Kramer responds as you’d expect; drafting in the assistance of his two trusted associates to gather the guilty for an interconnected series of games.

One of the reasons that Wan and Whannell’s first Saw remains peerless within the series is the psychological aspect of the central trap, which is as concerned with mental torture as it is with compelling Adam and Dr. Gordon to hurriedly mutilate themselves. The sequels have preferred the more mechanically devious side of Jigsaw’s MO. Saw X takes a bite from both, proffering us wince-worthy mechanical gizmos but within a more psychologically interesting arena; both for the characters and for us. Wryly, most traps here require much more time to complete than John’s victims are allotted, mirroring their creator’s own intensified sense of mortality.

In what feels like a fairly unique move for the series, Saw X has its disparate challengers perform their Sophie’s Choice games in front of one another, one at a time. Previous (and technically future) participants are often either left by themselves or led through a maze to better learn Jigsaw’s lesson. Saw V is the closest to the arrangement offered here, but even there its (supposed to be) more of a collaborative effort. By giving each participant their moment with an audience all doomed to follow them, Saw X asks us to consider how we feel about our own voyeurism and mortality. Are we like Dr. Pederson, motivating/goading her cabal on? What outcome do we want? Might we be judged for our bloodlust? Next on the slab?

It’s quite a cunning way of placing the viewing inside Jigsaw’s arena and for the most part it works pretty well, and excuses the rather dawdling (but never uninteresting) set-up. There’s fan service along the way (John doodling future traps), and an interesting dynamic particularly for fledgling Jigsaw scholar Amanda, who finds herself sympathising with one of their potential victims, adding a sliver of tension to proceedings. We almost forget that the future’s already written.

The traps themselves aren’t anything particularly revolutionary, but they are fun, and after a long spell of mainstream horror favouring bumps in the night or highfaluting trauma metaphors, there’s something bracing about going back to the gory basics. Saw X is gloopy, wince-worthy and – thankfully – comically over the top. Backed by a particularly dark sense of humour, Saw X willfully encourages its viewers to writhe in their seats. Watching this with a crowd is recommended, for the stomach turns as much as the sicko belly-laughs. Watch out for the worst rope in the world.

Factoring in just how this one wiggles its way into the timeline is part of the pleasure AND pain for Saw fans (I begrudgingly count myself as one now, having found measures of enjoyment in even the most incompetent sequels on recent re-watches). Kramer was mad busy those few months. There’s also a spurious sense of revisionism at work here, as Saw X leans into the legacy love for John and Amanda and comes close to painting them as angelic vigilantes. There’s an effort to deify them here that’s much more pronounced than any prior entry.

That is perhaps to be expected at this point, nearly 20 years down the line. Jigsaw and Amanda (and Bell and Smith) have assured themselves places in the horror pantheon of great villains. Like unstoppable franchise forces Freddie, Michael or Jason before them, they’re loved by devotees, most of whom probably won’t think twice about the amendments to their legacies being presented here. I’m inclined to tilt with them. There have been far worse bastardisations of Jigsaw in the past (didn’t he trap someone for smoking once?).

In spite of some lollygagging along the way and a slightly underwhelming finale, this is better executed (put intended) than either of Greutert’s prior directorial efforts for the series, and there’s a strong case to be made that this is the best Saw since the first one. Keep those butts in seats come the end too, as there’s a mid-credits sting with a surprisingly welcome mystery guest.