Saw X (2023)

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I hadn't been into a theater since the pandemic started and you can't blame a corporation for catching COVID-19 when you go to a 10:10 showing that starts on a Tuesday night. There wasn't another soul in the theater unless they were real sneaky about it. It's October, I enjoy the horror genre of movies, I love fall, this was all lining up. I also used to leave the house at like 9 or 10 PM all the time when I was younger. It was time to regain my youth.

Saw X takes place after the very first movie, which most people agree is the best in the series. This allows them to really make the film about John Kramer (Jigsaw) and actor Tobin Bell who is always and usually so much better in these things than anyone else.

Just some info about these movies from number II and beyond - they have a very text adventure feel to them, as serial killer Jigsaw encounters people that he feels the need to punish for their vices or choices or misdeeds. He will put them into a trap and then speak - usually from a mini cassette tape, but not always, and usually with a little puppet named Billy that comes out on a kid's bike, but not always - and say, "I want to play a game." The victim can usually (but not always) save their life technically speaking if they perform some gruesome body horror in the allotted time which usually (but not always) is kinda too short to really pull what is being asked off. A typical trap might be something like, ohhh victim, you leer at women, so dig out your eyes to get a key implanted behind your eyeball to set yourself free. I made that up but it's kind of the premise for these.

All right, with that in mind one more thing - Jigsaw is suffering from brain cancer and does not have long to live.

I wanted to see a movie about cancer to some degree. While my friend the Milker was never given some miracle hope for a cure and had accepted his fate before he passed away in one of the most heroic things I've ever experienced, seeing Jigsaw (well, he's really more "John Kramer" here) get tricked and get scammed by a group of people offering a cure was just ... sad. Melancholy. There is this series of disease that any of us could get at any time and not know about it. We don't really have cures for most of them and it rips people and families apart. After 10+ movies in this franchise we got to see John Kramer as just a normal guy who let false hope get the best of him. It's beautiful. Most of the first 40 or so minutes of this movie has very little to do with the horror genre. I felt something other than disgust at a Saw film. It was sadly wonderful.

This being what it is, though...

Well, of course the bad guy is gonna be the bad guy. You have to suspend your disbelief that he can make these traps so quickly for his victims but the audience has accepted this after 19 years. It's his super-power. Revenge is had, there are some interesting traps, there is a bunch of really gross sequences and I learned something about bone marrow. We even have something of a happy ending. Somewhat. For some people.

If you're not into these things I don't know that this is going to change your mind, but I really loved it. Who knows if we'll get more of these and without Tobin Bell, who is 81, what is the point, but if this is the last one then I am happy.

One last piece - in the movie, when John is trying to contact the people offering a cure for his brain cancer, he types in an email of kramerjohn994@gmail.com. I remembered it and wrote that address and I love it when movies do things that cross into the real world. I encourage you all to write him. At night.