Watched on Sunday November 19, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/carol-for-another-christmas/1/

An odd title to find while browsing the horror section of my local second hand store, 2003’s ‘Exorcism’ seemingly had the brief of ‘Can we make a horror film for the YA Christian crowd that’s scary, but doesnt stray *too* far into devil worship and the obscene?’

If that WAS the brief this film had, it’s succeeded tremendously, this film was rated ’12’ in the UK…and thats not a modern ’12’, thats a 2005 ’12’ (which incidentally was the same rating the first series of the revived ‘Doctor who’ scored when it came out on DVD)

Ever wondered what an ‘exorcist’ knock off would look like if it had a ’12’ rating and was produced to appeal to teen christians? Look no further.

The plot? a family begin to experience odd goings on at their home, paranormal events that they cant account for. The mother of the house has a brief spell in hospital, but before leaving a nurse corners her, reveals herself to be a demon and tells her that husband isnt going to be around for much longer.

The husband, while on the way to collect her from the hospital gets into an accident where he’s put into a coma. While in the coma it’s revealed that a coven of demons have been praying on him as he made a deal with them in the mid 70s asking for a successful and properous life which they granted. And nows the time to collect on the debt.

The fathers brother is a catholic priest who firmly believes we’re in the end of days, putting mass murderers and other unfortunate souls actions NOT down to a mental health crisis in the country…But an over running of demons who must be vanquished. Word reaches him that his brothers in a coma in the hospital and he rushes to his bedside, ALSO getting grabbed by the demon nurse who makes it clear he’s going to have his work cut out for him.

After some time in recovery the father returns home, but it quickly becomes apparent that he’s FAR from all there which leads his brother Father John to contact the church with the request to perform an exorcism.

While this is going on there are also two B-plots going on. The families daughter is attending a non catholic church where the preacher is giving a lecture on demonology and exorcisms, which causes friction between her and her catholic uncle.

Theres also a plot about a group of home invaders who, at the start of the film break into our main families house, only to be scared away when a literal angel busts out of a picture and scares the crap out of them. This then causes them to have strange encounters with demons fo their own.

Oh! and theres ANOTHER B-plot that creeps in around the second act as a pair of journalists get a tip off about the possessions and exorcisms going on in town and decide to investigate.

Non of that really matters though, as (mild spoilers, but trust me, you’ll thank me) The journalist plotline literally never gets resolved. they just…forget to close it. the last shot they’re in is them chatting about the previous night (where they visited a church to discuss exorcisms…but got brushed off) and nothing really comes of it.

The home invaders plotlines dont really get resolved or tied up either. One of the gang (named Dan) has a fractured relationship with his dad, in the opening of the film you see him arguing with his dad, who isnt happy that he’s lazy, has no aspirations and doesnt wanna hang out with his pop or do anything really…then later in the film Dan discovers faith, gets saved, returns home to tell his dad he’s turning over a new leaf…Only for his dad to be EVEN MORE angry, because now it means he wont drink or gamble with him…

That plot doesnt get resolved either, nor does Daniels character arc, Nor do ANY of the home invaders character arcs really. They’re last seen in an exorcism scene (thats not a spoiler, this film drops exorcisms like they’re going out of fashion) and then they basically dissapear without a trace.

The script for this thing is kind of awkward honestly, the B-plots leading to nothing is dissapointing, but the main plotlines kind of retreading old ground, a censored melting pot of ‘The Exorcist’, ‘The Evil Dead’ and ‘Night of the Demons’ theres nothing really new here explored. they just kind of take the generic demon/exorcism tropes remove all the gore, graphic imagery, nudity, and any kind of aggressive violence and add in a TON of faith indoctrination…

Expect bible verse titles to be quoted, without actually being said…meaning you have to look them up yourself to see what they’re referencing (which is another reason I believe this was made for a church audience, and not really for your average horror connisaur) Theres tons of religious debate…but not like…faith based debate, I mean; everyone in this movie agrees that gods and demons are real. Its just which *side* of that you sit on…with plenty of the movies runtime given over to debate on which side of christianity and catholicism is correct.

The pacings weird on this thing too, it opens quite strong at a good pace and tone, but slowly seems to lose its momentum across the runtime, really slowing down around the end of the 2nd act and rendering the 3rd act a total slog…which makes it all the more surprising that they didnt bother wrapping up large chunks of the plot, given they clearly had time for extended conversations between Father John and church on the ethicacies of doing an exorcism alone.

I’d say the tone is pretty consistent throughout, though it does dabble in more lighthearted moments here and there, it’s kind of ‘vanilla’ in it’s overall execution. I feel like the self imposed censorship here doesnt really do it any favours, and the dialogue at times borders on a sermon which…is not really how I wanna spend my horror movie.

The characters are all SUPER preachy…with anyone who DOESNT get super snobby and particular being relegated to background characters or supporting cast at best. There isnt really a lot of depth to them, theres little to no backstory beyond the fathers deal with the demons in the 70s, I think it really would have benefitted the film to give these characters a bit more complexity and depth than they ultimately ended up with. just…something that stops them being ‘generic religious character with strong moral compass’ maybe some tests of faith, or moments of doubt would have just helped give them a bit of a boost.

VERY surprisingly, the direction and cine for this thing is actually quite impressive. we have sharply honed vision executed to studio standard. While there are a few CGI moments that really havent aged too well, I honestly couldnt really knock this thing. for a low budget production it REALLY looks quite decent. I cant speak for continuity, but the practical effects look good, theres solid composition, the grade is nice, theres solid use of creative lighting in places, the sets are well dressed (mostly…the demons lair at the pit of hell is kinda poor…but I reckon they did those shots near the end when the budget was running low)

I think William A Baker had a clear vision for this and delivered it excellently. I just wish he’d developed this style a bit more, rather than pivoting into conspiracy theory-esq documentaries.

The performances are a little choppy, Our main cast come across as a little bit Am-Dram in places which wasnt ideal, theres a degree of woodness that lingers around this production with only Jack Donner and Tony Burton REALLY setting my socks on fire as polarised exorcists Father John and Bishop Harris. they really got into their roles, their performances came across as sincere and I was glad we spent most of the movie with those two as they’re easily the best performers in this thing.

Throw in a decent soundtrack and overall? I kinda liked this one…I cant say I outright LOVED it, but I could easily see myself pairing this movie up with something like David Heaveners ‘Dawn of the living dead’ as movies that were clearly christian audience motivated but have ended up in the wider horror distribution chain.

As for the movie itself? I think it’ll all come down to how much patience you have with christianity and censorship. If your okay with your horror films having a heavy YA Christian sermon vibe and next to no gore or violence…but a fun enough tone. You’ll probably be okay with this one.

If you get riled by the thought that ‘Five Nights at Freddys’ got a PG-13 rating when it ABSOLUTELY should have been an R at minimum…dont bother with this thing, its not your stomping ground.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/exorcism/

Caught the MST3K dub of this today and…at least with the ‘riffed’ version its a hoot! A little slow, but the jokes carry it over the finish line for me!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-black-scorpion/

So…Its taken 10 of these, but I think i’ve finally cracked what I like, and dont like, about the ‘Saw’ franchise. I like relatively self contained stories that dont end up bleeding heavily into 3 or 4 other films in such a way that you get an incomplete experience if you dont watch the lot. I like there to be a level of complexity with the characters, I like it when the victims/contestants of Johns traps manage to survive (even if its only for another round or two) and I like it when the actions of Jigsaw and his associates enter a kind of morally grey area where you DO start to wonder if what he’s doing may actually have some kind of ethical net positive.

‘Saw X’ is very much “my kind of “Saw” film”. Set in between the events of Saw 1 and 2 (and largely disregarding most of the stuff that happens from Saw 3 onwards) It follows Johns last roll of the dice, as he heads to mexico after hearing from a member of his cancer support group of an experimental therapy that supposedly has a 90% success rate, he arrives, pays a large sum of money for the treatment, but after the therapy he realises they havent done anything. he’s been swindled. Aaaand as you can probably guess, you dont wrong John Kramer without finding yourself strapped down and given the choice of losing one of your body parts, or losing your life.

I suppose what I like the most about ‘Saw X’ isnt what it does do, but rather what it omits. My biggest issue with most of the ‘Saw’ films past part 2 is they become SO bogged down in trying to retroactively backfill ‘Lore’ into the franchise that by the end of part 7, it began to feel like the world fell into 2 camps; those who worked for John Kramer, and those who fall victim to John Kramer.

This film bins off almost everything, its a ‘one off’ story that manages to feel seamlessly part of the ‘Saw’ universe, without being bogged down by it. Its here to just tell an interesting story (because we ALL know how this things going to end) and so the emphisis moves away from ‘What big reveal are we going to have in this one?’ and instead becomes ‘How good is this journey going to be and will I feel satisfied by the resolution?

Well; the script is 2 hours, but it REALLY doesnt feel it, When I can confidently say that ‘Spiral’ felt significantly longer than this Im really not exaggerating. This is a breezy 2 hours that starts off a little on the slow side, but just gets quicker and quicker in pacing as things develop until, by the end of the 3rd act we’re positively at fever pitch.

Probably the thing I enjoyed the most about this script is that, for the first time in about 7 movies, John Kramer ACTUALLY has solid motivation against the people who have wronged him. In a series thats seen people get their skin ripped off for being a bit racist, someone risk being hung by barbed wire because she works for a crappy insurance salesman, or having your mouth sown shut and risked being fed into a set of steel blades (while having to fight of a huge blinded guy with a shovel) because you happened to be a slightly skeezy lawyer…This feels like ACTUAL cause to have a movie, ACTUAL drive to make the audience care about the vengence…

Theres plenty of twists and turns that, while not entirely unexpected, did surprise in places. The tone is pretty solid and I actually really enjoyed that this entry really moved away from just being about the victims. here theres a lot more emotional complexity on display (especially in the back end of the film) As we really get to dig deep into John and Amandas relationship, Johns thought processes around why he does what he does, and I found his interactions with his victims to be really quite refreshing after 6 or so films where he’s largely in a pre-recorded format (if he’s there at all)

I thought the characters all had a bit of a deeper range to work with than the last few films, and I liked how the state of play worked out across the runtime. Not to mention the fact that this is a pretty closed circuit movie, you could realistically watch it on its own merits. you dont *necessarily* need to have seen any of the other ‘Saw’ films. As the script here borrows more heavily from the ‘Exploitation’, ‘extremist’ and ‘revenge’ subgenres than the other entries. This could easily be viewed on its own as a pretty solid ‘guy gets vengence on those that wronged him’ flick. Its a neat, slight pivot on the franchise which I really quite appreciated.

In fact, the only niggle I really had was the very VERY end of this thing. it kind of just stops with a couple of loose threads still to go, and while im fine with them leaving some loose strands here and there, it did somewhat dampen things when certain plot threads that were VERY important to the story were quite literally just abandoned…unlikely to ever really get resolution.

The direction here is superb, it feels fresh, it looks fresh, but theres still the telltale stylistic choices that help really keep this thing in line with the rest of the franchise to date. I feel like they really managed to get the best out of the cast and crew and this is probably my favourite looking film of the franchise.

Same goes for the cine, there some subtle grading nods to the original films, which is a nice way to help keep things tied together, but otherwise this really looks nice, it’s grimey grotty and wincingly realistic in places, the traps are interesting and really well captured, the editing is tight (even for 2 hours) keeps a slow build but solid rhythm theres plenty of experimentation and B-roll to hand to help keep this looking nice, the composition is equally fresh and really feels like a series thats matured and grown over it’s days of just slowly hacking down 10 people with no rhyme or reason.

The performances here are superb! easily some of the best of the franchise and easily some of the most rewarding. This is a huge character piece for Tobin Bell, who’s forever been rustling around in the background of these films or only seen in flashback. Here? he’s front and center for the whole production and he’s FABULOUS. giving a solidly ranged performance while carrying that pain of a terminal illness with total believability. His words feel solid, his movements perfect for this kind of role, I think it’s probably the performance of his career quite honestly.

Not to be outshone however, Shawnee Smith is superb here as Amanda, getting the range she really deserved but was denied across the first 3 ‘Saw’ films, we get to see a deeper range and subtlety with her character that I feel really helps round her out nicely, its just a shame she’s stuck with arguably the WORST haircut ever put to film due to this taking place between ‘Saw 1 and 2’ Synnøve Macody Lund as Cecelia Pederson is one of my favourite antagonists for this franchise, a truely malicious performance thats maybe a tad stereotypical. But ultimately such a delight to sit through.

In fact, I dont really think theres a bad performance here at all, theres maybe a couple that stray a *little* far into hammy terratory…but hey, Im all for a bit of ham here and there.

All in all? barring VERY minor flaws here and there, I think ‘Saw X’ is probably the strongest entry in the series, it’d certainly be the film I show people if they were curious about the franchise and wanted to go a bit deeper than the first couple.

I usually consider a film a success if I could see myself watching it again, I absolutely could see myself watching this again. If you felt the ‘Saw’ series got a bit repetative after part 2, skip to this and I dont think you’ll have many problems.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/saw-x/

In many ways, im glad I’ve seen ‘Spiral’ at this point in my life, as having now seen it, i’ll be able to write this Letterboxd review, store it away and then NEVER watch it again. This review acting as a reminder to myself whenever I get morbidly curious to not even BEGIN to consider hitting play on this.

So ‘Jigsaw’ got panned by critics in 2017 for its attempt to soft reboot the franchise (which…I still dont entirely understand, it’s basically all the best bits of ‘Saw 2-7’ mashed together into one self contained feature rather than watered down and spread out over 6 movies…unoriginal? definitely. bad? absolutely not.)

So, the soft reboot plans got shelved and 4 years later, we have ‘Spiral’ another stab at soft rebooting the series and a film that takes place in the ‘Saw’ universe, but approaches the usual formulaic approach differently.

Set in the modern day of 2021 ‘Spiral’ picks up with members of a local police department slowly dissapearing and winding up dead by circumstances eerily similar to the ‘Jigsaw’ killings almost 20 years prior. It turns out that ‘Jigsaw’ is back on the scene (now wearing a pig mask exclusively…little to no Billy this time) and is picking off corrupt cops with the aim of trying to ‘purify’ the law enforcement.

Chris Rock plays Detective Zeke Banks, a morally questionable cop who’s managed to coast in the force for years because his father (played by Samuel L Jackson) was the chief inspector of the force.

When an incident happens that puts Banks in the firing line for incompitency, he’s buddied up with a partner, but the pair seem to have drawn the attention of ‘Jigsaw’ who now wants to play a game with them…

This films dull. I’ll give it credit in as far as it *does* try to do things a little bit differently to the previous entries (the emphisis here is less on the people trying to get out of the traps, and more on the police trying to track down whoever it is who’s doing the killings.) But while they do try and shake things up in some areas, there are others where they really dont do enough to break from the usual motions and the results are a ULTRA boring film that feels like more padding than actual story telling.

For a starters, the ‘Saw’ films are known for starting as psychological horror thrillers that emphisied gore, then later dropped the psychological element as it slowly drifted further and further into the gory slasher subgenre with just a hint of a thriller buried under the surface.

‘Spiral’ is just a straight cop thriller that occasionally remembers it is a ‘Saw’ influenced film and randomly drops in some of THE worst traps in the entire franchises run to date. The pacing is slow, lumbering and boing to the point that it becomes hard to remember exactly whats supposed to be happening in this thing, because all the scenes feel the same. Its just 93 minutes of info dumping this new universes lore…lore thats filled with padding meaning you dont really know what information is worth retaining for the ‘clever’ end twist reveal and what stuff is just aimless chatter used to pad out the runtime.

They tweak the tone slightly here (at least in the first half) to introduce more sarcastic and dry comedy. But this then knocks the film off kilter as the second half ramps up and the slight comedy angle is ditched all together in favour of just going full on into the gritty cop drama angle.

The characters just arnt interesting or engaging. they do bother to give them some history and complexity. But non of the characters feel like they have any degree of uniqueness to them. Only made worse by the dialogue which is literally 90% stereotypical anti hero/dirty cop quotes.

There isnt really any kind of warm up or down here, so the act structuring all kind of homodgonizes together. around the mid point of the movie it does suddenly get a *bit* of a pep, but nowhere near enough to carry this thing to the end credits. they dont really signal act changes. It just feels like one long drudge of a script thats here to read you a lore bible and then hope the sequel lets it actually DO something with it…which…had they stopped to check the quality of the movie they were making, they’d know a sequel was DEFINITELY not on the cards.

The direction is more or less the standard of studio quality. It isnt trying anything new, it feels like a film made by a director who’s phoning it in for the money. it has no creative flare or zeal, no heart, no passion behind the lens. its documenting a movie. Not engaging us with a movie.

The cine’s also flat, to standard and thats about it, compositions okay, but unremarkable. the edit is pretty dire with long, slow paced sequences broken up with seizure inducing edits and most annoyingly of all, for some reason the block colour correcting style of ‘Saws 3-6’ is back again and just as annoying as I remembered it being.

The performances are almost all phoned in. This is a film starring Chris Rock and Samuel L Jackson as a father/son cop duo trying to hunt down the Jigsaw killer, it could have been great. But they both look so tired and done with this movie before it even really gets started. its a paycheque for them. A driveway. thats it. The supporting cast are equally as bad, theres the odd glimpse of genuine sincerity in the performances here and there, generally from the folks for whome, this is there biggest break and they want to impress…But its few and far between and broadly speaking, they just get through the script as dryly as possible and hope the next gigs more valuable.

If I was speculating, ‘Spiral’ to me feels like a movie that only exists to retain an IP license or for some kind of tax reason. I cant in good faith think for a moment that someone looked at the ‘Saw’ franchise, looked at the script for this and went ‘THATS WHAT THE PUBLICS HUNGRY FOR!’ I’d honestly believe that someone submitted a Cop drama to the studio and was told the only way it’d get made is if it was a ‘Saw’ movie.

What we have here is a 93 minute movie that feels about double the length of that, thats totally drab on almost every level. When they made ‘Jigsaw’ it was a gamble as to whether the tweaks to tone and story would work or not. I dont think the critics of the time knew how lucky they were, because ‘Spiral’ is what happenes when you try to make a ‘Saw’ movie that shakes things up a bit and it goes wrong. A poor movie that im glad I never have to watch again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/spiral-from-the-book-of-saw/

At this point 8 entries into the ‘Saw’ franchise Im pretty much convinced that the world that exists in this universe is basically made up of ‘People who end up in traps built by John Kramer’ and ‘People who work for John Kramer’ and thats about it.

‘Jigsaw’ see’s us FINALLY after 7 movies set across a 6-8 month window in 2004, jump ahead in time to *approx* 2014/2015. The baggage is dropped, Hoffman? Amanda? Dr. Gordon!? Who!? yeh forget about them, they’re gone. and like opening a window, the fresh air of a new plotline smells so much sweeter as it clears away the stench of a fart ridden and musty room of a plot that had more than outstayed its welcome.

A clean break, its 2014/15, John Kramer, Jigsaw and all that other stuff is a distant memory, nothings happened for 10 years and the world is starting to move on…Only suddenly a man appears on a rooftop of a building, holding a detinator and ranting that 5 people will die unless he makes an urgent decision. Holding a detinator, he clicks the trigger and sets in motion a new game. With 5 unlucky participants who all have sins to confess. The cops are put back out on the trail to find the ‘Jigsaw’ killer, but with John Kramer having died 10 years prior, who is commiting the killings? It couldnt possibly be John…or could it!?

And, honestly, this isnt a ‘good’ movie, but I enjoyed it. Its the cinematic equivilent of a dirty DIRTY hamburger and fries. Its not good for me. but after having sat through 7 movies that felt like unseasoned fries, to get a bit of flavour here was very satisfying.

The script isnt *that* different from previous ‘Saw’ films, but by finally severing itself from the previous entries, it allows the story to grow and develop in its own way that feels natural to this universe, while also not straying *too* far as to become alien.

It’s a zippy 92 minute production that has enough going on to keep the brain ticking over, but not so much that it becomes confusing. The traps are relatively well made and executed well, though some of the ‘twists’ around how the trap should have REALLY been done, vs. How our survivors tried to solve them were a little bit farfetched.

Equally; the pool of victims ‘Jigsaw’ pulled from this time around was a little shallow, an example being ‘someone stole a purse that only had $3.15 in cash in it, but stealing the purse led to the lady it was stole from having a heart attack’…it really isnt worth the death she had here…

I like that this leans *slightly* into humourous terratory, not so much that i’d class it as anywhere near comedy. But just enough to add a little contrast to the utter bleakness of these movies. It was a field that Saw 6 and 7 dabbled a little bit in, but here I feel they get the tonal mix just about right.

The characters are a bit problematic for me, they’re kind of ‘one note’ across the runtime, and pretty much always pick the absolute worst options when it comes to trying to solve the puzzles or trying to save their cohorts. I can forgive a little short sightedness when faces with a stress inducing situation, I cant forgive character who’ll willingly throw themselves into a meat pulverizer while screaming ‘I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO!?!’

I enjoyed the twists and turns in this one, and while the final resolution was a *bit* of a stretch and in many ways was actually kind of annoying. The journey to get to that point was entertaining, engaging and most importantly, fun. How much value this story will have on a rewatch? I cant honestly say. Probably not a lot for me personally as, once a mysteries been solved, you kind of get 1 more rewatch to see all the elements you missed the first time, and then after that…well, you know everything that happens.

Time has been kind to the franchise with this one, the 7 year gap between ‘Saw 3D’ and this film has led to a new take on the direction, we have a very nicely put together studio flick that has decent lighting (no overly dark shots with block colour correction to be found here!) solid blocking and clear communication to the cast and crew about what was required.

If I had to be nitpicky, i’d argue that some of the CGI (particularly the fake blood) is pretty poor quality and left a lot to be desired. But; with that being said, I dont know whether to lay that down at the feet of the producers, the directors, the editors, or all of the above. I feel had they stuck with practical blood and gore effects, this probably would have looked a lot better.

The cine here is delightful. For the most part we ACTUALLY have a ‘Saw’ film that isnt afraid of using colour! and the curse of having to block colour correct all your footage to ‘Urine yellow’ or ‘electric blue’ because your entire film is based around the events of 2 movies 10 years ago that had a strong aestethic is lifted! Here? we have rich sumptuous colours reds, greens, oranges and blues all nicely saturated and working effectively!

There are a couple of scenes later on in the movie that do slide back into that ‘yellowey’/’orangey’ block colouration, but at least here, they bother to do specific grading rather than block grading (meaning the backgrounds get a solid dose of yellow/orange/Blue, but the foreground stuff gets a seperate grade to help them really stand out)

Composition is really solid here, If I had to complain though, there are moments where a bit more B-roll would have been nicer to help break up the flow of the sequences a bit more. but on the whole, this is just kind of a nicely shot, but not astounding body of work that does what it needs to do and then moves on.

The edit is also something im quite happy about, sequences have great timing, are paced well and largely only take up the time they need. they’ve massively reduced the number of seizure inducing flash edits that used to strike through these movies whenever a trap started. The only grumble I have really is a mild one, and that’s that some of the trap sequences get a little messy on arrangement. I think they were trying to make things feel intense, but at least a couple of times I was actually left just thinking ‘what am I supposed to be looking at?’

I cant really talk about the performances in detail because…Spoilers. But what I will say is our cast are pretty rock solid, they have great physicality and animation, they use the set space and props well, and in the 3rd act when some of the bigger twists happen it just keeps getting better quite honestly!

I also kind of dug the soundtrack here, its a bit different from previous entries, but does feel similar enough to not *completely* change the tone of things. It only added to the freshness of it all.

Honestly? ‘Jigsaw’ isnt perfect. If your really into the ‘Saw’ films you’ll probably be annoyed at the fact that the plot holes from the last movie (And other movies)have been completely airlocked. If your into your suspense thrillers, you’ll probably be SUPER annoyed by the ending of this film. And if you were really getting into the more ‘Slasher’ heavy vibes that the last couple of films were dabbling with, you’ll be annoyed they’ve reigned that back in.

But personally? Non of the above mattered that much to me. ‘Jigsaw’ is probably the first film since Part 2 that I could pretty reasonably see myself putting on again as part of a Halloween marathon, or just if I wanted ‘Saw’ vibes. It’s ‘clean break’ attitude means I dont have to remember 7 films worth of lore and deleted scenes to just spend 92 minutes watching a dozen or so people get brutally gored to death.

It has a flawed, but nontheless entertaining script, decent direction and cine, the cast are fun to be around, it sounds solid. I dont have any issue with ‘Jigsaw’ honestly. I’d say if you’ve seen the first few ‘Saw’ movies but kind of got fed up with them feeling ‘Samey’ to maybe give this one a go. i’d say if you were coming into the ‘Saw’ franchise with fresh eyes, watch 1 and 2, then jump to this one.

Let me put it this way, outside of ‘Saw 2’ this is the first one i’ve watched where i’ve googled how much the bluray is while the credits rolled. So it must have been doing something right.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/jigsaw-2017/

And so we reach ‘Saw 3D’ (also known as ‘Saw 7’, Also known as ‘Saw: The Final Chapter’) And a ‘thrilling’ closer to the ‘Saw’ franchise that ties EVERYTHING off, leaving no loose threads and does so in such a way thats a delight to audiences who must have left the theaters feeling fulfilled and Satisfy-Im just kidding. This things a hot mess.

The plot picks up where the last film ended, Hoffmans still on the run, Jill has decided to go into police protection and is willing to dish the dirt on all of Hoffmans antics and a new game begins! This one involving a self help guru who’s in the process of selling his latest book where he talks about how he ‘Survived Jigsaw’ and used the experience to better himself as a person. This goes as far as a scene in which survivors of Jigsaws traps are brought together as a support group (with several cameos from the last few ‘Saw’ films) to discuss what happened after they survived the traps.

Its all well and good, except for one problem. The Guru has NEVER been trapped by Jigsaw. Its all a hoax…until now. He’s captured and set a 60 minute multi trap challenge involving his publicist, motivator, wife and others with his own trap challenges along the way. With plenty of twists and turns to keep things going!

And this really is just quite a poor way to bow out the franchise really. The only solidly good thing I can say about it is the traps are actually really solid in this one, they’re interesting to see unfold and that the script does have moments of genuine interest.

But for all intents and purposes, the germination of ‘Saws’ transition from a psychological horror thriller series into just a gory slasher series is complete with this one. Gore and violence is held WAY above any kind of narrative strands, the MASSIVE plot twists and reveals from the first 2 or 3 ‘Saw’ movies are a thing of the past, as the film not ONLY continues its deviation from the original rules of the first film by just, straight up murdering innocent people as part collateral for the guilty persons crimes. But it also forgets that, for the audience, ‘Saw’ puzzles are only entertaining if theres a chance some of them *could* survive.

This film is part of the problem thats been developing now for about 2-3 of these films. By basically killing everyone, you set the expectation of ANYONE surviving these things to zero…Which damages the scripting across the board. It means you dont get invested in any characters because you know they wont make it to the end, its just a question of how soon they’ll exit. But it also damages the film in the sense that, by not having survivors, you consistently make this a lone character piece. When some of the most interesting moments from past ‘Saw’ films have been when characters have been able to group up after surviving their traps and use their mixed skills to try and work out alternatives to the existing puzzles.

As such, because of how they’ve made this thing, it all becomes incredibly predictable very VERY quickly. With any plot twists that DID turn up being either pre guessed…or worse, totally stupid. With one particularly BIG reveal in the 3rd act (which I wont mention here) that basically RE-retcons the ENTIRE franchise inserting ANOTHER character into proceedings who we’ve not seen or heard from AT ANY POINT up until this one. Which made me audibly groan.

The scripts kind of dull ultimately, its your standard A-plot with the cops, B-plot with the guru solving puzzles. But its all slow burn on the A-plot, and its a slow burn to nothing ultimately, with the B-plot being the more interesting of the two, but also being repetative, silly and at times downright awful.

The pacing is slower than usual, but just about manages to keep up, the tone is a little wonky here too, theres a couple of more comedy driven moments…Im not entirely convinced if they *were* supposed to be comedy moments…But they didnt work for me.

Our characters are seriously under-developed too, they basically jettison half of the loose threads from the end of ‘Saw 6’ with a gloss over pre-titles sequence that annoyed me.

Its a bad script in my opinion, a good idea. just…REALLY badly executed…and if, as they imply here, they were considering ending (or at least long pausing) the franchise here with THIS!? then it only makes the dissapointment even greater.

The direction and cine are fine. its continuing to build on the style and pacing from the previous entries, this one has a bit more of a nuance on the colour grade, which I was happy with. But otherwise, its a reletively solid work for the most part, its compositionally well handled, well blocked, the sequences are well constructed (though the heavy emphisis on the ‘3D’ elements and total lack of creative editing as seen in the last 2-3 movies is a bit of a letdown) I continue to appreciate that they save their flashback/retroactive revisions for clustered specific portions of the movie, rather than making it feel like this is just the deleted scenes of ‘Saw’ 3-6 cut together with 10 minutes of new footage.

I dont think however that this looks or feels any better than ‘Saw’ 5 or 6 and if anything it kind of feels basic comparatively. Same with the scoring, same with the performances…Like…they arnt *bad*, they just arnt great and they certainly arnt anything better than whats come before.

I dunno, I kind of liked the vibe this one gave off, I could see myself putting it on again at some point, but I dont think I could really recommend it. Its a good idea executed badly and a really poor way to round of what, at best, up to this point has been a middling to poor franchise.

‘Saw’ a franchise with good ideas, and terrible decisions.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/saw-3d/

Continuing on directly from ‘Saw 5’, ‘Saw 6’ Is *SO* close to hitting the heady highs that ‘Saw 2’ offered…it’s frankly Tantilizingly close. But it *just* cant quite hit that mark.

The plot? Hoffmans past is starting to catch up with him as the police are hot the trail for leads on Jigsaw, and come to the conclusion that multiple killers may in fact be involved.

While trying to shake them off, he sets in motion Johns REAL final test, putting a life insurance salesman through a 60 minute gauntlet of trials with life or death consiquences.

Jill Tuck appears back on the scene again, now armed with a mysterious box that was given to her as part of Johns last will and testimony. Whats in the box? you’ll have to check the film to see.

And honestly, theres not a whole lot here to say. We basically just have marginal refinements to ‘Saw 5’ The script feels like a natural sequel to ‘Saw 5’ with very little (if any) retroactive revisions. It feels like they had a game plan with this one and saw it through to completion. And that really does show with this one.

The plot feels like a natural sequel, the pacings fantastic its a zippy 90 minutes long, has a great tone once again and a lot of the cons I had in the previous film have either been fixed or at the very least reduced. My biggest issues in the last film were stupid and unlikeable characters, weak trap designs and an over-reliance on retroactive revisions to the narrative.

Here? the characters are still a little dumb and assholeish. But they at least TRY to make them have redeemable qualities for the most part, they TRY to give them a bit more depth beyond ‘they’re a bad person and they’re stupid’. The traps are more intricate and have a lot more weight in gains and losses. And all the ‘revisionist’ stuff in this one are to events that pretty much happened WELL before the Jigsaw killings even began. it just adds an extra layer to John Kramers ‘Falling down’ narrative of becoming a killer. With the only bit of revision that DID call back to earlier ‘Saw’ films being a light passing reference from ‘Saw 3’ that was kind of inconsiquetial, and a callback to ‘Saw 5’ more as a reminder than an act of revisionism.

Because they’re working out of the boundaries and shadows of the older films, this one felt a lot nicer honestly, the direction and cine felt somewhat refreshed, it’s nice to have colour in these movies that isnt ‘urine yellow’ or ‘cool blue’ While the editing and cine have cooled down a bit from ‘Saw 4 & 5’s ‘ experiements in editing and composition, this is a pretty decent looking movie.

The performances are a little cringey in places, but its mainly the supporting cast at fault, with our core cast giving a reletively solid performance all things considered.

Theres really not much more to say, I enjoyed ‘Saw 5’ but it had faults, this film took the momentum built up in 5 and tried to correct the faults.

The only thing it loses a little on is the weaker elements of the supporting cast, the ending (after all the chaos this film has) is a little underwhelming, The deaths are now starting to become a little bit aimless and needlessly cruel (Here are two innocent people, one has a family and diabetes, the other has noone but is healthy and young. You need to kill one of them)…I suppose an arguement could be made that these are now warped interpretations of Johns plans. But the message is now kind of shifting from ‘we dont murder people’ to ‘We dont murder people, but if innocent people get killed during our ‘traps’ then it’s considered necessary collateral…which seems to fly in the face of the original message of these films. Oh! and theres a couple of stereotypical horror tropes that get leaned on a little heavy here for my taste.

But all in all? this is probably the best ‘Saw’ film i’ve seen since ‘Saw 2’ I cant recommend it because you pretty much need to watch ‘Saws’ 1-5 to get an idea of what the hell is going on in this one. But if you got a little dissilusioned with the franchise after parts 3 and 4, it may be worth checking out 5 and 6 honestly. I wont say they’re amazing cinematic masterpieces. But they’re intersting and engaging in a ‘Made for TV Movie’ kind of way

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/saw-vi/

This review may contain spoilers.

Another day, another ‘Saw’ Film. And by this point, 5 installments in, I kind of figure that I know the score by now…But! this film did at least go some way to shaking things up a little bit! So thats a plus.

So; ‘Saw 5’ follows ‘Hoffman’ the guy revealed to be the 2nd protoge of ‘Jigsaw’, he survived the last movie; but it posthumously doing Jigsaws ‘Final Game’ by kidnapping 5 people who are all connected by having privilage and setting them a series of challenges centered around either working together to maximise their survival rates, or going it alone and seeing the carnage unfold.

While this goes on, FBI Agent Peter Strahm (who’s nearly killed by one of Hoffmans traps in the opening of the film) is running the B-plot, convinced that ‘Hoffman’ has some connection to Jigsaw thats beyond his professional means, he spends the movie defying his boss in order to try and find a connection between Hoffman and Jigsaw…with the revelations being far closer than he could have feared.

The problem I have with this one is pretty much the same issues that I’ve had with the previous films. This in many ways is very much the same tone, style and vibe of ‘Saws 3 & 4’ So rather than going through every aspect of the film and thoroughly exhausting the term ‘Its the same as ‘Saw 4′ buuuut…’ Im just gonna give a quick hitlist here:

Pros:
– The script here is actually quite a bit more solid than the last two films. This one, I feel could actually be viewed as a movie in its own right, It has good pacing, a solid tone, it develops its characters and didnt feel like an ‘extras’ package that had been salvaged into it’s own movie.

– The direction is a lot better than the previous entry, the style continues to develop and evolve which is nice and its really starting to shed that unplesent ‘washed out’ look that early 2000’s cinema was plagued with at the time

– The cine is much more subdued here and I am HERE for that. most of the overly aggressive fast cut editing is either gone or toned down, sequences ACTUALLY take their time to create a sense of tension rather than just being gnarley for the sake of it. theres plenty of B-roll on offer, this is probably my favourite of the series so far based purely on the visual elements….at minimum it’s tied with ‘Saw 2’

Cons:
– Every character in this film is deeply unlikeable and VERY stupid. I appreciate that some of the best films ever made have had unlikeable and stupid characters…But this isnt one of them, I wouldnt trust these guys to pour milk on my cornflakes without killing 3 people in the process.

-A lot of the traps have really simple solutions that were instantanious to my mind…but these guys literally do the stupidest possible answers every time, which is frustrating…My own personal hangup being the final test of one of the chambers, where our characters have to give 10 pints of blood in order to exit the room (5 pints each), they consider going back into the previous room which has a dead woman and a bath full of water in it…and they consider puttin the bath water in there. Which they’re told wont work because the trap has to be switched on by a human limb touching the ‘start’ switch inside the machine…THEY LITERALLY HAVE A DEAD BODY FULL OF BLOOD IN THE OTHER ROOM. USE THAT.

– They do that AWFUL goddamn thing AGAIN where they trapse back through all the ‘Saw’ movies up to this point and retroactively insert new characters and plot twists from slightly different angles to reveal a DEEPER meaning…They do that with Hoffman here, by indicating that he’s basically been around since before the first ‘Saw’ film and he’s had major involvement in every movie up to this point…we just havent seen him. Its lazy, horrendously misleading to the audience and makes me lose investment in these films FAST.

-One of the trappings of this film series is that because all the events from these films take place in a 6 month window in 2004. the styalisation has to maintain some level of consistency because of the aforementioned ‘trapsing back through the ‘saw’ movies’ thing. The problem is, that grungy ‘piss yellow’ aesthetic is ancient by this point in time. But they cant advance it much without making the matchup shots look really weird by comparason. Forcing the film to become trapped in a creative box of its own design.

The performances and scoring havent really changed much over the last 3 films…they’re not great. but they’re about passable, theres no real standout performances in this one either, which is a real shame. Im really not happy with the methodology of this film series honestly, the ‘Oh? theres a plot hole? ahh, we’ll fix it in the A-plot of the next movie by just…creating a character who was seemingly there all along but noone ever saw’ isnt creative influencing, its bad writing…Its bad writing with a ‘Save it now, fix it later’ approach.

With an ending that just about manages to not be terrible. ‘Saw 5’ is FAR from being a ‘good’ movie, but given whats come before it, I think this is probably my second favourite just behing Part 2.

I dont *think* you’d really need to have seen all the ‘Saw’ movies before this one to get it, honestly; you could probably jump to this one straight from ‘Part 2’…but if you were going to check out some of the ‘Saw’ films. This one would be in my Recs.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/saw-v/

This review may contain spoilers.

It’s rare these days that I have to spoiler tag my reviews, mainly because I try not to get *too* deep into the plot when I talk about why a film works or doesnt work, because I believe that part of the enjoyment of the art of film is the timing in which it reveals itself to the audience.

However; with ‘Saw 4’ I kind of HAVE to dive into spoilers because it forms a big basis as to why I dissapointed by it…

The plot? ‘Saw 4’ opens a short time after the events of ‘Saw 3’ and we find Jigsaw in the morgue being Autopsied. cue gratuitous gore sequence in which its revealed that in his closing moments, Jigsaw recorded a final tape, sealed it in wax and ate it. they find it in tact in his stomach. At which point (unbeknownst to the audience until the 3rd act which isnt clever non linear storytelling…it’s bollocks in its own right…) we then flash back in time to the beginning of ‘Saw 3’ and specifically the rib cage death as the cops find the corpse still fairly fresh (and rat infested)

The main drive of the film follows a cop named ‘Riggs’ as he is set a series of traps by Jigsaw. the mission is simple. Riggs is given 90 minutes to locate 2 of the cops who dissapeared in previous ‘Saw’ movies before their traps kill them. But he’s told not to intervene or attempt to rescue them, as they need to solve the puzzles by themselves. He’s then given a clue that will lead to their locations.

This sets Riggs on a journey across the city, where he’s put into several ‘tests’ with known felons and asked to basically either put them in one of Jigsaw’s traps, or to not help them and let them figure out how to escape, or die trying.

Riggs being a good cop generally tries to do everything in his power to save these people, while also following Jigsaws rules. garnering mixed results.

While this is going on, two detectives are on the hunt for Jigsaws secret hideout and bring his ex-wife in for questioning, which is basically just an excuse to give a massive ‘lore’ dump about ‘pre psycho’ Jigsaw and it’s the way the cops find Jigsaws hideout in the final act.

Speaking of which, the final act finds Riggs and the detective looking for Jigsaw breaking into Jigsaws hideout, at which point it reveals that we’re actually now synched up to the end of ‘Saw 3’ with the husband looking for his wife and the drama between Jigsaw and Amanda unfolding, but this time from different angles.

Riggs finds the cops with 1 second to spare, but in opening the door to where they’re held, it instantly triggers a trap that kills them both and in the chaos, Riggs kills another person, Jigsaws former lawyer, who’s been put in the room and told to overlook the cops for the full 90 minutes, at which point he can release everyone and they can all leave.

Riggs kills the lawyer in a panic and it’s revealed that theres actually a THIRD accomplice to Jigsaw, and its ONE OF THE COPS WHO WAS KIDNAPPED!?!

This rogue cop gets up, locks Riggs in the room while he bleeds out, traps the other detective who came to find riggs in a cold store with Jigsaw and Amandas corpses and then heads out. Fin.

NOW. While I will say that I appreciate that the script DOES have a more structured format here (it doesnt feel like ‘Saw 3’ which basically felt like someone wrapped all the deleted material they could get their hands on from ‘Saws 1 &2’ around a 40 minute movie that had been padded out to an hour. It brings with it significant problems of its own that did annoy me.

On the positives, at 93 minutes, this thing does have solid act structuring, the tones now pretty much perfected, the characters have a fair bit more depth than previous entries and I feel once again like this thing *does* have some entertaining moments dotted throughout the runtime.

However, I have to admit, I found AT LEAST the first hour of this thing deathly dull. It doesnt really pick up till the closing 10 minutes, The characters, while more complex and slightly better written just…dont have nearly enough charisma or personality draw to really win me over…and probably the thing I took the most issue with. Its a 90 minute film that seemingly exists to retroactively fix 1 plot hole.

Seemingly, this whole movie just exists to explain how some of the more manual labour roles in Jigsaws traps happened. 93 minutes of the audiences time, play by play going back through the last movie and for what? a few scenes of ‘pre jigsaw era jigsaw’ that, if anything; in my opinion lessens the impact of john Kramers character, all building to the reveal that this whole thing happened as the B-plot to ‘Saw 3’ and that now theres another guy (who has ZERO hints at even existing in the previous 2 movies) who’s running around killing people.

It felt to me like some kind of ‘Star wars special edition’ bullcrap where they go back into a pre-existing plot and digitally insert a new character with no previous references just appease some continuity errors the fans have drawn up. it was lame that the whole film just builds to that, and even lamer that the majority of the main plot seemingly is undercut just to make that the main point of reason.

Equally; I wasnt particularly happy with the way the writers have started to warp Jigsaws sense of morality in this. actual honest and good people die in this thing for almost no reason at all and what reasons are dredged up feel petty and weird. Did Johns lawyer really have to die? no not really…did the wife who was being abused by her husband have to put up with being impaled in order to teach her a lesson? I dont thinks so…

And its a real shame that the script is so dissapoint in my opinion because outside of the story its trying to tell, the film on the whole is actually pretty decent visually.

The direction is arguably some of the best seen in the series so far, with genuinely interesting styalizations, of note being the utterly fantastic transition edits they use in this film, such as a woman being thrown through a window in an apartment that seamlessly transitions into a door being opened into a police office. That was genuinely some of the most interesting editing i’ve seen in a contemporary horror film of this time, and they do a few little moments like that which are just wonderful.

Lighting camera and cast are all performing the best the can, theres a real synergy present here and I feel like this is a film where, on a technical level they really finally nailed everything they wanted to do with these kind of movies. While they still do lean a little *too* heavily on post production colour correction to help create a sense of styalization, at least the ‘piss’ filters been taken off for most of this film and instead we end up with some kind of combination of grimey toxic green and grimey blue. Though, in fairness to them, they are now once again beginning to try and styalise more with in camera visuals, which were greatly recieved.

The cine is sharp here, solid compositional choices, decently coloured, well blocked and impactful. Johns Autopsy scene at the beginning is gruesome, but the use of B-roll and solid editing really helps push it WELL past anything a lot of the film industry would dare approach for the time.

This is easily the best edited of the franchise so far, it breaths near perfectly, theres the amazing transition work dotted throughout, they minimise that weird rapid smash cut editing thing once again to just the traps (which I was very appreciative of) and the whole thing hangs together really well. Though, as an aside; I will say that the traps in this entry are quite underwhelming, a lot of them are ultra basic compared to whats come before it and most of them are over in a minute or two. I was always more of a fan of the longer drawn out traps that slowly get gruesome rather than the ‘you have 1 minute and then your legs are being ripped off’ type.

On the performance front, while I cant say there are any utterly astounding perfomances from the new cast members. Tobin Bell once again steals the show as John, hes a quiet but menacing actor and via the flashbacks we really do get that extra insight into his increasingly erratic mind and the things that push him over the edge. This film has is more subdued than others, but has some really solid moments with him. I still think at this point that ‘Saw 3’ has been his absolute peak. But then again I still have 6 or 7 more of these to go so…only time will tell.

The scoring is much more subdued as well here, and im SO glad they’re finally moving away from that awful metal/grungey rock stuff that ate up the first 2 or 3 movies. a traditional horror style scoring suits these movies SO much better in my opinion and here, while I cant say I was totally won over, the more subtle approach definitely went a good way to getting me there.

I’m conflicted about ‘Saw 4’ while technically this is probably the most impressive of the films to date, the script is deathly dull, undercuts its main plot for the sake of a fairly uninteresting plot twist and has less than interesting kills that really didnt do it for me. it’s very much ‘Nice video, shame about the song’ Audience members coming to this one without knowledge of the last 3 films will be utterly lost in the ‘in references’ and waves of random ‘lore’ it decides to drop in. It has similar problems to ‘Saw 3’ but does seem to at least FEEL like a real movie.

If you’ve seen the first 3 and find the canon and lore interesting, you’ll probably really get on with this purely for all the tea thats spilt about Jigsaw and his ex-wife, if your trying to watch this as an actual work of cinema, a coherent story driven film, and the lores a secondary to that. You’ll probably be bored out of your mind for a good chunk of the runtime.

Much like ‘Saw 3’ I cant see myself just sticking this on to watch independently. As part of a ‘Saw marathon’ it makes sense to exist. But its shallow and totally incoherent as a standalone work.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/saw-iv/