When a person is dead…well they are dead. Medically speaking. As I press play on this addition to the Saw franchise, it crossed my mind that maybe Hollywood executives need to be reminded of that. Edger Munsen is chased onto the top of a building ( he is a local criminal and police cell regular). He cant stop until he has in his hand a detonator. The police aren’t impressed and after a stand off, he is shoot down in a hail of bullets. Now Munsen is not only to become a footnote in the series vast written diatribe but he is also set to start us off with the new set up pay off blood soaked, slaughter fest. He utters ‘The game has become’ and the seasoned viewer knows that another Saw has found a severed limb to pull itself up on…

Five prisoners are trapped in a room that has chains and buzz sword implanted doors. They must share their lies with each other. Then shed blood for their selves to be freed. Narrative wise this is the range of Jigsaw. Shifting from the torture chamber of the eponymous monster of the franchise and the police station and a bewildering forensic investigation. We feel a sense of lethargy at this wanton lack of interest from the writers. They have no care to be ambitious. No open arena of death, no on the job police pursuit. Gone is the HALLOWEEN II idea of making convention and form refreshed. To stay it seems is the idea that the audience need to be drip feed a string of barely plausible events, littered with familiar conventions. This did well at the box office, in many respects because it gave the audience the meal, sides, dessert and drink for one price.

Then as the suspects and bodies mount we see the final sum of where torture porn and genre troupes dry hump as aged mammals do. They reproduce but its not pleasant or pathetically engrossing. Some are left decapitated and others are left acid soaked. We dont care. Some are then drowned in grain and others…well you get the picture. The film lacks any version of freshness. No desert island locale. No characters with multiple dimensions. This once was the point at which you were lead out to the backyard and shot. If however you are a Hollywood film series, you might be lucky. You could either be resurrected (with varied success) or much worse for the fold, your still rotting corpse is paraded like an awful trophy. Meaning that no ambition other than money is desired. When it comes to Jigsaw, it is as if the corpse is dried up and worn away. Yet the people looking at it revel in it. Akin to a carnival freak show.