Film Reviews

Saw IV

• Rating:
• Director: Darren Lynn Bousman.
• Starring: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Costas Mandylor, Donnie Wahlberg.
• Details: USA / 108mins (18).

** PREVIEW **
The increasingly crap, yet financially-stellar 'Saw' franchise returns this Halloween, as the narcissistic psychopath Jigsaw continues to wreak havoc on folk from (we're assuming) beyond the grave. Following the trend set after the second instalment, there will be no press screenings of Saw IV, so we're left to cogitate just how dire this film could be. Well, the first one was a solid, if overtly-derivate thriller, with an entertaining hook. Granted, it was messy but, for the most part, it worked. The two sequels which followed were nothing short of atrocious - shameless cash-ins aimed squarely at those with the attention span of a goldfish, and an unyielding hunger for onscreen gore. Each year, funding studio Lions Gate churns out a Saw sequel, and each year (thus far) people have shelled out their hard-earned cash to see extreme close-up shots of a drill entering a skull, or a rib-cage being torn open. But with the torture-porn sub-genre now seemingly a pale shadow of the Hostel/Saw 3 days, just how well this film fares will be down to the amount of people who buy into its innovative marketing campaign. Not very much is known about the plot, but that's of little consequence. What matters is blood, guts and severed limbs; and that, we can bet, will be delivered in bucket-loads.

Review by Mike Sheridan