SAW X - Mark Reviews Movies

Saw X, Lionsgate

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 29, 2023

There's something daring about the way Saw X, the tenth installment in the long-running horror franchise, almost wipes the slate of this series clean. It can't completely, obviously, given the series' previous entries with so much back story, so many characters, and all of those soap opera-like twists and revelations, but here is a simple, self-contained story about John Kramer (Tobin Bell), the man also known as "the Jigsaw Killer," and his battle against cancer.

That's only the first 30 minutes or so of this movie, of course, because there is the constant of this franchise to fulfill. Yes, there are still people to torture, bodies to mutilate, and gruesome "games" to be played in this installment.

Because of the straightforward setup and the removal of just about every piece of narrative baggage that has accumulated since the first movie in 2004, though, Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger's screenplay allows this entry to mostly exist on its own terms. John is wronged in a genuinely awful way, and that means it's time to unleash Jigsaw and his morally dubious way of teaching lessons on those who wronged him so. If the whole thing ultimately weren't so obsessed with inventing torturous ways for people to be killed and lingering so long on the grisly details of those deaths, this material might have worked as a terrifying revenge thriller.

The counterargument to that, of course, is that this wouldn't really be an entry in this series without those elements. Here we are, then, with what might be the best movie in this franchise, which isn't saying much—and one that could have succeeded on its own, save for the fact that it exists to fulfill the series' previously established expectations. It's a non-winning position, unfortunately, but the filmmakers make a valiant effort.

Much of that has to do with the clear-eyed focus on John, a man who died and whose body underwent an autopsy on screen, just so the audience knew for sure that his character wouldn't be returning. That promise wasn't kept, in case it isn't obvious from his appearance in this prequel, thanks to the franchise's constant toying with its own timeline. This one, apparently, is set between the first and second movies, for what that information is worth. It basically means John is still alive and barely kicking after a terminal cancer diagnosis.

His last chance is an experimental treatment, a combination of surgery and unapproved pharmaceuticals, which Dr. Cecilia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund) performs at a sort of traveling, law enforcement-evading clinic. If John can make his way to Mexico City, he'll be taken to an undisclosed location, given the treatment, and, likely, go on with a cancer-free life.

Director/editor Kevin Greutert (returning for his third go at the series, including the subversive and maybe second-best sixth installment) takes his time with the setup, allowing John to become a melancholy and tragic victim of fate and, later, criminal fraud. Bell's presence, as well as his gravelly voice, has been a highlight of many of these dreary movies, so it's nice to see him fully take the spotlight in this entry.

He plays a man looking for hope, seemingly finding it, and having it cruelly taken away from him by Pederson and her team of fellow con artists, who only pretend to perform the surgery and take a quarter of a million dollars from him anyway. They have no idea they're dealing with a serial killer—no matter how many times and how emphatically John insists he doesn't kill anyone—who comes up with diabolical devices to test his victims.

As horrific as these "games" may be, the time Greutert takes to put us with John and to watch him endure this shattered hope does give them a sense of sinister justice. It's not quite enough, perhaps, to justify just how much John puts these people through for them to learn a lesson about committing or participating in fraud. Compared to some of the other victims and devices and the various Jigsaws' confused motives in the other movies, though, this screenplay might be the most successful of the entire franchise of establishing a sympathetic motive and actual stakes for its plot.

Once that part of it gets going, though, it is, well, about as nasty and disgusting, while really reveling in showing off the blood and gore and literal guts, as anything in this franchise, too. One woman has to cut off her own leg and extract bone marrow from her exposed femur to prevent herself from losing her head. Another is dangled, shackled by a wrist and an ankle, in front of a radiation machine and provided a sledgehammer to get free. One guy has to perform brain surgery on himself, shown in close-up detail. At least Pederson is there to act as moral support, eventually giving John an opponent in a battle of wills and wits that might have gone somewhere, except for, you know, the gruesome stuff and a few twists.

Saw X, then, is at its most successful when it dares to do its own thing. Inevitably, the movie falls into the same unpleasant hole as its predecessors.

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