A New Chapter in the Saga of the Maniac Delivering Moral Lessons Through Sinister Mechanisms
“The game has just begun,” promises the maniac’s pleasant baritone, recorded on a cassette with a flirtatious “play me” label. Meanwhile, the maniac himself lies on the medical examiner’s table, somber and solemn, dissected and trepanned according to all the rules of pathological anatomy. The cassette has just been retrieved from his stomach – shortly before dying in the previous installment, the stubborn man swallowed this message to threaten the world with his bloody moralizing even after death.
This time, a police officer, the commander of a SWAT team, must undergo a series of tests. After losing consciousness in his own home and regaining it, he discovers a message stating that he has ninety minutes to save two of his colleagues. As proof, a video recording of the poor souls languishing in some dungeons is shown. The task is simple – follow the instructions and do not allow excessive kindness to distract you. The first test involves a blonde sitting in the next room, attached to a cunning device ready to slowly remove her scalp. Photographs hanging around the room expose her crimes. The task suggests leaving the criminal to her fate and going in search of the missing colleagues. Of course, the police officer will rush to save the blonde, the fair scalp will leave her head, and, little by little, body after body, the poor fellow will begin to learn the lesson that the torturer decided to teach him.
The Paradox of “Saw IV”
“Saw IV” (2007) presents a kind of paradox. It’s not just that the creators, pleasantly shocked by the hundred million dollars collected in the American box office by the previous installment, decided to shoot a sequel already having the dead body of the main character on hand. The paradox lies in the fact that the film has finally reached the point where further depletion of scriptwriting thought only benefits the cause. Who and why becomes a test subject in the series of tests to which the torturer subjects his victims becomes completely irrelevant. It also doesn’t matter who helps the villain. The world of “Saw” has grown to universal proportions, with detailed comments on the fate of each character in each part posted on Wikipedia, and detailed descriptions of each device created by the criminal engineer for the purification of souls are published (reminiscent of a nightmarish “mail-order goods” catalog).
The Genesis of the “Saw” Franchise
The first film of the “Saw” project was released in 2004 and, with a budget of 1.2 million, grossed more than 55 million dollars in the American box office. At the center of all four films is a man named John – a terminally ill engineer who subjects his victims to tests using cunning and deadly devices. The purpose of the tests is a specific moral lesson. The key rule is that by doing everything right, the victim can survive.
For the Fans and the Uninitiated
For staunch fans, the fourth part will be an important stage, revealing the romantic and dramatic details of the life of John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, that led him to bloody sermons. Viewers unfamiliar with the previous parts will find it difficult, it is easy to slip and get completely confused at the next plot twist – who are all these people, why did they get into this nightmare and what are they being killed for.
Those who go to this film quite consciously do not need advice – they are obviously led by the heart. Those who hesitate should be warned that even the repeatedly praised and cursed for its cruelty “Hostel” (2005) pales before the slaughter of “Saw”. A slaughter all the more merciless because it is practically devoid of the moral meaning imposed on it. From this part, “Saw” is something like the paintings in medieval cathedrals, where the hellish suffering of sinners no longer serves as a lesson or warning, and does not tell a story, but are pictures of pure, unadulterated evil, perfect in their plastic completeness.
