Saw IV is a 2007 American horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman that continues Jigsaw’s games after his death in Saw III.
At a glance
- Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
- Writers: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (screenplay); Melton, Dunstan and Thomas Fenton (story)
- Cast: Tobin Bell, Scott Patterson, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Lyriq Bent, Athena Karkanis, Donnie Wahlberg
- Release: October 26, 2007 (United States); October 25, 2007 (Australia)
- Runtime: 92 minutes
- Studio: Twisted Pictures, distributed by Lionsgate
- Franchise: Saw franchise
Overview
Saw III killed both John Kramer and Amanda Young, which left the series with an obvious problem: how do you continue a franchise built around a dead villain? Saw IV’s answer is to turn the story into a puzzle box about succession. It opens on Jigsaw’s autopsy, unfolds alongside the events of the previous film, and ends by revealing who will carry on the work. It is the most tangled entry of the early series and the first written by someone other than creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell.
Plot summary
During the autopsy of Jigsaw, a coroner finds a wax-coated microcassette in his stomach. Detective Mark Hoffman is called in to hear it, and the voice promises that the games have only begun.
The main test belongs to Officer Daniel Rigg, a SWAT officer whose need to rescue everyone has made him reckless. Kidnapped from his home, Rigg learns that Detective Eric Matthews, missing since Saw II, is still alive and that Hoffman is also in danger. He has ninety minutes. Each stop along the way forces him to decide whether to save someone who may not want saving: a sex trafficker strapped into a scalping device, a motel manager with a history of assault, and a couple chained together on spikes, a man who walked free after abusing his family and the wife who stood by him.
Meanwhile, FBI agents Peter Strahm and Lindsey Perez work the case from the outside. Their interviews with Jill Tuck, John’s ex-wife, provide the film’s backstory: her miscarriage after a robbery at her clinic, John’s cancer diagnosis and suicide attempt, and the first trap he ever built, for the addict he blamed for the loss of their son, Gideon. Perez is badly wounded when a booby-trapped Billy puppet explodes.
Spoiler section: the ending
Rigg reaches the final room at the old Gideon meat plant, where Matthews is rigged with his head between two blocks of ice and Hoffman sits wired to an electrical trap. Rigg is warned not to open the door until the clock runs out. He bursts in anyway, one second early, and Matthews dies. Strahm, arriving elsewhere in the building, shoots Jeff Denlon, who is still searching for his daughter after Saw III. Then Hoffman calmly stands up, unharmed. He is Jigsaw’s second accomplice, and he seals the dying Rigg and a stunned Strahm inside the plant. The final twist is structural: everything we watched happened at the same time as Saw III, before the autopsy that opens the film.
Production and behind the scenes
Bousman, who directed Saw II and Saw III, came back after production designer David Hackl had to decline the job for family reasons. With Whannell stepping away from writing, Twisted Pictures hired Melton and Dunstan on the strength of their script The Midnight Man, which later became The Collector. They pitched a trilogy running through Saw VI. Tobin Bell signed in March 2007 to appear in both IV and V despite his character’s death. On a $10 million budget, the film was shot in Toronto between April 16 and May 3, 2007.
Themes
The film’s subject is control. Rigg’s flaw is a compulsion to save people on his own terms, and every trap punishes it. Jill’s story reframes John as a grieving father rather than a mastermind, while Hoffman’s reveal hints that the next Jigsaw is motivated by something colder than John’s twisted philosophy.
Release and reception
Lionsgate did not screen the film for critics, and reviews were largely negative. Critics complained that the series was running out of ideas and that its plotting had become exhaustingly complex. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a B. Commercially it was another hit, grossing about $139.4 million worldwide.
Place in the franchise
Saw IV is the hinge of the series, passing the story from Kramer to Hoffman and setting up Strahm’s pursuit in Saw V. It also begins the interlocking timelines that define the middle films.
Trivia
- It was the first Saw film not written by Leigh Whannell or James Wan, who stayed on as executive producers.
- The theme song “I.V.” was written by Yoshiki and performed by X Japan.
- Lionsgate ran its fourth annual “Give Til It Hurts” blood drive for the Red Cross alongside the release.
- Producer Oren Koules appears briefly in a cameo.
- Melton and Dunstan were hired after a studio executive read their script The Midnight Man.
- The DVD and Blu-ray arrived on January 22, 2008.