The Bat Cave

Okay, this is Saw V… and anyone reading this review or taking the time to watch this film has to realize we are dealing with the fifth installment in a series that puts out a film annually… so it should be no surprise that the filmmakers are not taking their time with these films and the quality to be expected should be substandard.

Somehow the Saw franchise has managed to survive long enough to spawn five sequels (Saw VI is due out this Halloween season and probably more to come), despite not really doing anything new with the formula. One thing that surprises me about the success of Saw is that they managed to create one of the more interesting horror icons in Jigsaw and prematurely killed him off in the third or fourth film. Granted, Jigsaw’s presence is still seen throughout the film via tape recordings and flashbacks, but the dirty work is being carried on by characters we don’t care about and hardly remember from previous films. I don’t know who Agent Strahm is or what he did in the last film, but he’s a returning character now playing the role of Jigsaw’s successor.

The writers of the Saw series seem to have a misguided sense of pride in their writing abilities. There’s always that moment in the climax of the film when the great theme music starts and viewers get a montage of events that reveal the “bigger picture.” but honestly, these plot devices are hardly creative or groundbreaking… I will admit that Jigsaw’s back story in Saw IV is pretty enlightening, but that is the only time I’ve been impressed with the twists in the Saw series since Jigsaw originally “rose from the dead” at the end of the superb first film.

What it comes down to is this: if you were stupid enough to watch Saw IV and enjoy it, then you’ll be satisfactorily dumb enough to like the latest sequel as well (don’t worry, I’m clearly guilty myself). You don’t get anything new in Saw V and the killers keep getting less interesting. I’d rather see Jigsaw sewn back together and reanimated again then to see another side character take over his mantle.

With that said, the gore is great, the traps are cool, and that’s really what we came to see, right? Just another average entry in a dying horror franchise.

Score: 4.5 out of 10