SAW IV (2007)
Reviewed by Melissa McGahee - November 4, 2007
“The game has just begun.” - Jigsaw (Tobin Bell)
The fourth installment of the most overrated series of all time, displays Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) dead body being sliced and diced during an autopsy. One may be encouraged to think, “Yes, this god awful plague on the horror genre has finally ended!” Not so fast, this is only the first five minutes of a film that lasts 90 more, and that mastermind killer of ours has swallowed an audiotape before he died. Luckily, the attractive homicide detective, Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is brought in to listen to Jigsaw’s last words. For those of you  fortunate enough to rid your memory of Saw III, he was in that one too.
Can you guess what the madman has to say? Surprise, the game isn’t over. Why can’t the game be over? Please, let the game be over! No, same stupid game just keeps going on and on and on. So, Jigsaw states that his work will continue.
After the opening credits roll, the viewers are greeted with the corpse of a hanging woman. Yes, it’s gory. Despite popular opinion, gore does not make a movie worth watching.
For some reason, most likely lack of creativity, the makers decided to clone Donnie Wahlberg’s tough cop routine from Saw II and create a new character named Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson). Remember, this is part of the Saw franchise so, character names don’t mean anything. Can’t the creators just watch an episode or two of “Law and Order” so they can at least copy an interesting character?
Anyways, the two manly man cops, Hoffman and Strahm have a bitter alliance. Sometimes, they fight, sometimes they get along, never are they interesting. Character development, plot, and even scares are absent from the film. No, they rely on making a fictitious “Faces of Death,” with of course the necessary plot twist at the end.
There’s awful interrogation scenes and the expected flashback sequences. I wish I could say that it helped the pace, but it didn’t. It doesn’t mean anything.  It isn’t intricate to any type of storyline. There are two elements to the story: people don’t like to get tortured so they yell and people can get tortured in a bunch of different ways. The entire production is filler.
Some have compared this to the Friday the 13th series or Nightmare on Elm St. It’s not even close. First and foremost, Jigsaw is no Freddy. Freddy had longevity because he was amusing and scary. He could in one scene cause laughter and in another invoke fear. He wasn’t just some idiot torturing people. Nor was Jason for that matter. Jason was a stalker and a killer. He was strong and forceful and though he wasn’t terrifying, his toughness made him a force to be reckon with. Jigsaw has an audiotape, a doll and fancy toys.
The Nightmare on Elm St and Friday the 13th films, generally speaking, had stronger supporting characters also. Whether they had some special powers or were just abused and misunderstood teenagers, they usually had layers and facets. The audience grew to care whether they lived or died. There was a bond created with the audience that really helped form alliances between the victims and the viewers. The Saw franchise doesn’t understand that. Instead of focusing on being edgy and raw, why not focus the same energy into making a good horror movie? Instead of guaranteeing a sequel with some lame shocker at the end, why not have a definitive conclusion that disturbs? If the movie is good enough, a creative mind will find a way to bring another installment forth without the need to pound the idea into the ending of every movie.
The fact that this movie is awful isn’t surprising, but it is aggravating that the series continues to turn over a profit. The more people who continue to watch this garbage, the more garbage they will make. The Saw franchise needs to end. It ran out of the little gas it had in the first one. These sequels were awful, and each one is worse than the previous.
Scared Stiff Rating: 2/10 A worthless waste of time
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