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 overarching narrative. Once the game plays out, and the painfully obvious truths are revealed, one really must consider what the point of it all was other than to pad out the sorely-malnourished plot.
Hackl and Co. have plenty of opportunities in Saw V to appease their core audience with the expected thrills and spills, yet they seem more concerned with crafting their sloppy narrative, in a manner that is a flagrant slap in the face to those who have paid good money up until now, with fully-justified expectations of what they will experience each year. Given that the story is neither intricately-plotted nor complimentary to the gore, it is difficult to see Saw V as a success in most aspects.
David Hackl deserves some credit as a director, however he fulfills every visual expectation of a Saw film (even the annoyingly hyper-kinetic camerawork), and retains the series' industrial noir aesthetic. Hackl's efforts are, however, considerably diminished by an inept script, featuring woefully underdeveloped characters, and a lack of solid moral ambiguity (even by the standards of the series).
When considered within the scope of the aforementioned horror series' of yesteryear, Saw V is certainly not the failure that was Halloween 3: Season of the Witch or any later entry into the other two horror mainstays. However, if Saw IV was no indication enough, Saw V makes it evident that its creators are content with crafting a visually solid, but otherwise empty slew of films that provide only minor thrills to even the weakest of stomachs. It is not to say that Saw VI cannot redeem this entry, in that whilst Saw V is easily the worst of show, it is also mired (and curiously aided) by its staunch inertia, meaning that little of the series' balance is upset, and simply put, this is a tiring precursor to the next film, which may answer the fleet of red herrings and questions thrown our way over the last five years.
The Saw team could do far worse with their efforts, yet it is difficult to see how many can take this fifth episode seriously, particularly in its predictable, overblown, and down-right laughable finale that is better-suited to some of the flimsier Bond films of Pierce Brosnan's tenure than a horror film. You certainly won't believe how Saw V ends, but moreover, you won't believe the whole package veiling the gore as though finally embarrassed by itself, Saw V is no worse than the uninspired J-horror and 80s remakes flooding our screens every weekend, yet it is little better either.