Ever wonder what bone marrow must look like? While I can’t attest that the events in Kevin Greutert’s SAW X are completely medically accurate, I can confirm – thanks to a whirlwind press junket in Sin City – that the sociopath known as Jigsaw transitions easily from complex moral arbiter to doomed boomer seeking bloody revenge. This time, it’s personal!
Taking place between the events of the first two SAW films, John Kramer (Tobin Bell) is grappling with his terminal diagnosis and the demands of his favourite hobby – kidnapping petty thieves, cheaters, and assholes, and giving them the opportunity to mutilate themselves in order to appreciate their lives – hey, it worked for recovered drug-addict Amanda (Shawnee Smith), returning here as Jigsaw’s #1 fan/protegee. When Kramer learns of an experimental cancer treatment out of Mexico, he books a flight and coughs up the pesos, only to learn that the whole thing is an ongoing scam orchestrated by the evil Cecilia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund) and her slightly-less-evil Mexican hired hands. They find themselves in Jigsaw’s traps faster than you can say “refund my dinero;” twists and turns ensue.
Will audiences root for Kramer, or his cadre of trapped ne-er-do-wells? For Greutert (who also directed SAW VI and SAW 3D), that ambiguity is entirely the point. Check out my interview with the director along with production designer Anthony R. Stabley at Las Vegas’ Official Saw Escape room!
SAW X hits theatres nationwide September 29.
