SAW V (David Hackl). 90 minutes. Opens Friday (October 24).
Saw V is everything you expect – gruesome deathtraps that combine the best of Rube Goldberg with the worst of Torquemada – and so much less.
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With the Jigsaw killer (a creepily charismatic Tobin Bell) now dead and relegated to confusing flashbacks, we’re stuck with one of his acolytes to continue testing people’s moral compasses.
Guts get ripped open, throats get cut, hands get crushed, but there’s really no sense of a diabolical genius, which Jigsaw surely was, at play.
And without a bogeyman to root against (or for, for that matter), the result is less than thrilling.
So this fifth but in no way final instalment in the torture porn franchise (Saw VI is slated for next Halloween) is like Halloween without Michael Myers (that would be the oh-so-memorable Halloween III: Season Of The Witch) or Friday The 13th without Jason Vorhees (that would be the oh-so-memorable fifth instalment, A New Beginning).
In other words, this Saw’s not worth seeing.
