The Saw movies are the Fast & Furious of torture-porn franchises, as dedicated to doubling down on their original conceit as they are to their sincerely applied, ever-expanding lore. In the series’ ninth outing,
Spiral: From the Book of Saw, someone appears to be following in the footsteps of The Jigsaw Killer, everyone’s favorite murderous philosophy major. Jigsaw has actually been dead since
Saw III in 2006, but
Spiral raises doubts about that statement: It’s the series’ second soft reboot in recent years, and a key question teased in its trailers is whether its grisly puzzle-murders are the work of a copycat, or someone connected to the original killer, John Kramer (Tobin Bell). It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume the latter, given how much the people behind the Saw series care about its sprawling continuity.