JIGSAW (2017)

Studio:       Lionsgate
Director:    The Spierig Brothers
Writer:       Josh Stolberg, Peter Goldfinger
Producer:  Oren Koules, Mark Burg, Gregg Hoffman
Stars:     Matt Passmore, Callum Keith Rennie, Cle Bennett, Hannah Emily Anderson, Laura Vandervoort, Mandela Van Peebles, Paul Braunstein, Brittany Allen, Josiah Black, Tobin Bell

Review Score:

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Summary:

New victims found murdered by deadly traps compel police to investigate the possibility that John Kramer is still alive.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Following a police pursuit, detectives Halloran and Keith Hunt confront criminal Edgar Munsen. Halloran orders officers to shoot a remote trigger out of Edgar’s hand, but someone also shoots Edgar in his chest. Before falling into a coma, Edgar warns that a game has started.

Anna, Carly, Mitch, Ryan, and another man wake in a room to find themselves with buckets locked around their heads. Over a speaker, Jigsaw’s voice instructs the quintet to make a blood sacrifice in order to release their locks, which attach to chains pulling them toward saw blades embedded in five doors. Anna, Carla, Mitch, and Ryan slice themselves on the blades, which opens their doors. The fifth person seemingly dies.

A body later identified as Malcolm Neal is found hanging in a park with a bucket on its head. Doctor Logan Nelson and Eleanor Bonneville perform an autopsy. They find a flash drive containing a Jigsaw video claiming his games have begun again and won’t stop until sins against the innocent are atoned for.

Anna, Carly, Mitch, and Ryan enter a barn where their chains now threaten to hang them from the ceiling. Carly is revealed to have snatched the purse of a woman who died from an asthma attack while chasing her. Carly is presented with three numbered syringes containing an antidote to poison in her bloodstream, saline solution, and acid. With Carly unwilling to inject herself as the quartet begins to hang, Ryan stabs Carly with all three needles. Carly hemorrhages to death as the acid melts her face. The others are automatically released.

Anna, Mitch, and Ryan open the door to the next room using lock combination numbers found inside the syringe that killed Carly. Ryan triggers a trap that tightens a wire around his leg.

Logan and Eleanor perform an autopsy on a dead woman found with her face melted. Eleanor also identifies evidence indicating the two new victims came from a barnyard.

Halloran and Hunt confront Logan about his partner when they discover that Eleanor logged a lot of time visiting a Jigsaw fan website. Meanwhile, another doctor confirms that blood found under Malcolm Neal’s fingernails belongs to John Kramer.

With Ryan still trapped, Anna and Mitch look for a way out by climbing down a silo. Falling grain traps them in place while sharp objects threaten to kill them. To save Anna and Mitch according to Jigsaw’s ultimatum, Ryan is forced to pull a release lever that fully severs his pinned leg.

Logan warns Eleanor that Halloran suspects both of them could be involved in the new murders. Worried that her fandom incriminates her, Eleanor shows Logan her studio dedicated to Jigsaw traps. Hunt secretly spies on the duo in Eleanor’s loft.

Someone unseen kidnaps Edgar from the hospital.

Back in the barn, Mitch triggers another blade trap powered by a motorcycle. It is revealed that Mitch knowingly sold a motorcycle with faulty brakes to a man who died on the bike. Jigsaw’s voice claims that the victim was his nephew. Mitch is ultimately cut to ribbons in the large contraption.

Hoping to allay the public’s fear that Jigsaw is still alive, authorities exhume John Kramer’s coffin. Edgar Munsen’s dead body is discovered inside.

Based on photos Hunt previously took, police execute a search warrant on Eleanor’s studio. Halloran finds a body cut up similar to Mitch.

While Halloran searches for Eleanor, Hunt tries to arrest Logan. Logan claims he is being framed as he convinces Hunt that Halloran may be behind the Jigsaw murders. Hunt confirms that he is an Internal Affairs officer already investigating Halloran for corruption. Logan pulls the chest bullet out of Edgar’s corpse and matches it to Halloran’s gun.

Anna and Ryan wake up chained in another room of the barn. Jigsaw unmasks himself as John Kramer. John reveals that he was Anna’s neighbor, and he knew she suffocated her baby and framed her husband, who later committed suicide. Ryan is revealed to have caused a crash that killed two of his high school friends.

John says, “here is your key to freedom” as he loads a shotgun. John places the shotgun in the center of the room and leaves.

Eleanor regroups with Logan to tell him that she located Jigsaw’s barn. Halloran follows Logan and Eleanor to Tuck’s Pig Farm, which belonged to John Kramer’s wife. Meanwhile, Hunt finds flesh puzzle pieces inside Halloran’s refrigerator, implicating Halloran in the new Jigsaw murders.

Halloran bursts in on Logan and Eleanor as they explore the trap-filled barn. The two men fight. Eleanor flees outside. Halloran chases Logan and ends up drugged from behind.

Misinterpreting John’s clues, Anna tries to shoot Ryan with the shotgun, but kills herself when it fires backwards. Ryan realizes that John hid their shackle keys inside the shotgun shells. They both could have lived, but Ryan remains trapped as his key is now destroyed.

Halloran recovers to find himself with a laser cutter trap locked around his neck. Halloran sees Logan across from him wearing a similar contraption.

Jigsaw’s voice instructs both men to confess to the reasons why they deserve death. Logan confesses to having been the person who mislabeled John Kramer’s x-rays, preventing John’s cancer from being diagnosed when it was still treatable. Despite his admission, the laser trap seemingly kills Logan anyway.

Halloran confesses to everything he did as a corrupt cop. The lasers disengage, although the collar stays in place.

Logan stands up, revealing that he faked his death and recorded Halloran’s confession. Logan explains that he was the first player in a five-person Jigsaw game that authorities never discovered. John Kramer had a change of heart and freed Logan from the first room while Anna, Carly, Mitch, and Ryan went on to die. Crediting Jigsaw with giving his life purpose, Logan became a disciple who helped John build the traps for his games.

Ten years after John’s death, Logan recreated Jigsaw’s first game to revolve around Halloran. Scenes involving Anna and the others were actually flashbacks while the new victims were criminals from Halloran’s failed cases.

Logan covers Anna and Ryan’s rotting corpses. Logan accuses Halloran of having protected criminal informant Edgar Munsen, whom Logan blames for his wife’s murder. Logan admits that he was the sniper who shot Edgar during the initial faceoff. Logan also reveals that he planted John Kramer’s blood on Malcolm Neal’s body, framed Halloran to look like a Jigsaw copycat, and manipulated Eleanor so that she would corroborate Logan’s alibi. Logan reactivates Halloran’s lasers, which split Halloran’s head apart. Logan exits the barn.

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Review:

More and more as far as mainstream horror goes, I often wonder how much my “what is everyone complaining about?” perspective might be prejudiced by foreknowledge of negative critical consensus.  I saw “The Bye Bye Man” (review here) well after it left first-run theaters, leaving overwhelmingly unimpressed audiences in its wake.  Had I not seen the film after the fact under a presumption it sucked, would my “it’s not as bad as everyone says” opinion have joined the collective chorus of boos instead?

Similar circumstances applied to “Rings” (review here).  The only things lower than that movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score and box office returns were my expectations.  Maybe if I had the same blank slate as its early detractors, I wouldn’t have backhandedly defended the film as “better than I’d been led to believe.”

I find myself in this position once again with “Jigsaw.”  A critic I follow who is also a noted “Saw” fan described this seventh sequel as “a crushing disappointment.”  One of the better-known horror sites labeled it “the worst installment in the ‘Saw’ franchise.”  Another genre journalist simplified his sentiment with the word “boring.”

Additional rumors said established mythology mostly went out the window to keep the plot accessible for newcomers.  All of this conditioned me for a dumbed-down reboot with nowhere near the same bite as its predecessors.  Instead, I came out the other side questioning why many “Saw” fans seemingly have such problems with the movie.  Considering how little is left for the current continuity to tap (surviving characters from the previous seven installments notwithstanding), “Jigsaw” makes for a surprisingly solid stab at rejuvenating a long-toothed property whose corpse was as cold as John Kramer’s.

The underlying premise of “Jigsaw” suggests John Kramer’s corpse might not be cold after all.  Even if you’ve never seen a “Saw” film before, all anyone needs to know is that Kramer, aka ‘Jigsaw,’ was a devious serial killer who forced victims to face supposed sins via elaborate traps.  Simple enough.

When a police shootout with a confused criminal triggers a new string of deaths, two detectives and two forensic analysts end up investigating what appears to be a crop of copycat crimes.  The more clues they uncover, the more it appears John Kramer, despite being dead, might be pulling the strings.  While authorities race to confirm the killer’s identity, five victims hiding horrible secrets fight to escape a barn full of traps designed to punish them in gruesome ways.  Also simple enough.

Perhaps that simplicity flusters franchise faithful.  Familiar faces like Jigsaw’s wife Jill Tuck, Detective Hoffman, or Shawnee Smith’s Amanda are nowhere to be found.  I contend that’s a smart move.  Writers Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger don’t restart the series’ fiction so much as splinter in an offshoot direction.  As the eighth entry in John Kramer’s improbably long saga, “Jigsaw” avoids worming its way through continuity that, frankly, grew too convoluted to have any remote relation to reality anyway.

Stripping this “Saw” down to essentials doesn’t deprive the film of a trademark twist.  However, this one works a little differently than others.  Specifically, the final curtain pull completely cheats, revealing that the story’s structure is designed not with narrative in mind, but with an objective to unfairly fool the audience.

I don’t have a problem with this, although I understand how some might out of principle.  It doesn’t grate much because directors Peter and Michael Spierig, who previously wowed with their terrific time travel thriller “Predestination” (review here), entertainingly distract with a great deal of showmanship.  Editor Kevin Greutert, who has been with “Saw” since the beginning, proves how well he has a handle on the series’ tempo with perhaps his sharpest work to date.  With thanks to fluid camerawork too, “Jigsaw” moves swiftly, and that tightness truly holds tone together.

Gore somewhat steps out of the spotlight on this spin.  The Spierigs instead use traps to craft moments of “Final Destination”-like tension that are less reliant on shocking pops of blood.  Suspense comes from the anticipatory setup rather than the torturous result.

Characters can be better identified by whom they look like as opposed to describing distinct personalities.  Mandela Van Peebles is instantly recognizable as his father’s son before even knowing his last name.  Paul Braunstein plays a Poor Man’s Paul Giamatti.  Brittany Allen practically recreates her panicky part from “It Stains the Sands Red” (review here).  They certainly aren’t the best-fleshed crop of Jigsaw targets, but they are moderately more memorable than most.

Disappointment from “Saw” fans probably relates to unfulfilled desires for resolving where things were when Dr. Gordon slammed the door at the end of “Saw 3D.”  Speaking as someone who has seen every “Saw” film and considers the first to be one of the most significant horror movies of the 21st century, I prefer the approach taken here.  Even if execution comes off as lackluster in places, the spirit of “Saw” remains and the Spierigs’ style adds a much-needed feeling of freshness.

I will say though, the creators have finally squeezed every last drop of blood from this vein of Jigsaw’s mythology.  I’ll defend the path taken to trick viewers this time as a creative necessity, given how much fiction has been exhausted after eight films.  But series stewards can’t go to this well again.  That leaves producers out of reasonable options for a ninth movie, unless they truly do go a reboot route, or find another unique way to bring Jigsaw back from the dead.

Review Score:  65

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