My Review of Saw IV (2007)

 

Written by Patrick Melton And Marcus Dunstan And Thomas Fenton

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman 

Agent Strahm (re Jill/John): "Girl loves boy. Boy loves girl. Boy gets girl pregnant. Girl loses baby; boy turns into a serial killer."

If the third installment of this gore happy franchise felt like a natural ending point, this one felt like it was primed as a new era for it. After all, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) was dead and he needed a successor. Amanda (Shawnee Smith) was also dead, so it wasn't going to be her, was it?

Enter Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor). He got to look at the dead body of John Kramer and found a microcassette in the latter's stomach. This of course led to a whole new game being set up where Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) was still around.

Yup, both detectives were being held prisoner and both were in desperate need of being rescued before either one of them would end up dead. For Jigsaw, it almost seemed a tad straightforward, post death. Surely, there was a twist to be had? Of course there was but more on that in a bit.

For the most part, there was Rigg (Lyriq Bent). He's given a bigger role in this movie as he's tasked with trying to rescue his fellow detectives while also playing Jigsaw's games. Unfortunate victims in there games included Brenda (Sarah Boylan), voyeur/rapist Ivan (Marty Adams) as well as husband/wife duo Rex (Ron Lea) and Morgan (Janet Land). It's not hard to guess how most of these games played out.

On top of that, there's also an FBI duo in Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Agent Perez (Athena Karkanis). They're brought in as it's been deduced that Jigsaw has another apprentice. Oh and for a dead man, he popped up in a lot of flashbacks. That was mainly to add another tragic backstory involving his estranged wife, Jill (Betsy Russell).

Anyways getting to the other apprentice part of the movie, it was none other than Detective Mark Hoffman himself. I'll admit that it's a good reveal and by the end of this movie, there's a few more deaths added. It's not the only surprise that this particular movie had.

- Characters from the previous two movies reappear during the flashbacks and events playing out at the same time.

- Jill had suffered a miscarriage which eventually caused her and John to separate. She owned the meat factory in which events were taking place in.

- Standout music: Yoshiki's I.V.

- Chronology: The events of this movie were happening as the same time of the third movie.

Saw IV was the start of a new trilogy and it's off to a decent start. The flashbacks were a way to keep Tobin Bell onscreen for a decent amount of time and there's some sympathy for John and Jill's tragedy. I'll admit that I liked the Hoffman reveal as well.

Rating: 6 out of 10