5 Ways To Fix The Saw Franchise

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS MAJOR PLOT POINTS AND SPOILERS FROM THE FIRST FOUR SAW FILMS

It’s no secret that I didn’t really care much for Saw IV. A series that I always enjoyed went off the deep end creatively with a confusing, overplotted mess of a film. The only good news is that considering it was the fourth installment in a horror franchise it could have been a lot worse and all the problems could easily be fixed in Saw V, which opens October 24th.

Still, it was a huge drop-off in writing quality from the previous three and appeared to be a shark jump if there ever was one. It’s a promising sign that the upcoming film features a couple of solid actresses in Julie Benz and Meagan Goode, but without a stronger script this time around it would be a relatively easy to make a film worse than Saw IV. In fact, from what I read about the direction they’ve taken this, that seems likely.

According to imbd.com, here’s the synopsis:

“Forensics expert Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) goes on the hunt in order to protect the secret that he is the newest person to carry on Jigsaw's legacy.”

In case you've forgotten (which would be easy to given the 75,000 characters who were in the previous film), Hoffman was the man revealed as Jigsaw’s apprentice in Saw IV’s head-scratchingly stupid final twist. That the film will focus on him is bad enough (more on that below) but the synopsis continues to tell us that we’ll also finally find out what happened to Lynn and Jeff’s daughter, who was left in danger at the end of Saw III. Um…a little late for that don’t you think? I’m betting most viewers won’t remember or care. It may have been only hours in the film’s timeline but it was two years ago for the rest of us.

Saw V will also be the first film since the original not directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who b bowed out to make his Paris Hilton horror musical. It probably doesn’t bode well for this series that Bousman’s project sounds more intriguing than this. Taking over the reins is series production designer David Hackl, but considering the problems with the previous film were completely script-related it remains to be seen what if any impact this change will have. But this is the first time in years I'm not excited for an upcoming Saw film and unsure whether to even see it. But, really, who am I kidding? Of course, I will. I have to see whether the filmmakers can dig themselves out of this hole.

Maybe the problem is that it really has turned into a horror franchise and has strayed from its original roots as a mystery/thriller. I don’t envy writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who are saddled with the near-impossible task of continuing the story after their main villain has been killed off, especially one as complex and interesting as Jigsaw. While that aspect may set it apart from other horror films it hurts the central premise of the series, which was that this sick, dying man believed he was teaching people the meaning of life with his twisted, sadistic games and traps. It seems with his death and the addition of pointless characters we’ve moved further away from that premise and even further away from the first film, which was truly great. Below are my suggestions for getting it back on track. While it isn’t often a horror series enjoys a creative resurgence in its fifth installment, it isn't impossible. If they take even just a couple of these suggestions:

1. KEEP IT SIMPLE
What was great about Saws II and III as sequels were that they worked as stand-alone efforts that didn’t depend on specific plot points from the previous film to enjoy them. I actually thought Saw III was the strongest of the three sequels because of its simplicity and laser-like focus on the main victim’s plight. I’m willing to bet Saw IV’s plot confused the hell out even the film’s most hardcore fans with too many characters (c’mon, Jigsaw’s attorney?) non-linear storytelling and overly complicated traps.

I don’t think it’s helping that all of these films now take place in a timeline that’s days or hours apart, relying on intricate knowledge of every detail to be able to follow it. In a perfect world, Saw V would be set further down the line while still incorporating the aspects necessary from the other films, but Unfortunately, the plot description implies that won’t be happening so I guess I’ll just have to live with it. But that doesn’t mean it still can’t be more focused and simple. Even he writers themselves have admitted in interviews that Saw IV was too confusing, which at least gives me some hope this will be an improvement.

2. BRING BACK THE BATHROOM
It was the setting for shocking final twist in the original film. It was also the setting for another clever one in Saw II and in Saw III we were treated to details of how Jigsaw set up his most famous trap. It needs to come back…somehow. It's simple: bathroom= awesomeness. Just its very presence in the film alerts us that something big is going down.

3. MORE JIGSAW FLASHBACKS
Sometimes it can hurt to know too much about your horror villain. This isn’t one of those cases. It seems the more we learn about John Kramer the more it enhances his mystique and the more appreciation we have for the choices Tobin Bell makes with the role. We wouldn’t even be be talking about a fifth movie if not for him and learning about that character’s origins and history was one of the few things I enjoyed in the last film. We learned about Billy The Puppet, the instigating incident that pushed Kramer over the edge and saw his very first trap. To the writers’ credit, this was very well done and I hope they expand on it in Saw V. They need to squeeze all the screen time out of Bell that they have left, but at the same time figure out a way to make his deceased presence mean just as much in the current storyline.


4. GET RID OF THIS MAN
Boy, they really have to come up with a hell of a backstory to fix this aren’t they? If not, I have no problem with Hoffman’s tape recorder exploding and blowing him to bits within the film’s first few minutes. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken to who couldn’t even tell what was going on or couldn’t remember who this character even was in Saw IV’s clumsy final minutes. It seemed to be just an example of the writers throwing something out there that was completely random just for the sake of a twist. Whoever carries on Jigsaw’s legacy should be be inexorably tied to his work (see below) rather than just some nobody forensics guy.

I’ve never heard of Costas Mandylor as an actor before Saw IV but I hope he’s ready to give the performance of his life and has some really strong writing to back him up. He’s gonna need it. The easier solution would be for the producers to just cut their loss and move on. He could easily be written him off as just the latest pawn in Jigsaw’s game. Unfortunately, since Mandylor is already signed to Saw VI I better brace myself. This guy's role looks like it's is going to be HUGE. Possibly as large as Tobin Bell's in the second and third films. He better be ready to go the distance because it's gonna take a lot to win me over. It just seems like a bad idea.

5. BRING ONE OF THESE CHARACTERS BACK
And when I say bring one of them back I mean bring them back with meaning and purpose, not to just do nothing like Donnie Wahlberg’s Detective Matthews in the last film. The role doesn’t even have to be large, it just has to be important and make sense.

Dr. Lawrence Gordon-This is what everyone wants, so do it. The franchise needs him back now more than ever and rumors have been swirling about his re-appearance for nearly every installment. Of all the series’ major characters, his return would be the most welcome and fit the best. The writers have tried to top it but no Jigsaw victim suffered more physically or emotionally. Imagine what a moment it would be to see Gordon hobbling onto the screen in the film's final minutes. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the lack of discussion on the topic lately is because producers have been able to keep a potential Cary Elwes appearance under wraps rather than that they’ve abandoned the idea altogether.

Detective David Tapp-Who knows Jigsaw better than the first detective assigned to the case? It would be easy to work him back into the story somehow since for all we know he could have survived that gunshot wound. If not, flashbacks are feasible and could probably add a lot to the current storyline, given the character’s unhealthily detailed obsession with the case. And it’s not like Danny Glover would have had to clear his busy schedule.

Zepp Hindle-“Those are the rules Dr. Gordon!” Alright, I know. Michael Emerson’s creepy hospital orderly ingested a lethal poison and was beaten to death with a toilet seat at the conclusion of the original film. But you can’t tell me the producers aren’t kicking themselves for that after seeing the great work Emerson has gone on to do on Lost. I’m much more willing to believe Zepp somehow survived the traumatic events of the first film than any of the crap the writers tried to sell in the last installment. I’ll even settle for a flashback, I don’t care. By the way, he and Elwes are the only two actors from the series capable of portraying Jigsaw's successor.

The Saw franchise is hurting but things could be much worse, especially considering we’re on the fifth film. At its weakest, its still in much better shape than other horror franchises have been at this point. Better still, none of the sequels have been bad enough to negate the impact of the original film...yet. That’s largely because the central, underlying concept that powers the series is so strong. Here’s hoping on October 24th the filmmakers remembered that.

Saw IV

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Starring: Tobin Bell, Lyriq Bent, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson, Betsy Russell, Athena Karkanis, Justin Louis
Running Time: 95 min.
Rating: R

**1/2 (out of ****)

Two men awake in a grungy bathroom chained to pipes on opposite sides of the room with no memory of how they got there. Between them are a dead body, a gun and a cassette recorder. That kernel of an idea ended up providing the launching pad for three sequels and one of the most commercially successful horror franchises of all-time. From the opening minutes of the first Saw film in 2004 you knew you were seeing something special and how those men got there and what was on that tape recorder ended up being a lot smarter than many gave it credit for at the time. With every Halloween since came the promise of a new Saw film and so began a tradition.

It joins films such as Friday The 13th, Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street as one of the few successful horror franchises, but the truth is you could put the first three Saw films up against any of those films' first three and it would handily win. There's been very little drop-off in quality from the first to the third. thought the original was an ingenious suspense thriller. Its sequel, while overcrowded with too many characters, was still a worthy successor and featured a great performance by Tobin Bell as Jigsaw, the cancer-stricken killer who sets up deadly traps and games to force others to appreciate their lives.

The original's co-writer and director, James Wan had left the series, but his replacement Darren Lynn Bousman filmed a sequel that was better than anyone had a right to expect. Bousman was back for the third film, easily the most graphic and polarizing of the series. I thought it was an improvement over its predecessor, getting back to basics with a morality play that recalled the original. How it escaped an NC-17 rating has to be one of horror cinema's greatest mysteries. Each year the Saw films aren't screened for critics, which is very wise knowing their predisposed bias against the genre. Many of them have affixed their "torture porn" label on it, a few without ever viewing the films. Each one tends to end with a shocking twist that whets fans' appetites for a follow-up.

Those many fans, myself included, were left scratching their heads at the end of Saw III wondering how there could possibly be another film with the diabolical Jigsaw seemingly left for dead. It's a stretch even by horror movie standards. So, has Saw's ship finally sailed? Can this franchise survive without him? After viewing Saw IV I'm sorry to report that it doesn't look like it can. Ridiculously overplotted and containing an ending so disappointing it's almost offensive, this is by far the least successful film in the series and a sign it's time to call it quits. They missed their stop. I can't imagine anyone looking forward to a fifth installment after the slap in the face we get here.

Jigsaw a.k.a. John Kramer (Tobin Bell) is dead. That much is made clear in the film's opening minutes as we bear witness to his gruesome autopsy. His work, however, is far from done. In his stomach is a tape he ingested just before his death and on it are instructions for another game. This one involves Detective Rigg (Lyriq Bent), who's had to stand by hopelessly and witness the demise of Detectives Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) and Kerry (Dina Meyer) at the hands of Jigsaw. He's a man who's obsessed with doing the right thing and now that obsession will either become his best friend or worst enemy as Jigsaw leaves various tests for him around the city which will lead him to the location of two captured colleagues.

Hot on Rigg's trail are F.B.I agents Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Perez (Athena Karkenis) who have discovered the body of Detective Kerry and have good reason to believe her death in the third film was carried out by someone other than Jigsaw or his deceased apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith). Clues lead them to John Kramer's ex-wife Jill (Betsy Russell) who provides shocking details of their past together as the clock ticks on Rigg's deadly game.

If you thought Saw II had a lot of characters that film looks like an intimate stage play compared to what we witness here. I don't think I've ever seen a horror film (or any film for that matter) feature as many cops as this does. It's as if they're shooting a remake of NYPD Blue. There were so many that at times it actually becomes difficult to tell them all apart. Not helping any was that they decided to cast three actors who look physically identical to one another in pivotal roles. If one wasn't a lawyer and didn't serve a separate function in the story I would have been totally lost. Yes, even John Kramer's attorney appears in this film.

It seemed like they wanted to jam as much as they could into this one out of fear that Jigsaw's absence would lead to a lack of tension and excitement. There are more ingenious traps than ever before and flashbacks that flash back to more flashbacks. There are clues, letters and tape recorders all over the place. A character in this film can't seem to enter a room without being confronted with Jigsaw's puppet, a tape recorder or a note. The amount of time and preparation (not to mention psychic ability) it would take to set up the game Detective Rigg endures here would probably cause Jigsaw to want to take his own life instead. I can't say I'm surprised he needed help with this one.

The plot is so complicated and involves so many characters it would take me a year to explain it. It's just too much. We even have the reappearance of a major character from a previous film, although their presence is completely superfluous and adds nothing to the story. All the characters in this film are just pawns in Jigsaw's game which would be fine if one of them didn't take center stage in the inexcusable ending. They also decide to tie up a loose end from the end of the third film, but in the most unsatisfactory way possible

This isn't to say Saw IV is a terrible film, but compared to the rest it's a huge step down. I don't have a single complaint about how Bausman directs it as he stays true to the effective visual aesthetic of the first three films. I won't even rate the gore level anymore since fans of the series are completely desensitized to it by now. It's exciting and holds your interest with the deadly traps and these are maybe the most depraved group of subjects we've had in any Saw film.

Bent gives a commanding lead performance but the real star of the movie, as usual, is Tobin Bell. John Kramer may be dead but he gets more screen time than ever as we find out through various flashbacks about his relationship with his ex-wife and a shocking event that helps explain how the troubled toymaker turned into Jigsaw. It's never bad to have the spotlight shine on a villain with this much complexity and it was by far the most fascinating element in this film. It got me thinking that maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad idea to have a prequel instead. With Jigsaw dead it becomes nearly impossible to care as much about these new traps and games. This character is the driving force behind the series.

The film's convoluted plot does actually tie together in the end (probably even better on a second viewing) and I'd be willing to forgive what a mess it is… if not for the ending. Without spoiling too much I'll say there's a "big reveal" involving someone we couldn't care less about. The twist isn't shocking, just lazy. All I'm going to say is that if someone's going to carry on Jigsaw's legacy we all know the only person it should be (Hint: He's a doctor with one foot). Had that been the reveal audiences would be gasping for air and the series could have continued with renewed vigor. I would have even accepted a twist that revealed Jigsaw to still be alive. Of course it would make no sense, but at least it wouldn't carry the massive disappointment this ending did and we'd look forward to a fifth film.

I also never expected to say this, but I really missed Shawnee Smith as Amanda. Her absence is really felt. At the end of the second film I complained at the prospect of having her take over the reins, but after this ending I'd do anything to have her back. We've never seemed further from that grungy bathroom with Dr. Gordon and Adam than we do now and watching this was like listening to a mediocre band try to cover one of your favorite songs. It just isn't the same.

For those who'd want to label this film "torture porn" I couldn't argue because the writing just isn't there this time. There are new screenwriters on board (Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan) and it really, really shows. I hold them completely responsible. If anything this proves just how valuable to the character of Jigsaw and Tobin Bell's performance as him have been to the series. He may have been in the film in flashbacks but his physical presence was sorely missed. We need to know he's the one behind the curtain pulling the strings. With Saw IV we may have officially "jumped the shark." Just as Jigsaw has drawn his last breath, so too apparently, has this franchise.