It was an uncommonly warm autumn day in London on the afternoon of Friday 23rd of October 2009: the sun was out, the birds were tweeting, and in screen 3 of the Cineworld Fulham Road, a young woman was graphically hacking off her own arm to save her head from being mashed in by a skull-cracking harness.
The gulf between director James Wan's first Saw film, and where we've ended up, is immense. Over the past five years, a tricksy, critically acclaimed crime thriller has morphed into a sprawling daytime soap with added gloop; a guaranteed annual cash cow for bargain-basement distributors Lionsgate, who cattily insist that film critics shell out for their own screenings. Oddly, these films don't tend to pick up very good reviews.
The biggest surprise, then, is that Saw VI isn't totally terrible. I mean, it's still a load of number 2's, obviously. Just not enough to block the toilet. This has been achieved in one very simple stroke. Understanding that some of the best horror films utilise contemporary events to add a powerful frisson of credibility, director and former series editor Kevin Greutert has decided to lend the hermitically-sealed franchise some immediate, and wonderfully mischievous relevancy.
Saw's gamers have never exactly been sympathetic (that's why they've been forced to crawl though those fiendish, flesh-flaying traps in the first place). But for Saw IV, the filmmakers have made them universal objects of scorn and loathing from the outset; nobody's going to mourn these guys. For this time round, the hapless game players-cum-victims are insurance executives and lenders. Hooray! Thus, by ensuring its executions are almost cheerfully retributive, and by jettisoning the tedious police procedurals that have recently capsized the series, this one gives the audience more of what it really wants: lowlifes being dispatched in ingeniously sick and over-the-top ways, such as being forced to hack out their own body fat, or being injected with hydrofluoric acid; melted from the inside out.
Even better, it sets them on each other: after health insurance man William (Peter Outerbridge) turns the cancer-ridden John Kramer / Jigsaw's coverage down, he's abducted and forced to kill off his fellow Noughties whipping-boys and girls in a mockery of the mathematical system he uses to determine who's paid out and who isn't. "In a sense, you get to choose who lives and who dies..." muses an appalled John / Jiggy (Tobin Bell) in flashback, making the lender = 'monster' analogy explicit.
The best and funniest scene sees a bunch of William's fellow insurers strapped around a revolving playground carousel. William must shoot them in turn to save his own skin - though two are allowed to live. What follows is essentially satire, as the horrid little mercenaries alternately plead with him to spare their lives, while verbally ripping each other to shreds, accusing one another of being worthless liars.
Satire suits Saw. It's not like we're asking for yet another sequel exactly (and Saw VII – in 3D! - is already in the works, in any case), but this definitely hints at some interesting new directions.
The gulf between director James Wan's first Saw film, and where we've ended up, is immense. Over the past five years, a tricksy, critically acclaimed crime thriller has morphed into a sprawling daytime soap with added gloop; a guaranteed annual cash cow for bargain-basement distributors Lionsgate, who cattily insist that film critics shell out for their own screenings. Oddly, these films don't tend to pick up very good reviews.
The biggest surprise, then, is that Saw VI isn't totally terrible. I mean, it's still a load of number 2's, obviously. Just not enough to block the toilet. This has been achieved in one very simple stroke. Understanding that some of the best horror films utilise contemporary events to add a powerful frisson of credibility, director and former series editor Kevin Greutert has decided to lend the hermitically-sealed franchise some immediate, and wonderfully mischievous relevancy.
Saw's gamers have never exactly been sympathetic (that's why they've been forced to crawl though those fiendish, flesh-flaying traps in the first place). But for Saw IV, the filmmakers have made them universal objects of scorn and loathing from the outset; nobody's going to mourn these guys. For this time round, the hapless game players-cum-victims are insurance executives and lenders. Hooray! Thus, by ensuring its executions are almost cheerfully retributive, and by jettisoning the tedious police procedurals that have recently capsized the series, this one gives the audience more of what it really wants: lowlifes being dispatched in ingeniously sick and over-the-top ways, such as being forced to hack out their own body fat, or being injected with hydrofluoric acid; melted from the inside out.
Even better, it sets them on each other: after health insurance man William (Peter Outerbridge) turns the cancer-ridden John Kramer / Jigsaw's coverage down, he's abducted and forced to kill off his fellow Noughties whipping-boys and girls in a mockery of the mathematical system he uses to determine who's paid out and who isn't. "In a sense, you get to choose who lives and who dies..." muses an appalled John / Jiggy (Tobin Bell) in flashback, making the lender = 'monster' analogy explicit.
The best and funniest scene sees a bunch of William's fellow insurers strapped around a revolving playground carousel. William must shoot them in turn to save his own skin - though two are allowed to live. What follows is essentially satire, as the horrid little mercenaries alternately plead with him to spare their lives, while verbally ripping each other to shreds, accusing one another of being worthless liars.
Satire suits Saw. It's not like we're asking for yet another sequel exactly (and Saw VII – in 3D! - is already in the works, in any case), but this definitely hints at some interesting new directions.