Saw V

Hot on the heels of its entertaining but thoroughly underwhelming predecessor, Saw V confirms that the Saw series is – having reached a plateau of mediocrity – essentially running on fumes at this point. There’s exceedingly little here that’s been designed to capture (and sustain) the interest of newcomers, yet it’s just as clear that hardcore fans of Jigsaw’s exploits will probably find something here worth embracing. As expected, Saw V picks up immediately following the events of Saw IV – as Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) finds himself caught within the confines of one of Jigsaw’s notoriously cruel traps. The film subsequently follows Strahm’s attempts at discovering the identity of Jigsaw’s deadly protégé (Costas Mandylor’s Hoffman), while also revolving around the efforts of five strangers (including Julie Benz’s Brit and Carlo Rota’s Charles) at surviving a maze of increasingly challenging (and downright mean-spirited) puzzles. Though it boasts an atmosphere that’s admittedly kind of tedious and almost egregiously familiar, Saw V generally proves effective at satisfying the demands of the series’ more ardent followers – as, in addition to its myriad of appreciatively over-the-top kills, the movie possesses a number of fun callbacks to events and sequences from its four predecessors (ie the origins of the original’s razor-wire trap). And, as expected, Tobin Bell’s all-too-brief appearance as the long-since-dead John Kramer remains a highlight – with the actor’s compelling (and exceedingly sinister) work consistently elevating the proceedings out of its low budget, undeniably slipshod doldrums. Filmmaker David Hackl’s competent yet entirely underwhelming visual choices only confirms the idea that these movies basically direct themselves, while Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan’s screenplay has been suffused with a number of unintentionally campy chunks of dialogue (ie Jigsaw, admonishing his apprentice, exclaims: “killing is distasteful to me!”) The end result is a passable genre effort that’s unapologetically been geared solely towards gorehounds, with the law of diminishing returns clearly in full effect virtually from start to finish.

**1/2 out of ****