Saw V (Unrated Director's Cut) (2008)

How do you keep a horror franchise going when your villain has been unquestionably and irrevocably killed off? That's a conundrum any number of genre series have tackled--to varying degrees of success--and the problem facing the sadistic Saw films in its latest entry, Saw V. The filmmakers' answer--faithful henchmen--is at first blush a savvy idea, as it allows the mayhem of original bad guy Jigsaw to continue unabated, despite the fact that he was dissected on a morgue slab in the previous film. Saw V extends the premise by having disgraced detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor from the previous two films) don the pig mask to unleash horrific tortures on another group of seemingly unconnected strangers. Scott Patterson (Aliens in America) also returns as Hoffman's Javert, a dogged fellow agent who escapes death in the fourth film and an ugly fate in this entry to continue his pursuit. All the elements that have made the Saw series popular with horror fans--the elaborate killing machines, the trompe l'oeil plotting, and the sociopathic judgments handed down by Jigsaw--are intact in Saw V, which is a positive for its most faithful followers, but a negative for just about everyone else. Saw V covers no new ground, expands no part of the mythology of the series and seems perfectly content to present a lifeless retread of Saw III and IV. It also suffers from the absence of Tobin Bell as Jigsaw, who despite his top billing, is glimpsed only in brief flashbacks. Bell, who could be unsettling even in the stillest moments, gave the series a gravity that kept its least plausible moments in check, and Mandylor, though game, simply cannot provide the same. What's left is dreary and relentlessly downbeat, and to make matters worse, ends on an open note that clearly indicates that a sixth film is in the works, no matter how obvious that the diabolical ingenuity of the original Saw has been worn to the bone by its sequels. Only diehard Saw fans need to sign up for this round of Jigsaw's games. -- Paul Gaita