Death isn't the worst thing that can happen to you in a Saw film. Why, you can die and still return again and again, like Tobin Bell's original bad guy here. Despite dying in Saw III, he's back with more horrible traps in this tenth film, a prequel, and if the horror is as tired as his poor cancer-riddled bones, it should still be plenty gross enough for fans.
Set shortly after the events of the first film, sociopathic moralist John ‘Jigsaw’ Kramer (Bell) is in his last months of life when he learns of a hopeful new treatment over the border in Mexico. After extremely cursory research from a man known for his meticulous selection of victims, he heads down to the remote location and meets a friendly and apparently professional medical and support team, who tell him they have successfully treated his tumour. When he realises he's been duped, he sets about punishing all those responsible. Gruesomely.
Little here feels fresh or new, apart from the fact that Tobin Bell’s Jigsaw gets to dominate proceedings for once.
Cue the usual combination of self-surgery and sadism in a series of grotesque traps. There are only hints at the series' ongoing debates about how survivable its traps should be, and the gaps between Jigsaw's own morality and that of his apprentices, and even some laughs at the absurd bad luck the fraudsters had in choosing this patient as their patsy. But little here feels fresh or new, apart from the fact that Bell himself gets to dominate proceedings for once.
He's a more compelling bad guy than most of his later substitutes, gently working from a demented moral core, and he gets fiery pushback from Synnøve Macody Lund's formidable Cecilia, the unshakeably confident head of the ersatz clinic. But his basic ideas are never tested or challenged, and in a series of final-act turns he's almost portrayed as a hero, righteously standing up for the little guy. It makes this feel distinctly like the filmmakers, led by franchise editor-turned-three-time-Saw director Kevin Greutert, have drunk their own Kool-Aid. Perhaps they were force-fed it by some awful contraption, so maybe we shouldn't judge.
