The horror genre tends to run in cycles. The slasher movies of the ‘80s gave way to psychological thrillers in the ‘90s, which in turn led to mul
Spiral, the ninth entry in the
Saw franchise (Image Courtesy of Lionsgate)
Darren Lynn Bousman, director of
Spiral, has one promise about the the infamous body-mangling, limb-wrecking, jaw-splitting traps of the
Saw movies. They work the way we say they work.
He s not kidding. Case in point: The Rack from
Saw III. That s the one where the man is in there, and his arms are outstretched, and it begins to twist, said Bousman. As is the way of
Saw and its very practical effects, the mechanism really worked. It s hooked to gears and a motor, and it turns one degree a second until it would completely snap your limbs. So we always have to go through a safety protocol. The stunt guy gets in the trap, and immediately he s going Safety! Safety! and we had to stop it, because it was turning his arms and his neck the same way we say it turns.
It might be a controversial opinion among the fanboys and girls of the Eighties slasher franchises, but the
Saw series is one of the most interesting mainstream horror franchises of all time. It is why 2017’s soft reboot
Jigsaw was a disaster. With cheap tie-ins to keep John Kramer (Tobin Bell) tangled in the plot after
Jigsaw was a colossal misfire for the series.
Enter Chris Rock, whose smooth talking at a Brazilian wedding found himself in a pitch room with Lionsgate executives to bring back the
Saw franchise again, but not in the way one would expect. Spiral, helmed by longtime franchise director Darren Lynn Bousman, doesn’t need Kramer and his group of apprentices to feel like a
‘Spiral: From the Book of Saw’ Review: It’s A Whole New Game
The original Jigsaw Killer died in
Saw III. That didn’t stop the franchise from cranking out five more sequels, each one twisting itself into tighter and tighter narrative pretzels to explain how the late John Kramer and his apprentices were still torturing people from beyond the grave. No matter how absurd or labyrinthian they got, the
Saws kept making money every year, at least for a while. So why not another?
And here we are at
Jigsaw. As the title suggests, this entry takes a slightly different approach to the material. Although almost every previous