SAW V: Movie Review (2008)

Directed by David Hackle, written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, 99 minutes, rated R.

The promotional tagline used for the last “Saw” movie, “Saw IV,” went something like this: “If it’s Halloween, it must be time for another one of those crap ‘Saw’ movies.”

Okay, so maybe that isn’t completely accurate (the tagline actually was “If it’s Halloween, it must be “Saw”), but my tagline is closer to the truth--then and now. And how. In the political world, we’ve all heard plenty about how you can’t put lipstick on a pig. And guess what? In the film world, this is the equivalent. Oink, oink! They should have called this knockoff “Slop V.”

Back for more boredom, bloodletting and gore is, in fact, “Saw V,” which not only belongs in the business end of “Woodchipper Massacre,” but also lifted up as one of the worst horror shows ever. And we’ve just endured the Bush administration, so you can imagine how bad it is.

With the exception of the first film, which at least featured a shred of tension early on, this beauty follows all of the banality that came after it. It offers zero suspense, an ongoing run of stupidity and absurdity wrapped around some dumb morality tale, and enough murky twists to make you scratch your head bald. Just ask the guy sitting in front of me.

Working from Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan’s Crayon-colored script, director David Hackle puts his audience’s necks on the chopping block and shows them no mercy for just under 100 minutes. He wastes no time in getting to the gore. As with all of the “Saw” movies, the gutting is the real star here, and it starts from the get-go.

Stretched out on a slab is a young man who must “learn his lesson” and “atone for his sins” because Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), who is dead but still an aggressive moral activist in this movie (don’t ask), has another chip on his shoulder and wants to make a point by taking a human life. What this means to the man in question, a murderer named Seth (Joris Jarsky), is that he willingly crushes his fingers into bloody stumps in an effort to stop a swinging pendulum from slicing him in half. Who wants to bet things don’t go Seth’s way? Can I see a show of hands? Anyone? I didn’t think so.

This middling mediocrity then collapses into a series of flashbacks and flashforwards, the lot of which are so dizzying, you might want to bring your favorite MENSA member to see if they can make sense of it. That is, of course, assuming they can meet the film’s real challenge by staying awake. If they do, they’ll see a movie that follows Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) as he comes to question Det. Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), who fans (or victims--you choose!) of the last movie will recall has taken over Jigsaw’s dirty work. A boring police procedural ensues.

Torture is a mainstay in this movie (you know, like sitting through it), which apparently is its appeal as the filmmakers continue to focus less on character and more on how many ways one can meet their grisly end. But what’s happening to the torture-porn genre--what’s ruining it, really--is that none of the presumably disgusting scenes create the desired effect of absolute revulsion.

After being exposed to so many similar movies for so long now, we are immune to it. At my packed screening, people were so silent throughout the movie, you’d swear they were watching some unpopular, grim foreign film, complete with subtitles, by some nameless, third-rate hack, and not a movie that rejoices in the hum-drum breaking of bones, the gushing of fake blood, and all those ribbons of rubbery entrails.

Grade: BOMB