Esteemed poet Reginald Noble once stated there were 6 million ways to die and that he made it 6,000,001. It’s a safe bet the Saw franchise included most of them across its three-decade run. When the first film opened in October 2004, it gave birth to a new era of torture-based horror movies that still bear gore-filled fruits today.
However, the current state of the Saw series doesn’t reflect that, as the quality of the franchise’s recent films put it on the brink of being irrelevant, especially Jigsaw and Spiral. The legacy of Saw deserved better, and the powers that be agreed, so Jigsaw gets the shot at redemption he’s given so many with a tenth turn, Saw X.
Saw X takes place between Saw and Saw II and finds John Kramer (Tobin Bell) taking his “games” on the road to Mexico, where he tests the wills of con artists who tricked him through a fraudulent cancer treatment scam. A tenth entry in a franchise is undoubtedly an achievement, but in this case, it’s also a tipping point.
As it reaches its final test, can Saw X save this once-groundbreaking Halloween staple? Saw X not only restores the feeling – it takes the crown as the best Saw ever.
For this installment, writers Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger still feature the skeleton of earlier Saw films in their script, but they add much more meat to the bones with a significant change - Kramer. The fact that Kramer doesn’t see himself as a murderer has always been at the core of Saw. This time, Stolberg and Goldfinger write him in a way where you won’t see him that way either.
They pull this off by revealing a previously unseen humanity to the Kramer character. He’s no longer the cold-blooded puppet master pulling the strings, eventually leading to those playing his games dying. He’s a dying man with a legitimate and direct reason for issuing some semblance of justice to those who wronged him.
By making Kramer an anti-hero instead of a villain, a new world of dialogue and scenes that weren’t possible in previous Saw films become available, keeping the time between kills interesting and adding substance where there was none.
While the improved writing is cool, that’s not why you’re there. You’re there for the torture and kills, and Saw X returns them to their earlier forms. Gone are the convoluted mazes and open-world scavenger hunts that dragged the later films to the point of boredom. Instead, everything happens in the gritty, dark, Fincheresque setting the OG film used to make its mark 19 years ago. The sound editing for the torture scenes raises them to another level and will leave you squirming in your seat despite the gore in this one being scaled down compared to other Saw movies.
On the acting side, Bell easily handles the changes to the Kramer character. He gives the film an unlikely yet welcomed heart as we see Kramer beyond his traps. The return of a central character who will not be named here strengthens Bell’s performance, and their presence adds a bit of comic relief and empathy to Saw X.
By returning to basics and giving a new perspective on its main character, Saw X reigns in a franchise that lost itself and plenty of fans. It fully displays what made the franchise so great early on – a complex, torture-filled fable that subverts the idea of justice and morality. If possible, see this one in a premium format to take advantage of the sound editing and quality.