Since its inception in 2004, the Saw franchise has become one of cinema's most popular horror series. Every year, the weekend before Hallowe'en, the latest Saw film is released, and horror fans worldwide look forward to their fix of traps, gore, and twisted philosophy. With Saw V having received largely negative reviews, Saw VI represented a key step for the series if it were to continue in future years.
The Traps Of Saw VI
Many horror fans will admit that there is a sort of perverse pleasure in the viewing experience that horror films entail. Every Saw film to date had featured numerous examples of shocking, bloody violence, and Saw VI is no different. The film opens in familiar Saw style, with a heart-pounding and sickeningly graphic 'Jigsaw Trap'. Two loan sharks are forced to give their own pound of flesh for their sins - with deadly screws penetrating their skulls, the two are forced to compete to see who will give the most of themselves to stay alive. While an overweight man hacks off chunks of fat from his stomach, a young woman butchers herself and donates an arm, winning the game and causing the man's death.
The main 'Trap' of the film, however, centres around a healthcare insurance mogul whose firm hold the power of life and death over their clients. The man, William Easton (Peter Outerbridge), is forced to undergo four trials in the space of an hour at an abandoned zoo in order to save his only family, with each trial involving his co-workers and office colleagues. The trials require comparatively little physical sacrifice from Easton, and instead require impossible decisions to be made - the minimal threat of impending horror, however, makes these scenes merely intriguing for the viewer, as opposed to genuinely scary.
Is There Enough Jigsaw?
One of the many complaints levelled towards Saw V by critics was that the series' most terrifying antagonist, John Kramer a.k.a. 'Jigsaw' or 'The Jigsaw Killer' (Tobin Bell), was under-used and rarely on-screen. This under-use was perhaps understandable given that Jigsaw died in Saw III, but the damage done to the series' dynamics was somewhat rectified by Saw VI. Numerous flashbacks to Jigsaw's previous encounters with William Easton, coupled with a repeated reinforcement of the idea that his accomplices were merely carrying out his work rather than conducting their own, go a long way towards rebuilding Jigsaw's over-arching influence over the Saw series.
While Jigsaw's strangely terrifying presence in the films remains, there is only so much that can be done via flashbacks. His 'replacement', Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), is suitably sinister and undoubtedly devious in deceiving his fellow detectives, but could never replicate the effect that Jigsaw himself has on the audience of the previous films in the series. The series has suffered since Jigsaw's demise, and it could be argued that a trilogy of Saw films would have left a better legacy than what looks set to be an eight or even nine-film series.
An Improvement On Saw V, But Not On Saw IV
All in all, Saw VI is a solid horror film in its own right. It maintains the philosophical outlook and grisly violence of the first five Saw films, while progressing the long-term story arc in a satisfactory way. It is a significant improvement on Saw V, which served no real purpose other than to tie up many loose ends from the first four films; however, it is some way behind Saw IV, which delivered the sort of earth-shattering final-act twist that viewers have come to expect from the series. These trademark twists and turns were somewhat lacking from Saw VI, which stops it from being one of the series' best efforts. Despite this, Saw VII now has a benchmark to aim at - fans of the series will be eagerly awaiting Hallowe'en 2010.
