by The Film Blogger

Created on: September 11, 2009   Last Updated: September 12, 2009

For the last three decades, horror fans have been gorged on seemingly interminable horror series such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street. 2004 saw the birth of a new horror series catering for the increasingly morbid curiosity of audiences, in the Saw franchise, delivering compelling, albeit tenuous moral deductions amid an inventive and gore-soaked dissection of various hapless cross-sections of society.

Known for their winding, fragmented narratives that conclude with a deal-breaking twist, promotion for the fifth entry into the series attests You won't believe how it ends. Quite how right this adage is, and quite how disappointed even the most ardent fans are likely to be, is astounding. Saw V not only inverts what made the previous films entertaining at a base level, but is an arbitrary and unnecessary installment that delivers only enough exposition to warrant the need for a sixth film.

Following on from the disappointing fourth film, Saw V commences as new Jigsaw apprentice Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) attempts to tie-up all loose ends linking him to Jigsaw, namely in disposing of slippery Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson). To this effect, any morsel of moral complexity is gone in Saw V, diminishing the series to a simple killer goose-chase that is neither interesting nor even viscerally thrilling.

Saw V is the only entry into the series that did not need to contest an NC-17 rating, and it is painfully evident. In removing the one reliable element from the series and teasing its gore-hound audience with quick-fire shots of the messy results of Jigsaw's traps, there is little to excite (or terrify) even the most squeamish.

Moreover, the film's sloppy narrative only seeks to compound the myriad of problems faced by helmer David Hackl who, to his credit, is able to convey a palatable, although merely intermittent, sense of mood, frequently truncated by the film's excessive use of only superficially revelatory flashbacks. Saw V may seem to reveal plenty of the past of its characters, but it is mostly bloated full of hot air, and quite frankly, how much more do we really need to know?

Running parallel with Strahm's investigation is a new game instigated by Hoffman, involving five mysteriously linked individuals trapped inside a sewer system. Although this sub-plot is the least sigh-inducing portion of Saw V, it is still mired by poor acting, a smattering of unintentional comedy, and a complete lack of cohesion in relation to the film's

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