Saw IV (2007)

Acting:		Partying:		Girls:
Blood:		Language:		Gore:
Violence:		Humor:		Sexuality:
Torture:		Predictability:		Overall:

I must admit that I had only made it to the first Saw sequel when I was given this assignment. It left a quite a poor taste in my mouth. The forced campy-ness, the "13 Ghosts"-esque plot, the lack of character development, and the horribly contrived dialog seemed to dumb things down substantially from the first film, which was an absolute revelation in the face of the waning slasher-saturated industry.

So in preparation of this review, I armed myself with a suitcase of Bud Light (forgoing my ceremonial Anchor Steam in lieu of lighter fare - my trepidation factor was running high), a tightly packed bowl of citrus-sweet green-bud, and a bag of Act II Light Butter popcorn. Then I grudgingly plopped myself on my beige leather sectional for a preliminary education on the current state of the Jigsaw universe via Saw III. I found myself caught off guard by the depth and elaboration of characters, the finely sculpted story-line, and the general appearance of everything that the second movie lacked. I realized I was in it for the Long Haul.

This fourth installment carries on the legacy of Jigsaw, though both John Kramer (Tobin Bell) and his all-too-eager understudy Amanda (Shawnee Smith) were killed off in the previous film. In the opening sequence, we are shown the body of the alleged serial killer mastermind laid bare on the coroner's slab; fully nude, emaciated by cancer, and missing a good portion of his cranium due to the "backdoor surgery" of the last movie. Though crime docudramas like CSI could stand to take a few notes from the absolutely amazing job done by the FX department in the body-prep scene, I could've gone at least a few years longer without knowing what Bell's scrotum looked like up close - instead, I shall forever curse my eighty-eight inch projection screen for burning the image into my retinas.

As the coroners autopsy the corpse in an utterly realistic visual demonstration of their trade, they soon discover one final tape lodged within John's stomach (cueing an expository flashback of a scene ...

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