Ah yes, Saw IV. The fourth helping of cinematic torture stew that Lionsgate ladled into theaters in 2007. At this point, the Saw franchise had become less a horror series and more of an annual flu shot for gore hounds—mandatory, a little painful, and done mostly out of tradition. With James Wan and Leigh Whannell having wisely fled the operating table, Darren Lynn Bousman and the new writing team decided to stitch together a Frankenstein of flashbacks, autopsies, and ice blocks. What we got was not so much a movie as a two-hour fever dream where everyone shouts about rules while mutilating each other like it’s a particularly bad office team-building exercise.
Opening Scene: Dinner Theater for Coroners
The movie kicks off with Jigsaw’s autopsy—a scene so lovingly detailed that you half expect Gordon Ramsay to show up and season the corpse. They peel him like an orange, scoop him like ice cream, and finally find a microcassette in his stomach, because apparently John Kramer swallowed evidence like a dog hiding pills in peanut butter. This is the tone-setter: grisly, clinical, and about as subtle as a chainsaw in a church.
It’s the kind of opening that screams, “We ran out of plot, but don’t worry, we still have latex organs in the props department.”
Plot: A Murder Mystery Written by a Drunk Rubik’s Cube
The “story”—and I use that word generously—follows Officer Rigg, who becomes the poor sap chosen for Jigsaw’s morality scavenger hunt. His tests involve breaking into motel rooms, dragging rapists around like bad luggage, and being told over and over to “learn to let go.” By the third test, I half-expected a PowerPoint presentation titled Boundaries and You.
Meanwhile, the FBI agents Strahm and Perez bumble around trying to solve the puzzle, only to learn what everyone already knows: there’s another apprentice. This revelation lands with all the weight of a paper airplane because, honestly, who isn’t a Jigsaw apprentice at this point? By Saw IV, if you weren’t already revealed as working for Kramer, you were probably just waiting for your union card.
The Traps: More Complicated Than Tax Law
The traps in Saw IV are… ambitious, let’s say. Jigsaw apparently spent his final weeks alive sketching blueprints like a sleep-deprived architecture major.
-
The Scalping Machine: Because what better way to teach self-worth than by turning someone into a L’Oréal cautionary tale?
-
The Rapist Eye-Gouger: A contraption so elaborate it probably required a small loan and several city permits. Spoiler: he doesn’t gouge his eyes fast enough. Shocking.
-
The Spiked Couple: Husband and wife impaled back-to-back with rods, forced into a literal trust exercise. Nothing says “working through marital issues” like sharing a spike through the chest.
By this point, the traps feel less like moral lessons and more like rejected American Ninja Warrior obstacles.
Characters: The Walking Dead (But Less Charismatic)
-
Rigg (Lyriq Bent): Our main character, who runs through this film like a man late for a dentist appointment. His lesson is to “let go,” which apparently means running headfirst into every crime scene he sees.
-
Strahm (Scott Patterson): An FBI agent who interrogates people like he’s practicing for an improv class. His big accomplishment? Shooting the wrong guy. Bravo.
-
Hoffman (Costas Mandylor): The twist apprentice. His emotional range is “smirk” and “slightly different smirk.”
-
Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell): Jigsaw’s ex-wife, dragged in to provide tragic backstory. Her big contribution? A miscarriage flashback so on-the-nose it should’ve been scored with a sad trombone.
Even Jigsaw, the beating cancerous heart of this franchise, feels like he’s phoning it in from beyond the grave. The man spends more time narrating flashbacks than tormenting people. At this point, Kramer isn’t a villain—he’s a podcaster.
Backstory Overload: The TED Talk Nobody Asked For
Remember when Jigsaw’s motives were simple? Teach people to value their lives. By Saw IV, we’re drowning in flashbacks, learning that his evil empire started because his wife had a miscarriage during a drugstore robbery. Suddenly, the grand architect of morality traps is just a grumpy widower who thought better parenting could be achieved with reverse bear traps.
These backstory dumps are presented with all the grace of a DMV instructional video. Every time the movie cuts to Jill Tuck narrating about John’s tragic past, you can practically hear the audience muttering, “Yeah, yeah, we get it, back to the scalpings.”
Pacing: Like a Carnival Ride Designed by Sadists
The editing in Saw IV is the cinematic equivalent of being waterboarded with Mountain Dew. Flashbacks slam into present-day scenes, timelines overlap, and everyone shouts about clocks. The movie is obsessed with 90-minute countdowns, but somehow feels twice as long.
And the big twist—that everything you just watched happened before Jigsaw’s autopsy—is less “mind-blowing” and more “mind-numbing.” It’s like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat after you already saw him stuff it in there.
The Ending: Death by Ice Cubes
The climax involves Detective Eric Matthews—yes, somehow still alive—standing on a block of ice, rigged to crush his head if the door opens too soon. Imagine dying in a trap that could be foiled by summer weather. Of course, Rigg barges in, Matthews’ head pops like a piñata, and Hoffman reveals himself as Jigsaw’s apprentice by standing up and smirking like he just won a raffle.
It’s meant to be shocking, but by this point, the only shocking thing is that the franchise still had five more sequels to churn out.
The Tone: Grim, Grimmer, and Accidentally Funny
The Saw movies pride themselves on being grim morality plays. But Saw IV crosses into unintentional comedy. Watching Rigg drag a naked rapist down a hallway while yelling about justice is less horrifying and more like performance art. Mrs. Carmody from The Mist could’ve wandered in and nobody would’ve blinked.
And the constant moralizing? Exhausting. Jigsaw wants people to “appreciate life,” but by Saw IV, the audience doesn’t appreciate their own for having bought a ticket.
Final Thoughts: A Bloody Soap Opera with Power Tools
Saw IV is what happens when you take a perfectly good horror franchise, bleed it dry, then stitch it back together with duct tape and arrogance. It’s not scary, it’s not suspenseful, and it’s only barely coherent. Instead of chills, it gives you a headache. Instead of moral dilemmas, it gives you migraines.
And yet, in its own sloppy, blood-soaked way, it’s almost charming. Watching Saw IV is like watching a drunk juggler set his pants on fire—you know it’s bad, but damned if you’re not entertained in the worst possible way.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Ice Blocks
Because the only thing colder than Jigsaw’s traps is this sequel’s reception.
