It seemed like game over for Saw. The horror franchise, launched with such clever, claustrophobic, cold-blooded promise by Leigh Whannell and James Wan in 2004, became almost as famous for its diminishing returns as its legendarily nasty gore, each sequel growing messier and sillier with its annual October release. How much more convoluted could the timeline get, we wondered? How many more victims could suddenly turn into murderers? How many more times could John Kramer (Tobin Bell) magically come back to life?
The series, like its killer, seemed better off dead. But this is now the second stab at a reboot since the increasingly inaccurately titled Saw: The Final Chapter, and the first that seems to genuinely want to at least try something different. Kudos must be given for the impulse to switch templates, from straightforward horror to more of a gritty crime thriller. Chris Rock — whose love of the franchise initially sparked this film into being — plays Serpico-esque police detective Zeke, alone in a department full of rotten apples, while the killer’s identity plays out like a knotty murder mystery.
Nothing wrong with that set-up on the face of it, and in some sense it’s refreshing not to be pummelled with the series’ signature torture porn across the entire running time. Instead, though, we’re offered a fairly weak bash at police procedurals, as Zeke begins to be sent mysterious packages from a Jigsaw copycat killer, and cops start being picked off, one-by-one; at the same time, we learn about the history of Zeke and the department’s dodgy past.
The attempt to break the Saw mould gets quickly overrun by the franchise’s worst habits.
If there was ever a vague intention here to make a timely point about police brutality and excessive use of force, it feels lost in the weeds. Instead, the attempt to break the Saw mould gets quickly overrun by the franchise’s worst habits: the obnoxious sped-up editing (an outdated relic of the early ’00s); the laughably bad flashbacks, with glued-on facial hair to denote a different age; and terrible dialogue (“Women cheat in the daytime,” Zeke claims).
The whole endeavour feels cheap, amateurish and frankly beneath the talents of Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, neither of whom really needed to be here, and neither of whom manage to elevate the material meaningfully. It’s a straight-to-video sequel with A-list names, and it’s hard to understand what the appeal was, beyond getting to play with blood squibs and prosthetic flesh.
Which is not to say diehard Saw fans won’t find something for them here. Gore-hounds will certainly be satiated. But after nine films, the same old person-in-a-trap murders, doled out by the Ironic Punishment Division, feel desperately par for the course, their power to shock greatly diminished. There’s not much of a jolt to be had in the grand final twist, either — another familiar staple — which can be seen from several miles away. Disappointingly, for a much-trumpeted slate-clean, Spiral merely spirals into the same old see-Saw.
