Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Notable Cast: Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols

 

Every long-lasting franchise has to have its ups and downs. It’s just like life. Always a bit of a roller coaster, ya know? For the Saw franchise, diminishing returns for the sixth and seventh entries spelled a bit of doom for the initial run, but you can’t keep a good horror series down. While the eighth film, Jigsaw, did well box office wise relatively negative feedback from critics and fans ended that attempted kickstarter quickly. Enough that it sent the franchise into hibernation for a little while at least. That is until Chris Rock. 

 

Did anyone have Chris Rock on their Saw bingo card as the man who would try to reboot the long-lasting and iconic franchise?

 

Nonetheless, this leads to the ninth film in the series, Spiral: From the Book of Saw. The marketing featured strong vibing close to a Saw meets Se7en tone, while fantastic trailers and posters made the hype for this almost undeniable. Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, director Darren Lynn Bousman, and other factors simply worked in building expectations up to a fever pitch in horror circles. Yet, the strange thing about Spiral is that, for better or worse, it’s simply another Saw film and not the new and improved chapter that so much of its marketing leaned on.

 

Saw III (2006)

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Notable Cast: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh, Donnie Wahlberg, Dina Meyer, Leigh Whannell, Lyriq Bent

All great franchises have their trilogies, right? So one assumes that in the case of a franchise like Saw, the third film, entitled Saw III, would wrap up a kind of ‘endgame’ for the Jigsaw killer. Initially, that is most certainly the tone that this film runs with. At its core, it’s much more of the same in a lot of ways, particularly after the second film broadened the scope of the series with parallel plotting and more characters than one can shake a stick at, so in that sense it’s easy to hop into if you’re familiar with the Saw formula. On the other hand, the manner that it plays things out feels a tad more personal than the previous installment and the tricks up its sleeve are more or less nuances to its script rather than the focus like the last one. Still, as it works with most of the sequels in this series, the results of Saw III are a mixed bag in execution vs content and it leaves the entire thing feeling a tad sour in the aftertaste despite its stronger moments.

Saw II (2005)

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Notable Cast: Donnie Wahlberg, Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Erik Knudsen, Franky G, Glenn Plummer, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Beverley Mitchell, Timothy Burd, Dina Meyer, Lyriq Bent

In the first of numerous sequels to come, Saw II has some trouble matching wits as its predecessor. It has some great moments and it has some stinkers too. Even though one can expect that this film will have twists and a surprise ending to go with its style, Saw II still accomplishes quite a bit despite the lofty expectations set by the original, but too many cliche elements in the film bring it down again and its ambitious continuation of the concept creates too many problems for it to solve on its own.