SAW Week: Saw IV (2007)

'Saw IV' is a far step backward from the previous entry and feels as if its lost and simply wandering through its 90 minute run time. Continuing immediately after the last film, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) is now dead and on the autopsy table, but his deadly games are far from over as a whole new maze of traps await an unfortunate officer in search of his former colleague (Donnie Whalberg). The series from here begins to break its own rules and much of the established lore is tossed in favor of some meaningless twists and worse story arcs than a daytime soap opera. Despite Jigsaw's traps taking the lives of many a victim, they were all winnable games if solved properly. Beginning with 'Saw IV' many of these traps mutilate and tear apart their victims with no solution in sight. Granted this is due to the successor of Jigsaw and his own twisted motives, but it really takes a lot out of these films and they really do just become a series of vignettes that barely tie together.

The story in general begins to warp into this odd concoction that thinks it's more clever than it actually is. The "twist" ending in this film is hardly a surprise and honestly me and my friend had no idea who the killer was once he revealed his face, although the movie seems to think I did as it builds up to a slow motion shot with a dramatic sting. I was just scratching my head. Sadly, even with many flashback scenes showing how Jigsaw came to be the film doesn't use Tobin Bell enough and really he's been the catalyst to the whole series up until now. The traps themselves are a mixed bag, nothing too special and mostly things we've all seen before in other horror flicks and executed a lot better. 'Saw IV' retains the previous film's gritty, grimy, fluorescent cinematography and while I will commend them for being consistent, it's a look that too many horror films of the millennium used and it was getting stale even by 2007.

The score is your usual horror style, with strings and heavy metallic sounds dominating throughout and Charlie Clouser's now iconic 'Saw' theme has become one of my favorite horror themes. All in all, satisfactory but again nothing special. 'Saw IV' doesn't provide enough change to justify its existence outside of a fast buck. It's vastly inferior to the previous three entries and one of the worst of the series.

( D )