Lamar Reviews - Saw X (Airdate 10/6/2023)

I have never been a big Saw fan. I did enjoy the first one with Cary Elwes and Danny Glover. It was something brand new in the horror genre, and it had a really good plot. But after that it became all about the traps and torture killings. I saw them all, well, I saw parts and heard some parts, because I’m a grown ass man, and if I want to close my eyes to the scary parts, I can. This Saw is not only good, it the best one since the first one. The ones between were just gore fests, this is an actual movie with a story. This movie is set between Saw and Saw2. This one is different; they have flipped it. Jhon Kramer, aka Jigsaw, played by Tobin Bell is not the bad guy. Well, he is a bad guy as in a murderer, he did kill 86 people in the 9 movies, in some very creative, and gag producing ways. A lot of which I did not actually see. But this time it is revenge, and I can get behind some good revenge, even if it is from a bad guy, as long as it is on worse people.

This movie makes sense, the last 8 movies, not so much. Because this is theoretically the 2nd movie, theoretically the other 8 movies have not happened yet. Who would have ever thought that I would use a word that big, not once, but twice, in a review of a Saw movie? Crazy huh? In this movie we have bad people taking advantage of good people that have cancer. They are the villains. They just happened to pick the wrong victim this time. Jigsaw, for those Amish among you, who are on Rumspringa, and have not had access to TV or movies, until now, is a man that makes people atone for their crimes and moral failings by sacrificing pieces of themselves in mechanical torture devices. They have to play a “game” and if they lose, let’s just say it is really messy. And most of the time really loud. Jigsaw has cancer and only has a few months to live. He is introduced to a doctor, Cecilia Pederson, played by Synnove Macody Lund, who runs an “off the books” experimental treatment center in Mexico. When things turn out to be not what they seem, Jigsaw gets to work.

The movie is 1 hour 58 minutes, the longest of any saw movie, Rated R for bloody decapitation, amputation, stabbing, eyeball remov…….well you get the idea!

This movie, thankfully and sadly, shows us what this franchise could have been. Something better than 90 minutes of bloody, screaming, gear grinding, dismembering, violence, with no plot and no actual acting. Tobin Bell who gets more screen time in this movie than the other 9 combined, shined. He made this a respectable, if very violent movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. And I kept my eyes open the entire time.

I grew to hate Saw movies and dreaded going every time. But this was completely different. And if you stay after the credits, it looks like number 11 is coming. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait.

My Score, based solely on the other 9 Saw movies, which was never over 3 Buds is:

A Full 6PK of Budweiser

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