Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Saw X’ on VOD, a Weepy Cancer Drama That Transforms Into Good Ol’ Torture Porn

This week on Miserable Shit Theatre is Saw X (now streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video), the tenth film in the franchise that helped pioneer “torture porn” into the mainstream. Launched in 2004, the series tickled sickos every October for seven years before taking a break, resuming with three additional films since 2017, all collectively grossing north of $1 billion. The conceit is fairly simple: The serial killer Jigsaw, played by Tobin Bell, devises diabolical contraptions that force his captors – who are generally not-nice people who he believes “deserve” to meet a far-less-nice fate – to mutilate themselves in order to save their own lives. Notably, Saw X is the first of the franchise to not be fileted alive by critics, because it dares try to humanize its sadistic “protagonist,” allowing us to spend some time with Jigsaw and his feelings. But don’t be cowed by this – it’s still Miserable Shit.

SAW X: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Two things before I get into the plot: One, the Saw films are why I cringe every time I see the gears-and-gizmos Lionsgate logo on the screen. And two, Saw X fits into the series chronology between Saw and Saw II, and that’s why one of the characters uses one of those state-of-the-art Blackberry handheld telephone devices. OK, now to Jigsaw, real name John Kramer. He’s ill. Brian cancer. In but a few months, he’ll be kaputskies. He’s not ready to go. He has “so much left to do,” and what that is, we can only imagine. John’s in the hospital and he spies an orderly burgling jewelry from a sleeping patient, and daydreams about strapping the guy into a device that forces him to twist a dial that breaks the fingers on his other hand one by one, lest he be de-eyeballed by a pair of ultrasuck vacuum tubes. Most of us might fantasize about punching the guy, but not John. I mean, he used to be a civil engineer and architect, so he has the skills and know-how to dream big.

The increasingly enfeebled John is in a cafe looking over his last will and testament when he bumps into an old pal from the cancer-patient support group. They hug. Yes, Jigsaw f—ing hugs people sometimes. He’s privy to the entire spectrum of the human condition too! His friend, robust and healthy, tips John off to a life-saving off-the-grid experimental treatment. Next thing you know, John’s jetting to Mexico for a potent pharmaceutical cocktail and accompanying brain surgery. The people in the secret facility are super nice and accommodating. John consults with Cecilia Pederson (Synnove Macody Lund), who spearheads the program. John meets a kid booting a soccer ball around the parking lot, and helps him fix his bike. John takes a shine to the nurse Gabriela (Renata Vaca). John does not kill any of them. What is this, a weepie cancer drama? We’re like 45 minutes into this thing and all we’ve got is the thing with the eyeballs.

Patience, sickos. Patience. The Miserable Shit is coming, promise. But John, well, he’s becoming sympathetic almost. Are we rooting for him to not die? We might be! Is it because we’re kind souls who hate to see anyone suffer, or is it because we want him alive so he can separate people from their lives in a ludicrously nasty fashion? Go ahead, tell yourself it’s the former. It’s fine. We lie to ourselves all the time. Anyway, John goes through the surgery and is happy and recovering. You can tell he’s content because he’s back to the ol’ sketchpad, designing brainsqueezers and bowel shredders and the like. Happy days are here again. But! He got scammed. They didn’t really do the surgery. He’s still cancer-ridden, and he’s out a quarter-mil. Will hell be paid? Not a spoiler: Hell will be paid. Toldja to be patient.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Saw X is what Me and Earl and the Dying Girl might’ve been if it was torture porn instead of YA.

Performance Worth Watching: Bell is a strong enough actor that we fully believe that John Kramer is a sociopath who’s very good at compartmentalizing the darker side of his personality.  

Memorable Dialogue: Jigsaw’s assistant Amanda (Shawnee Smith) returns, and drops this doozy on one of their victims: “He was speaking metaphorically. He does that a lot.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Just because there’s More To It doesn’t mean this Saw movie is particularly good. There’s absolutely something to John’s personal journey, his wrestling with mortality and morality. It’s not nothing. But it’s not the reason the movie exists; no, it exists to toast people with a radiation blaster and waterboard folks, except with blood instead of water. Is this “creative”? I’m not sure. It’s definitely warped. And disgusting. My guts felt, shall we say, not great while watching it. That’s no surprise – you know what you’re in for with a Saw movie at this point. 

Saw X definitely tortures itself in its third act, contorting to deliver some stupid twists, including a particularly dopey-ironic bit where the Soccer Ball Kid is implicated in the gory proceedings, prompting Amanda and Jigsaw to cover the boy’s eyes to save him from some of the trauma of seeing a human being expire in a truly putrid manner. I think that’s supposed to be funny?  

There are times when Jigsaw’s victims are arguably “deserving” of their fate, especially these antagonists, who he deems particularly vile for preying on people’s hope. He has a point, and it’s not like he fails to make it. Of course, one of them is an oxy addict forced into moral compromise by illness and desperation, but Jigsaw, despite some humane protest by Amanda, has no sympathy. “We all have free will,” he quips as he goes about his cruel punishment schemes. He’s an 80ish, nasty, self-serving, bootstrapping quasi-moralist, which makes him ripe for a Republican senate run in Saw XI.

Our Call: Saw X is by far the most thoughtful movie in the franchise! Of course, that’s like saying it’s the least smelly in a surfeit of skunks. SKIP IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.