Jigsaw
Director: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Writer: Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger
Sequel to: Saw, Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI, Saw 3D
Cast: Matt Passmore, Tobin Bell, Callum Keith Rennie, Hannah Emily Anderson, Clé Bennett, Laura Vandervoort, Paul Braunstein
Seen on: 1.10.2025

Content Note: sexism

Plot:
It’s been a decade since John Kramer aka Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) passed away. But now bodies are showing up all over the city that carry his signature. Detective Halloran (Callum Keith Rennie) tries to figure out whether Jigsaw could have possibly faked his own death. He gets help from pathologists Logan (Matt Passmore) and Eleanor (Hannah Emily Anderson), the latter seeming a little too excited at the prospect of a return of Jigsaw. Meanwhile, five people are fighting for survival in a barn.

I think the 7-year break between the last Saw film and this one did the series pretty good. There are some questionable elements here, but overall it is a film that works and that has a pretty nice twist, too. It would have been a good place for me to stop this project for now, but there is another Saw film left for me to see (the final final one isn’t included in any streaming service I use and I’ll be damned if I pay extra).

I don’t know if I have become desensitized to it, or if this film just isn’t that bad at it, but it does seem like the traps in this one make a little more sense than in other movies. And while the plot is still overly convoluted and trying to be too clever for its own good, it isn’t so completely ridiculous that I wanted to scream.

What did make me scream was the unabashed sexism that came to us through Halloran and his comments about Eleanor. Generally, Eleanor’s characterization won’t be winning any feminist prizes, but seriously, what Halloran spews is just foul. And I don’t think it was a comment of a criticism of his character, the way it is portrayed is, at best, a neutral, shrugging “that’s just the way it is”.

The film does have good pacing and some of the traps are again really nice. We also get to spend more time with most of the characters that get killed off, and that helps, too. The film allows us to care at least a little before the slaughter starts, giving us emotional investment. (Unfortunately, as somebody who actually has contact with small children, one pretty big twist didn’t work because I just called bullshit very early on.)

Before this starts to sound too good: it would be false advertising to claim that this is way better than the rest of the series. But it is a step up again after the films that came before it started to feel increasingly annoying. So, yay?

Summarizing: somewhat of a high note though that isn’t saying much