I like the first three Saw movies to varying degrees primarily because I dig the basic premise. Whilst Saw III had moments that bordered on questionable, it still retained that Saw-ness that has made me like these films in the same way as the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
Saw IV, like Nightmare 4, is where everything went wrong. Gone is original writer Leigh Wannell and in his place we get Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who treat the material with fan boy glee. The plot is thick and fast and ups the gore factor to include Jigsaw’s autopsy, the most graphic moment in any of the movies. But it is a massive and incomprehensible mess. With said fan boy glee, Melton and Dunstan throw literally everything they can into the narrative. It’s not smart writing though and after about twenty minutes in your brain starts hurting.
Bousman as a director makes the thing as if he’s was on speed the entire time. The editing is spastic and the colour pallet makes you nauseous. Just watching the special features you can see the ego that has grown on the man since he directed number II. He seems to forget he’s making a low-grade horror picture.
Some of the traps are fairly cool but it all plays like a big budget fan film. Repeated viewings have not done it well.
1.5/5
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