In previous decades, the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween franchises dominated the box-office come October 31st.  Nowadays, Saw and Halloween are nearly synonymous.

For the fourth year in a row, there is a Saw film to be seen on All Soul's Eve.  From the low-budget grittiness of the original, to the impressive cohesiveness of II and III, haste in production has never been apparent; that is...until now.  Saw IV makes it clear that 365 days is not enough time to devise a script from scratch and convert it to screen.

With the previous efforts from Bousman, Whannel, and Wan, quality material was dished out fast.  But now, Bousman just pulls a fast one on us.  Without being privy to the predecessors and/or a die-hard fan of everything Saw-related, Saw IV is a tangled, complicated, and disconnected mess—bogged down by too many returning characters, new characters, and wishful thinking.

Saw IV begins with the grotesque autopsy of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell).  After slicing through his scalp, skull, and sternum, the man performing the autopsy discovers a micro-cassette within the walls of Jigsaw’s stomach.  The tape is for Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and the messages states that Jigsaw’s work will continue. 

The game’s main player is Lieutenant Rigg (Lyriq Bent).  He is sucked into a game in which he must encounter victim after victim to see what Jigsaw sees, feel what he feels, save as he saves, and judge how he judges.  On his tail are agents Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Perez (Athena Karkanis).  Intermingled between the action is Jigsaw’s past showing his love, loss, and first victim.

For those who always considered the Saw series to be nothing more than a demonic escapade equipped with creative killing, you are finally correct with IV.  Simply put, Saw IV is a gimmick that attempts to tie up every loose end from the other films.  It may be high on mutilation, but it’s also high on perplexity and low on overall entertainment value.

With more revisions, Saw IV could have been tighter, less complex, and less stressful on viewers’ minds.  Unfortunately, Saw IV is a striking sign that the series is struggling and headed nowhere but to the grave.  If and only if, Lionsgate, Bousman, and the rest of the gang don’t continue to rush potentially sound pictures out of the woodwork, the Saw series may still have a glimmer of life left.  Otherwise, enough is enough.  Letting a depleted franchise live on primarily to suck the cash out of patrons’ pockets is just plain mean-spirited.

Like a crummy bucket of popcorn, Saw IV is stale and overly soaked in fake butter.  In attempting to merge storylines from previous sequels, Saw IV leaves a metal taste in your mouth and sends you on your way with an upset stomach.  Despite its no-holds-barred attitude and melding camera shot between scene transitions, Saw IV is the dullest blade in the box and the weakest tool in the shed.