If nothing else, the Saw franchise is known as the horror movies where people are put in increasingly complex, graphic death traps. More often than not, these victims fail to mutilate themselves in time to escape with their lives, and maybe a few less limbs. 

While less avid fans may write off the franchise as nothing more than gratuitous gore – which, at times, it certainly is – there’s also something of an overarching plot, and an undercurrent of twisted morals regarding free will and valuing one’s life throughout.

October 2024 will mark 20 years since the first film, “Saw”, was released in 2004. It was the directorial debut of James Wan, written by himself and Leigh Whannell, who also starred in the film alongside Cary Elwes, Tobin Bell, and Shawnee Smith. It took three years for the film to get picked up, and was shot in 18 days on a budget of roughly $1 million.

While the movie was met with mixed reviews, it made over $100 million at the box office, and went on to become a franchise that got its tenth installment, “Saw X”, on Sept. 29 of this year.

Serving as a direct sequel to the first film, “Saw X” stays true to the gritty, low budget feel of the original, while still satisfying longtime horror fans hoping for the blood, gore, and tension that was one-upped with each of the eight films in the franchise released between the two over the past 19 years.

Unlike most of the Saw films, “Saw X” primarily follows Tobin Bell’s character John Kramer, who’s more well known as the villain of the franchise, given the alias Jigsaw by the local police department, that is primarily the focus of previous Saw movies as they attempt to track him down and solve his crimes. 

The new movie follows Kramer to Mexico, where he goes to receive a black market surgery and medicine to cure his terminal cancer. But he ultimately discovers that the people running the operation are con artists, scamming vulnerable people out of their money and leaving them with the false hope they’ll be cured.

In true Jigsaw nature, once Kramer discovers this, him and his apprentice, Shawnee Smith’s character Amanda, kidnap everyone they can find that was involved in the con and chains them up in the very same abandoned warehouse they supposedly treated him in. What follows is a gruesome bloodbath – certainly not for the faint of heart.

From the slower and more emotional moments to the edge-of-your-seat, will-they-do-it scenes of characters in horrifying traps, there’s never a dull moment in the film, supported by an incredible, dynamic score by Charlie Clouser. He’s been making the music for the franchise since the beginning, and his iconic sound is at times reminiscent of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, which he was a member of from the years 1994 to 2000.

The film, and the leading actor Tobin Bell, have been receiving much praise from critics and audiences alike. With a current score of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, many are ranking it at number two in the series, second only to the original. Bell certainly gives an incredible performance, portraying a villain who also serves as the story’s protagonist wonderfully, going from tearful scenes with his costar Shawnee Smith to being stone cold and apathetic in the face of brutal violence and death, brought upon in major part by his own hands, whether his character will admit to it or not. 

As well as Bell does with putting across the layers to Jigsaws character and his dubious morals and belief system, praise should also be given to Shawnee Smith, for her portrayal of a character who struggles throughout the film with her own moral judgment versus the desire to follow her mentor who she’s come to trust, as well as the newer cast of Jigsaw’s victims, namely Renata Vaca as Gabriela, Paulette Hernandez as Valentina, Octavio Hinojosa as Mateo, and Joshua Okamoto as Diego.

Each actor shines in their own right, with characters given unique backstories that, while not elaborated on in-depth, the actors breath life into, and the glimpses the audiences are given allows them to sympathize with what brought each character into the situations they are faced with – before they’re met with gruesome fates, and convincingly delivering horrified, gut wrenching reactions.

Synnøve Macody Lund plays Cecilia Pederson, the mastermind behind the entire con operation and the main antagonist to Jigsaw, a character who isn’t entirely morally pure in her own right. While interesting at first, with her character quickly dividing herself from her fellow victims and putting herself above them, her callousness and apathy can fall flat and one dimensional at times.

Alongside the gore and the music score, another iconic aspect of the Saw franchise is the look of the movies themselves. Especially prominent in the first few films, the yellows and greens and cold sterile blues make a comeback in “Saw X”.

While stereotypical at times, such as the harsh yellow filtering when the setting first moves to Mexico, at others, it serves to support the intensity of the scenes – the griminess of the abandoned warehouse, filled with dark green shadows and harsh yellow light cast across tear streaked faces and bloodied bodies, or the bright whites and blues pulling the viewer into the almost eerily sterile medical environments.

In true Saw fashion, there’s a twist in the third act that will leave audiences wanting to come back and watch everything unfold again with their newfound understanding of how everything will slot into place by the end just-so.

While overall, from the acting to the music to the lectures the character John Kramer gave on his twisted moral beliefs and justification for putting people in brutal traps, “Saw X” is an entertaining film, but by no means is it perfect.

One issue with the franchise from the start, and especially as it stretched on and the traps victims were put in became more elaborate, is the question: Where is Jigsaw getting the resources for all of this? 

The obvious answer for the how is something Kramer reminded audiences of in “Saw X” – for most of his life, before he started the whole serial killer thing, he worked as a civil engineer and an architect. But especially in “Saw X”, wherein he’s scammed out of $250,000 in a foreign country, how exactly does he have the time and money to be making all of these complex death traps, especially with no one around questioning him?

There are other parts of the film that somewhat fall flat, such as a character who only served as a minor plot device, and aspects of the film that may just be best left not thought about too long, like the question of how, exactly, was everything able to fall into place so perfectly, especially after that twist? 

The answer certainly being – because it’s a sequel that takes place between movies that have already been made, it likely wouldn’t be possible – or at least, enjoyable – to retcon eight films. Even from the start, audiences know that it has to work out for Kramer and Amanda in the end, somehow.

All in all, be it if you’re someone who’s a hardcore fan of the entire Saw franchise, if you only ever enjoyed the original film, or if you’re just looking for a gruesome horror flick to watch this halloween season, “Saw X” is worth the watch.