by Kuan Hur Tan

Created on: July 06, 2009   Last Updated: July 07, 2009

I watched Saw V a while ago but I have not got the chance to write a review on it. Instead, I will write on Saw IV this time. The first Saw movie started on October 2004 and exactly a year after that, Saw II was released. That was the same for every other instalments and Saw VI will be released in October 2009. As I have not watched the first three instalments, I was a bit puzzled when I watched Saw IV and V. However, I do know that Saw is recognized for its horror and gore scenes as well as a mysterious and puzzling plot.

Preview
The body of the Jigsaw Killer is being examined and a wax-coated micro cassette is found in his stomach. Detective Hoffman is called in to listen to the tape. Half way listening through the tape, the scene shifts to a mausoleum where two individuals are chained to a mechanical device. One has his eyelids sewn together while the other has his mouth sewn. The 'blind' starts panicking while the 'mute' can only hum in order to seek cooperation from the 'blind'. They struggle to release themselves from the chain but they trigger the mechanism which starts to pull them towards each other.

FBI Agents Strahm and Perez start to interfere the investigation of the Jigsaw Killer when they assume that Detective Hoffman and his team are incompetent. Lieutenant Daniel Rigg is devastated when one by one, his team-mates start to die or missing in the hands of Jigsaw Killer. Soon, Rigg is in the play of Jigsaw Killer where he is given a series of orders with which he must comply in order to save his captured team-mates.

The Story
I thought the story was well-plotted. Saw IV has less gore scenes but it has been nicely plotted where I kept having the question 'why'. It might partly cause by the fact that I have not watched the first three instalments. The Jigsaw Killer excelled as an engineer and he was undoubtedly able to create machines that require his victims to think fast enough to save their own lives.

Hmm... maybe I am not the clever type in which I thought that Jigsaw Killer's plots were almost flawless. In Saw IV, it seemed that only FBI Agent Strahm was able to figure out most of the plot set up by the Jigsaw Killer and as usual, the police was always one step slower than the killer was.

The Effects
Saw IV effects were good and of course, it had to be good since the movie was comprised of horrific stuff and brutal killings. Not only that, it was also about how extreme each victim could be in order to survive the Jigsaw Killer.

The Verdict
I will soon find myself watching Saw I, Saw II and Saw III. I will then re-watch Saw IV and Saw V to fully understand the whole movie plot. I must say that I like this movie and after watching Saw IV and Saw V, I do not think that Saw is just another horror movie that is released every year in order to fulfil Saw fans. As I said, the plots were carefully planned. I felt puzzled because some victims were able to survive the plot. Those machines were built in a way that fast thinking from the victims could enable them to release themselves from the machines. On the other hand, some machines would kill the victims no matter which options the victims chose.

Learn more about this author, Kuan Hur Tan.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.