Jigsaw is the 8th film in the torture porn Saw franchise and the first one in seven years. I can’t say I’ve missed the series and I can’t say this new one justifies the return. It’s the same as all the rest. Same formula, same bogus moralizing as justification for torturing people, same cops investigating, and same ol’ switcheroo-type ending. Did I see the ending coming? Not really. So points for that, I guess.
Jigsaw seems to be back… again… because the character died in the 3rd movie and the series has been bending over backwards trying to work around that. But ok… he’s got some bad people trapped in his Escape the Room torture farm and the medical examiner and a cop have to figure things out…
The series has one thing inexplicably going for it… it seems to care about its story and continuity which I always found perplexing. Good for them, but really probably too much effort for a splatter movie. This new one kind of works within canon though I’m pretty sure both twists in the movie were done in previous films.
I was bored… I’m not a big fan of this franchise but I was hoping they were going to do something – anything – different with this soft reboot / sequel. They didn’t. If this series interests you, maybe see it. If the idea of watching terrible people get tortured while they script pretends the killer is doing it out of sense or societal moral obligation does not interest you, there’s no point starting with this one.
Score: 61