And so the never-ending Saw franchise trundles on to its fifth part. Indeed, Saw Part 5 might be a more apt moniker for this film: it picks up directly from the end of Saw IV — which, you may remember, took place concurrently with Saw III, ultimately appending about 30 seconds to that film’s climax. Even if you wanted to start your Saw viewing here, you wouldn’t have a hope of following what’s going on.

For a large part, Saw V’s plot is an exercise in retconning. For the uninitiated, “retcon” is short for “retroactive continuity”, essentially the act of adding something to a previous story in a series that changes its meaning or one’s perspective on it or what have you. I believe the term was coined in relation to comics, a medium that commonly has to explain why a dead character’s sudden resurrection really made sense all along, honest. Saw V’s retcon, then, is to demonstrate that Detective Hoffman was Jigsaw’s accomplice throughout all the previous Saw movies, not just the ones that actually featured him. This means yet more flashbacks, which as you may remember were the blight of Saws III and IV.

But what Saw V suffers in backstory it makes up for with simplicity. Whereas IV was convoluted to the point of dullness, Hoffman’s involvement is quite easily depicted. A working knowledge of the preceding films is essential, true, but with that in hand one can actually follow the story easily this time. Indeed, one might even argue it’s too easy: Hoffman’s involvement is so straightforward that the amount of time devoted to it pushes into the realms of the pointless, while the present-time ‘thriller’ thread (where Special Agent Strahm figures it all out) serves barely any function. The film includes the usual standalone game alongside this, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.

One of the franchise’s Big Things has always been the last-minute twist. Signalled by the Saw theme beginning to play and emphasised with an explosion of very brief flashbacks to earlier in the film, the twist shows us what we’ve missed all along and turns the story on its head. The first film had a great one, the second’s was pretty clever, the third had a mixture of good and bad, while the fourth’s got muddled by the rest of the film. Here, we get the music, and the flashbacks, but I swear there wasn’t a single twist among them. Most of the plot was as obvious as it appeared, while what I suppose was meant as a twist in the final room just seemed obvious — I’m sure the viewer is too familiar with Jigsaw’s methods by now to fall for something as simple as that (unlike Strahm, it would seem).

And even after all that retconning and whatnot, it’s clear that the series’ ongoing story is far from over. It’s not just the existence of (at least) two more films that tells us this, nor even a proper cliffhanger (this time, there isn’t one), but a handful of blatantly unresolved plot points. It’s an annoying habit of perennial Saw screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan to drop in an element that they have no intention of using in this film, but exists purely to pay off something in the next. This time it’s a box delivered to Jigsaw’s ex-wife. Goodness knows what’s in it; hopefully Saw VI reveals all.

Alongside the incessant arc there’s the usual standalone ‘game’, presumably retained to both guarantee the gore content and hold the interest of anyone dragged along to see the film who hadn’t bothered with preceding instalments. This one isn’t bad but, relegated to a subplot alongside the Hoffman palaver, it’s little more than a sketchily-drawn short film. Some of the traps are inventive, dodging the torture porn levels of gore displayed in III and the gratuitous medical gore of both III and IV without skimping on the blood and guts (literally. Twice.) In fact, it’s this side of the film that holds a bigger and better twist than the highlighted arc plot one, though some viewers may miss its significance as it goes so unheralded. (Arguably this ease with which it might be missed says something about how significant it is; equally, perhaps I’m assuming a lack of intelligence on the part of Saw’s regular audience by implying they would miss it.)

And so Saw lives to fight another day. In some respects this entry is an up-tick in form after the convoluted fourth entry; conversely, it’s perhaps over-simplified, definitely over-reliant on its prequels, and lacks any meat on its plot’s bones — Hoffman assisted Jigsaw, this is how, and that’s all the film has to say. And you know, I can be a bit of wuss when it comes to horror films, but this one isn’t scary in the slightest; gory, unquestionably, but even the jump-scares didn’t make me jump.

Sometimes I feel the Saw series deserves congratulating for trying to be as much a thriller as a gore-fest, for having an on-going plot across all the films rather than just providing standalone identikit Jigsaw-games each entry. Other times, I think I’d quite like the latter, as both the third and fifth films have left me wishing for more of the original story and less of the arc plot. And still other times, it seems a waste of time to be thinking so much about Saw.

Once again I watched the Unrated/Extreme extended cut of Saw V, and once again the differences are numerous but minimal. A thorough list of additions and alterations can be found here, though there’s a briefer overview here.

Saw IV is the final film in the series directed by Bousman, and will also be my jumping off point (for the time being). According to IMDb (which I presume is sourced from a commentary or something), Bousman had been intending to depart after Saw III, but was persuaded to stay when a twist in the fourth film’s script managed to surprise him, something he thought the franchise was by then incapable of. But do not let this get your hopes up, dear reader, because Saw IV lacks any twists that even come close to those in the preceding films. What caused Bousman to continue is a mystery, and some viewers will inevitably feel the same way about continuing with the series themselves.

After the overly gory third film, Saw IV returns to the franchise’s roots by playing more like a thriller than a horror film — even more so than the previous instalments, one might argue, as aside from a couple of jumps and a few instances of gore, the story and its key sequences move forward via police investigation, endless flashbacks and copious twists. The Saw franchise should be applauded for trying to be more than just another slasher series, but needs to learn the value of restraint in other areas.

The plot, for example, is incredibly complicated. This could be a good thing — it’s rare for the fourth film in a franchise, especially a horror one, to demand so much from its audience — and the viewer not only has to pay attention to the events on screen, but have a pretty good awareness of those from the last two films as well. Despite its complications, such connectedness is actually a reason to retain hope for the franchise, because it really tries to be about more than just how graphically it can slaughter people.

Unfortunately, any effort on the part of the viewer isn’t rewarded. Saw IV is too complex, ultimately descending into the realms of incomprehensibility. There are around four different plot threads, at least two of them jumping around in time like a TARDIS with ADD. Goodness knows how many different time zones are included, how many of them progress in a linear fashion, and whether or not they actually have any bearing on each other. Even references to previous films are confused: while this clearly begins some time after the end of Saw III, it then jumps back before Saw III, and then during Saw III, and then with Saw III, and then after Saw III again… but not as far after it as that opening scene. And that’s just the main plot.

A lot of the complexity is in aid of answering hanging questions from Saw II and, especially, III, but the mass of backstory leaves you wishing for a standalone ‘Test of the Film’ plot, which the first three essentially are. As already expressed, such an intricate array of stories is not necessarily a problem, but neither new writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan nor director Bousman have the required skill to guide the audience through such dense material. Nor the experience to know when less can be more, clearly.

Fortunately, Bousman seems to have learnt that “less is more” with the deaths. After the excess of Saw III, the gore feels pared back here. The one notable exception is an entirely extraneous autopsy that opens the film, which goes beyond the last entry’s brain surgery in the gruesome stakes. Apparently it’s to prove Jigsaw is unquestionably dead, but it does it with more glee and explicit medical detail than necessary.

Elsewhere, however, the savagery shortage is welcome — except that, in the process, Bousman seems to have misplaced the tension present in the first two films. The only real suspense is an opening trap that is, again, almost entirely extraneous to the rest of the plot, although one trap later on — featuring an abusive husband pinned to his wife — is moderately ingenious, achieving Jigsaw’s proclaimed ideas of apt justice in ways many previous traps failed to.

And what of Jigsaw this time? He may be dead, but instead we’re treated to flashbacks of John Kramer’s pre-Jigsaw life. As you may remember from my complaints in Saw III, revealing more about our villain is, in this case, not a good idea. Seeing Kramer before he was an Evil Bad Guy is clearly an attempt to make him a real person, one inspired to engage in a killing spree by every-day, real-life events. As with the other thriller elements, grounding the villain in the real world — and trying to give him plausible, relatable motivation — sets the Saw series apart from the vast majority of other horror franchises. But there’s no need to understand Jigsaw, and the more we learn about him the less impact he has. His soul is laid bare here, but by trying to make his actions plausible it continues to strip away the mystery and highlights how ludicrous his traps are in reality — they work fine in the conceit of a horror movie, but trying to imply it’s a real person doing these in the real world is one suspension of disbelief too far.

Which kind of sums up the film, really. Saw III went too far with its gore, and now Saw IV goes too far with its plot. As the series rattles on to its fifth instalment (and this year’s sixth, and next year’s seventh, and at least an eighth beyond that), its only hope for regaining a decent level of quality — in my opinion, of course — is to keep the gore at a manageable level, and keep the storytelling at one too.

Technically I watched the Unrated/Extreme extended cut of Saw IV. The differences are numerous but ultimately minimal. Those desiring a full list of alterations can find one here.