Movie Review: Saw 10

On a recent entertainment talk show, the host talked about horror movie franchises like Saw, Haloween, Friday 13th and correctly stated that movies like these make millions and billions of dollars, on a low budget, virtually guaranteeing that there will be many sequels. This is the 10th movie in the Saw franchise.

Of all the Saw movies, that are all about horrible people who committed horrendous crimes and got away with it, being tortured and killed with elaborate mechanical devices, with scenes of dismemberment and horrific death that make you wonder how the writers and producers could ever think of these insane ways to kill people.

Throughout almost every film in this Saw franchise, the main character is John Cramer played by Tobin Bell, takes it upon himself to force justice on deserving bad people, but always gives them a chance to save themselves while trapped in the most horrific contraptions designed to kill a human being. Within all 10 of these movies, you cannot help but admire the imagination to conceive of and then build these mechanical killing machines.

This 10th movie is much different than the previous nine, entirely about John Cramer and his brain cancer and terminal diagnosis. Through another person at a cancer support group, who tells John his 4th stage Pancreatic cancer was cured, John falls prey to medical scammers in Mexico who promise to save his life. What follows is the obvious revenge on all the scammers involved, this time around showing some extremely horrific new methods of mechanical death.

The problem with this story, is that there are at least 3 major holes that a few more re-writes could have been fixed. The last stage of the revenge-death scenes is too risky and convoluted for someone at the level of genius John Cramer would ever attempt. I thought the ending was not satisfying enough on two levels, with the final scene too abrupt.

Of all of the Saw movies, this tenth movie has by far the highest Rotten Tomatoes rating of 87%. I give this movie credit for the new perspective on the story, but I have to subtract for 3 glaring holes in the plot, with my rating a passable 70%. Odds are very thigh that there will be many more Saw movies, even though Cramer has terminal cancer, because these movies just make too much money. My guess is that his protege Amanda Young, played by Shawnee Smith, might carry on this series.