Saw V review

 

What did you think of the trailer?

 

Donny:  I thought the trailer was pretty cool, but I love the marketing for all the Saw films.  Twisted Pictures has cornered the market on cool trailers and posters. 

 

Jon: Tell you the truth; even though I see a ton of films in the theater, I have only seen the teaser trailer. I’ve seen the internet ads and the one-sheet poster, but I’m kind of curious to see limited advertising for it (maybe it’s just my market). I love the tagline of “You won’t believe how it ends” and the poster is wicked cool with a man wearing Jigsaw’s face. Regardless, it’s almost Halloween and it’s time for Saw.

 

Are you a Jigsaw fan?

 

Jon: I thought the first film was okay, but after Saw II I started loving this franchise. I dug every plot twist and gore scene, Tobin Bell has planted him by creating a great horror villain as Jigsaw. While I got lukewarm on the franchise after a muddle Saw IV, I have seen each sequel many times.

 

After some weak attempts at horror franchises in the 1990s, the Saw films have reclaimed that glory status once held by Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and Friday the 13^th as the fun, infinite sequeled franchises. I think though being lumped in this “torture porn” subgenre has hurt it in some respects and that’s entirely unfair. I’ll see every sequel until they stop making them.

 

Donny:  Sure I’m a fan of Jigsaw, but what horror fan isn’t?  I agree with Jon, in that before Saw the horror genre didn’t have any worthy icons.  Then along comes Jigsaw and all of a sudden people cared about horror again.  As far as I’m concerned the Saw filmmakers are heroes.  They brought life back into the genre, opening the floodgates for horror in mainstream cinema.  Lots of crap came with the opening of these gates, but never the less horror was back in a big way. 

 

I thought the first film was clever, but the series really came into its own with Saw II.  The second entry in the series brought us not only more Jigsaw, but more advanced traps, and gore by the bucket load.  I’m with Jon, as long as they make Saw films I’ll be in the theatre watching them. 

 

What did you think of “Saw V”?

 

Donny:  I thought it was interesting how this installment in the series focused more on the back-story than the traps and gore.  Part of me missed the awesome traps of the previous films, as well as the gore, but I got caught up in the plot of this one big time after the thirty minute mark.  I loved seeing more of Jigsaw, but I didn’t really care about Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor).  I thought his character was flat, and never felt any compassion for him.  The traps were also pretty weak compared to the previous films, and the secondary characters were pretty weak as well.  In the previous films I connected with Jigsaws victims, I felt for them even though they had lived less than decent lives.  In Saw V I was happy to see the die, but disappointed in the quality of the methods used to kill them off.  The only character I connected with besides Jigsaw was Agent Strathm (Scott Patterson).  I enjoyed his attitude, and stubborn confidence, and found myself rooting for him. 

 

I know it sounds like I didn’t enjoy this flick, but I did.  I just didn’t enjoy it as much as the other ones.

 

Jon: Plain and simple if you liked the previous four, you should like this one. I agree with Donny that the other films had better traps, but that pendulum scene was wicked! I think where this one succeeds is in the story. I felt, as much as I loved the gore and traps, the fourth was a bit of a mess in terms of the plotting. It was too confusing and perhaps convoluted. But here I appreciated how it took the loose threads from III and IV, given us more crazy twists but also being a bit more cohesive. Hoffman is the main focus and although they try a little bit to make him compelling, he just is too cold and one-dimensional, especially in his scenes with Jigsaw (Tobin Bell). In fact, Bell is so good, even with his limited screen time he nearly steals the show.

 

Also, like Donny, I did dig Agent Strathm. He was perhaps one of the better characters since Amanda and ushered us into his world. He believes Jigsaw had an accomplice and fights for it to be uncovered. I cannot go further in talking about Hoffman and Strathm anymore, for fear of spoiling it, but the end is almost worth the hype.

 

The other secondary characters are forgettable and you are eager to see the traps get set loose to see how violently they will die. I dug most of the traps, unlike Donny, but he is sort of right: the traps in the previous films were way more inventive and just plain cooler. It probably is related to the fact that this franchise might be running out of gas in the department of originality. What Darren Lynn Bousman brought to the series in his three films (II, III, and IV), was an incredible sense of inventiveness and pain. His traps hurt. Remember the needle pit in Saw II? Exactly. But outside of the unoriginal traps, David Hackl does a good job transitioning from production designer to director. He gave the film a clear vision of what the story will be and executed it well. He never got carried away in the editing, or over-editing, and the cinematography was slick and dark but not too dark, unlike Saw IV which was damn near impossible to see what was going on.

 

All in all, Saw V for me delivered. We got a decent story, more Jigsaw, and an ending that will undoubtedly leave people talking (either for it or against it).

 

Do you want more Jigsaw after this?

 

Jon: While these films might be a bit out of gas, hell yeah I want more Saw! At least one more to finish IV and V’s plot points and give us one last hurrah of Jigsaw!

 

Donny:  Does a bear shit in the woods?  I’m a fan of the series, and even luke warm it’s better than a lot of the crap the hits the multiplex. 

 

Grade?

 

Donny: ***

Jon: ***

Rating: