At a certain point you have to wonder how long audiences are going to keep flocking to this stuff. Saw II and Saw III both made more money on their opening weekends then the first Saw did, and if analysts are to be believed Saw IV has the chance to continue the trend. But why? I mean, it isn’t like these films are really getting any better then the original (or even close, for that matter).And while sequel director Darren Lynn Bousman is getting a bit more confident behind the camera with each successive outing we’re still not talking about the second coming of John Carpenter or George A. Romero.

Jigsaw's (Tobin Bell) games continue in Lionsgate Films' Saw IV

If anything, this whole series has quickly degenerated into much the same obnoxiously familiar pattern as befell The Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Friday the 13^th before it. There will be traps (the most vicious one here a mechanism that literally pulls one man limb-from-limb), there will be blood (the opening autopsy sequence has got be one of the most grisly I’ve ever seen) and there will be multiple red herrings all leading to a climax designed to take audiences no place other then a subsequent sequel.

It’s getting old, and sitting in the theater this morning (there was no press screening – not that this was a huge surprise) I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to other things I could have been doing with my time. I interviewed Jerry Seinfeld for his upcoming Bee Movie and could have been at the office writing up the column. Then there was that package sitting in my mailbox from Warner Bros. containing numerous Blade Runner goodies, maybe I should have been going through all of those getting ready for some interviews they scheduled me around that film’s reissue.

There was plenty else I could have been doing but no, Lionsgate had made another Saw and here I was like a dodo going over the cliff with the rest of the flock sitting in a theater, missing out on some Seattle sunshine and watching this thing wishing I were someplace else. So I got to witness a film with so flimsy a plotline it had to resort to almost an hour’s worth of flashbacks in order to fill 90 or so minutes. I got to witness the shockingly bad acting of Scott Patterson as he portrayed maybe the single dumbest FBI agent in horror film history. I got to watch the surprising resurrection of a character from the previous film only to see them shot dead less then a couple of minutes later. 

I got to witness lots of things, none of which I would call either suspenseful or terrifying. Worse, I wouldn’t call a single one of them entertaining. Instead I sat there, twiddled my thumbs and wondered how much longer I’d be forced to go to the theater each Halloween and endure this endless series. Audiences have to start wising up soon. They have to be smarter than this. They have to realize their money can be spent better elsewhere. They have to realize all of this and more, they just have to… don’t they?

Film Rating: ê1/2  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Saw IV Theatrical Trailer