‘Saw X’ Slices Into Another Buffet of Brutal Gore for Fans of the Franchise

Alci Rengifo

It must be quite the task to plan yet another “Saw” movie and make sure you have to find new ways to gouge out some eyes, or open a cranium. But the fans of this franchise love it and “Saw X” feels like a gory little gift tailored specifically for them. If that was the plan it’s more than fitting, considering the franchise is now nearing the 20th anniversary mark. The initial shock of James Wan’s 2004 career-making debut has faded, with countless imitators now left in its wake. This latest entry is nearly imitating the way Disney tried to do “Star Wars” for a while. It takes place between “Saw” and 2005’s “Saw II.” Not only that, but the filmmakers don’t even care for the CGI hocus pocus to make its returning cast look two decades younger. 

If for whatever reason you’re not a fan and yet want to make this your first “Saw” movie, the plot is easy enough to follow. Steely John Kramer (Tobin Bell) is a former engineer diagnosed with a serious brain tumor. With doctors giving him little hope, he falls for an advertisement by a doctor, Cecilia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund), promising a miracle surgery in Mexico. Feeling a sense of hope, John makes his way across the border and puts down serious money to undergo Cecilia’s procedure. Alas, he soon discovers it was all pure fraud. When he removes the bandages on his head, there’s no sign anyone ever operated on it. What is a hoodwinked maniac to do? John gets back into Jigsaw killer mode and gathers everyone involved in a large warehouse to teach them a lesson through his brand of horrific, flesh-shredding “games.”

Franchises these days love messing up their own timelines. “Saw X” is now technically the direct sequel to the original Wan movie, though it never references any of the events in “Saw” except for the return of Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), Jigsaw’s kidnap victim turned devoted protégé. She drops in to help her mentor unleash terror on the fraudsters who took advantage of him. Depending on your sensibilities, which will also determine if you’re even planning to see this movie, you will chortle with delight or yelp once the usual Grand Guignol roller coaster begins. Over the years a “Saw” movie always strives to find some moral reasoning for the gore. One entry even tackled America’s healthcare crisis. Jigsaw just doesn’t tolerate anything shady. When he sees a nurse planning to steal from an elderly patient, he devises teaching them a lesson with suction tubes ripping out their eyeballs. Another victim gets surgical knives duct-taped to his hands, oh and he has bombs embedded in his arms. You can imagine what follows. Director Kevin Greutert, who previously contributed “Jigsaw,” “Saw 3D” and “Saw VI” to the mix, can make these in his sleep by now. 

It can’t be denied that Greutert knows how to package the content. The cinematography by Nick Matthews is all grit devoid of color and the camera never shies away when characters are forced to saw off their own body parts or face the wrath of some oven mask shaped like an Aztec sculpture. The makeup work is superb. It has to be if you want to convince us someone onscreen is opening their own cranium. Remember waterboarding? In “Saw X” we get a pretty epic and unsavory taste of “blood boarding,” in a scene that is both utterly ridiculous but also intense in the editing and music by Charlie Clouser. Even Gabriela (Renata Vaca), the nice working class Mexican girl who seems to be an unwitting participant in the scam, has to learn a lesson involving a scorching punishment. In a moment that has to be intentional self-mockery, a character tells Jigsaw, “You’re fucked up.” We of course then get a speech about how the fucked up ones are the fraudsters taking advantage of desperate people. There are indeed moments in life where we all wish there was a Jigsaw to stand up for us, right? “Saw” movies are body horror as catharsis for viewers who actually take seriously the dialogue about all this being a lesson to appreciate life. 

On a storytelling level there’s nothing else in “Saw X,” other than the plot as an excuse to give fans the splatterfest they desire. Again, it must be emphasized how Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith look exactly as we would expect them to in 2023, not 2004. They are here for the fun of doing another one for its own sake. Everyone else is just meat for the grinder, from the driver, who took John to the fake clinic, to the “doctor,” who “performed” the “surgery.” Cecilia saves the best for last. What is most impressive is how this franchise keeps going two decades on. Only “Scream” rivals it in that kind of successful longevity. It’s impossible to recapture that genuine sense of surprise when we first met Jigsaw at the end of the original “Saw,” with Bell’s reveal turning him into instant body horror royalty. Yet, detractors of everything that followed can’t deny audiences keep going to each new chapter, which is why we get new ones. “Saw X” is certainly an improvement on 2021’s “Spiral: From the Book of Saw,” including in its title (and what was Chris Rock doing there anyway?). The rest of us may be long done with this blood-drenched roller coaster, though it might hit the spot for those who need that craving for vengeful decapitations satisfied. It’s just another “Saw” movie, and they like it that way. 

“Saw X” releases Sept. 29 in theaters nationwide.