DVD Review: Saw IV
Saw IV (2007)
Studio: Lionsgate
DVD Release Date: January 22, 2008
Directed By: Darren Lynn Bousman
Cast: Lyriq Bent, Costas Mandylor, Tobin Bell
Brutal As Hell Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Review By: Zombie Boy
*It is just about impossible to review this movie without giving spoilers out like Pepsi points, so please be advised of that fact before you continue reading.*
Ah, yet again I find myself reviewing a movie I don’t like. To Saw IV’s credit, I don’t hate it like I did most of the other entries in the franchise. For anyone who actually reads what I write here, you will know that I feel the Saw films, unlike most endlessly reproducing horror franchises, actually get better as you move forward through time. Unfortunately, the improvements are just too small to make enough of a dent in the head of Anti-Saw steam I have built up over the years. They still rely too heavily on people acting exactly how the villains wish them to act, and especially in this fourth entry, there is just too much going on at one time for everything to work out so clockwork perfect. My apologies to the Saw fans I have offended (and undoubtedly will offend in the future), but I didn’t ask you to be so undiscerning.
In the interest of being fair, and of not repeating myself through yet another Saw review, we are going to bite this bitch Sergio Leone-style, baby.
The Good: We finally get some decent Jigsaw backstory, of when he was John Kramer, and what led up to his rebirth as the sadistic serial killer he would become. We even get to see his very first foray into justified homicide. It is actually quite interesting, and I wish to hell that they had done it in the second film, when I might have still cared. The subplot involving what appears to the other characters as Officer Rigg being groomed into the new Jigsaw also had a lot of potential, when a righteous officer of the law is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to not only allow a bad person to die, but to also be complicit in that death.
The Bad: There is too much retro-fitting happening in this film. As I said, the John Kramer story just makes me sad that they couldn’t have done it when it would have counted, and the rest of the plot tries to convince us that the characters involved in this installment have been what the whole franchise has been about from the start. Which is not the case. It just always seems like they are looking backward, mining the previous movies for story points to justify making a movie so they can have traps and gore and get your undiscerning ass in a seat for yet another go ‘round. They also abandoned the premise set up at the end of III, regardless of what the stupid Netflix sleeve summary has to say.
The Ugly: Once again, the gore is high and tight. The opening of the film is an elaborately grotesque autopsy, and sprinkled throughout the proceedings are such diverse elements as scalping, dismemberment, and impalement. So if torture and gore are really what you wanna see in a movie, this one will not disappoint you. There aren’t any liquefied pigs this time, but hey, no movie is perfect.
As to the special features, they are a carbon copy of the ones from II and III: featurettes on the traps and effects, a couple of commentaries, and a production diary, which is the only truly interesting piece on the features page. It was nice to see that the stylistic scene intersections were all done in camera, an oasis of clever in a desert of sameness. They’ll probably beat it to death in the next one, though…sigh….
