Movie Info
Movie Name: Jigsaw
Studio: Twisted Pictures
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): October 27, 2017
MPAA Rating: R
Being buried alive in a silo should be terrifying…here it becomes the wind-up to a weaker punchline
When a man shows up claiming to be forced to play a deadly game, Detective Halloran (Callum Keith Rennie) questions if Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) has somehow come back from the dead. Logan Nelson (Matt Passmore) and Eleanor Bonneville (Hannah Emily Anderson) investigating bodies now appearing, and Halloran, Nelson, and Bonneville must determine who could be impersonating the deceased killer. Meanwhile a group of victims find themselves trapped in Jigsaw’s evil puzzle of death…and the truth will be revealed!
Directed by the Spierig Brothers, Jigsaw is the relaunch of the torture-horror film series Saw. Following Saw 3D from 2010, the movie was met with largely negative reviews but a strong box office return.
I always found the Saw movies kind of tedious from the get-go. They all had their moments, and yes, some of the deaths are quite creative. I’m not into the whole torture horror film genre, and I always felt the movies always thought more of themselves than they really were (which were rather dull mysteries with bad acting). Jigsaw returns to the classic form of the Saw films and shows you can keep making these movies forever (for better or worse). A *******spoiler alert******* is in effect for the review.
I’m going to try to swing around as much as I can in this thing…I’m sure that will work out.
The story for the movie is intentionally loaded with red-herrings. Everyone is a suspect through the movie (one advantage of having a series of films with that trend), but the actual murderer is pretty obvious through some dialogue in the movie (despite attempts of the writers to cover their tracks). It also isn’t likely that Jigsaw has returned since (regardless of what you think of the films), the movies have been pretty consistent that there is no supernatural aspects to the story…which leads to only one choice that any appearance by Bell is a prequel story (especially since none of the victims seem to have heard of a world renown serial killer like Jigsaw).
The acting for the film is pretty poor. It is over-the-top and kind of intentional in that sense to make everyone a suspect…but that doesn’t necessarily make for good movie making. Each Jigsaw imitator has been a stepdown from Tobin Bell, and if Matt Passmore is the future of the franchise, there could be problems.
Noooooooo!!!! I’m trapped by my own bad acting!!!!
The death traps continue to be the pull of the movie, but there is no shock to it. While Saw was pretty simple, the game got more and more complex in each movie. This movie’s traps are no longer surprising and just an attempt to outdo the other films. Sometimes the more basic tortures are the scarier tortures.
Jigsaw is an easy moneymaker. It is the type of horror film that deals more with the horror and gross-outs than the scares. I prefer movies that find a nice balance with horror and scares and more originality (something the whole franchise is lacking). With the film’s success, the franchise was bound to continue. A stand-alone and quasi-relaunch film Spiral: From the Book of Saw was released in 2021.
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