SAW V (2008)

You know the Dealio here, t'was another Halloween (my Birthday actually) and another outing for Liongate's longest running franchise. With the fourth instalment ending like it did, things had to get much more complicated in order to continue (as our main Villain died 2 films ago).

We start off by seeing a man strapped to a table with a giant bladed pendulum swinging above him, unlike most SAW traps before it though, after crushing his hands (as per Billy the puppet's instructions) he is not released from his restraints, and goes on to be cut into 2. Cut to Agent Straum EXACTLY where we left him in IV, as he winds up in a trap himself shortly after (if my review sounds rushed, it's only because I'm describing literally how the movie played out) we then get to see more flashbacks inter-cut with the current players, 5 seemingly unconnected people being told to work together to overcome their predicament. Instead of focusing on Jigsaw's motivation this time around (as that was well covered last time) we're shown the journey his assistant took to get to this point, (don't worry, this isn't a SPOILER blog). These three premise's inter-wind and culminate at the very end (with the signature twist franchise fans have come to expect)

Now...ABOUT that twist. I remember the tag line in the Trailers at the time being "you won't believe how it ends" so i was expecting my reaction to be "HOLY MUNCHKIN MIDGET FUCK! where has my brain gone?" but instead it was more akin to "oh.. I get it". There was a lot of set up in this film for an extremely weak pay off, also with an ever increasing budget per film (and the franchises third director David Hackl) it's much more clean feel is drastically changing the aesthetic of the original premise (dark, dirty and deadly) and what the FUCK is it with the CG blood? how much do blood squibs possibly cost?

Conclusion:IV writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan definitely deliver us the series' weak point, some of the traps were kind of cool but the 5 people in the main game are utterly one dimensional and only communicate when the audience needs to be told something, also, too many jumps between past and present gets annoying AND confusing. the film doesn't succeed as a SAW film or a Horror/Thriller, purely as gore. 3/10