Saw V (2008)

Had enough Saw to leave you ‘sore’?

No doubt many of you will have already seen the sixth and (I’m led to believe) final part of the saga.

But lets back-track, for the sake of the Saw new adopters (and so that Love Horror eventually has all parts covered). Saw 5, or V. More of the same? Maintaining the discomfort and wince factor? Or flogging – and torturing in other sickening ways – a dead cat?

I’m a fan of Saw. I’m a bit messed up, so watching films like this always makes me feel comfortable, like I’m not the only one. But with every episode that I begin, I can’t help but fear the worst – that I will not be shocked, intrigued, surprised and satisfied.
Up until Saw 4, these criteria were thankfully met. Which is surprising as the last was bordering on over-complicated.

Instalment 5 takes up immediately where the last left off.
Agent Peter Strahm manages to overcome a rather over-complicated method of execution and is taken straight to hospital with detective Hoffman (the new jigsaw) taking the glory for saving little girls’ life.
Strahm smells a rat and has is suspicious of Hoffman and so starts to re-investigate many of the crime scenes from the previous films, piecing it all together.
Meanwhile Hoffman gets busy with some new tasks for 5 unsuspecting wrong-doers.
Interestingly though, as Jigsaw is now somewhat of a celebrity with his acts well publicised, they are wise to the conventions, and therefore approach it all differently. Will it help them to escape? You’ll have to watch and see.

So, is it any good? Well, ish.

Sadly although the storyline is evolving a little, it’s just not enough. I was glad that I watched it, and as usual it pretty much slotted into the puzzle, as it were, but it feels as if things are just getting a bit silly now.

No doubt the whole idea is that the general puzzle is ‘more complex than you might think’ and the producers of Saw have a commitment to freak us out with new revelations.
But these new elements aren’t at all necessary, they don’t really add anything to the storyline. So what if Jigsaw had more than one helper. So what if his intentions were good. At the end of the day people are still being chopped up in a load of horrible ways and so, he and his friends are still nut-jobs.

I felt no connection with anyone, didn’t care about the main cop, didn’t care about the most recent ‘game’ players and even though the devices were horrible as you would expect, even they seemed to lack the imagination of their predecessors.

I felt that Saw 4 was pushing it a bit, and would have been a good place to end it all. But Saw 6 has already been in our cinemas and it’s going to be a real struggle to persuade myself to see it through to the end.

Saw, now a bit of a bore, and somewhat of a chore!

Movie Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

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Additional film information: Saw V (2008)

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Tom Atkinson

Tom is one of the editors at Love Horror. He has been watching horror for a worryingly long time, starting on the Universal Monsters and progressing through the Carpenter classics. He has a soft-spot for eighties horror.More

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