I feel like in this John and Amanda were the characters they were always supposed to be. Like I actually cared to follow their philosophy and in a way was sympathetic towards them as people and their beliefs. That balance was never there before to me.
One thing that always bothered me, and you kinda touched on it with the part about knowing who was going to escape given how easy or hard the trap is, was that Amanda’s trap was stupidly easy. The reverse bear-trap was a cool concept, but to get the key she had to cut it out of someone else. That’s weak sauce. You don’t have to have a will to survive, you just have to have a disregard for others. No wonder she thinks Jigsaw’s philosophy is bullshit. And to top it off it wasn’t even like a moral debate, because Jigsaw lied and said the guy was already dead and she didn’t know any different until she stabbed the guy. That means all she had to do (from her perspective) was something a little gross. Compare that to the dude who has basically the exact same trap except the key is behind his own eye.
That’s the weird thing about the series. Between the first movie and the rest of them, John’s moral compass is totally out of whack. Amanda has to kill a guy, Gordon is there because he cheated on his wife, and the other guy in the room is just like a dirty reporter I think? In the first movie, what Jigsaw viewed as “sins you’ve committed” were meant to be dumb shit. The man is insane, and he’s trying to guise jealousy that other people get to live while he knows he’s going to die of his cancer, as some sort of moral high-ground that he stands from. That’s why I think it works *in this context* when people say the trap didn’t teach them anything, it just traumatized them. Or when Amanda says his philosophy is bullshit. Because it is, it’s just an excuse to hurt people. Over time, they did change that context slightly. Tried to make people who did more or less do reprehensible things (racist skinheads, rapists, murderers, etc.) as well as the ocasional, “you’re kind of a douce, and/or I have personal beef with you.” It can be interesting to see a version of John where he does really but into his own philosophy, and think he’s helping people, but where’s the Jigsaw from Saw 1 who sliced Tapp’s throat open with a hidden blade when he was caught? I miss that guy. He was weird and scary, and I didn’t need to hear some luddite pedantically explain the “well he’s not really a killer” argument for the hundredth time when he was around.
I liked this movie because for Jigsaw never has any chance of survival. He got to choose between dying fast or dying a little slower. And that’s the choice offered to the victims.
I went into the theater knowing nothing except Amanda was back and came out almost in a state of confusion that this one was actually good lmao. The flashbacks were dumb, like we couldn’t put it together that all those people were the exact people we had just seen, just now they’re not wearing scrubs
extremely valid critique and im sure the same goes for most of the population but i gotta say as someone with prosopagnosia i appreciate not having to ask my friends who characters are all the time in these movies LMAO (im not gonna pretend its an accessibility feature or anything)
@@unclefelix3412 that’s fair, I’ve def seen movies where I wish the characters had name tags or something. This one just felt silly to me, like too much explaining.
This might be my favorite SAW after SAW 6, which also deals with medical stuff (from the insurance side). I've never cared for logic and storytelling in these series, so encountering those things in SAW X was quite exciting and a pleasant surprise! Not to mention the fact that this is BY FAR the best shot entry in the franchise. The only thing that would've made me like it more is if Gordon showed up too. If it were up to me, they can keep churning out SAW films forever.
Glad to see you got a new video tho. I can’t thank you enough for putting me on house of leaves. I’m not a reader but I finished that entire thing. It’s my favourite book
I absolutely loved seeing this movie in the theater! I was also a fan of the fact that almost all of the traps are related to the medical tests and treatments that John was supposed to have received
It's quite knowing too, it starts off as a well acted fairly stately drama, but embraces the saw bs over time as - it treats the villain speeches, jumpy cuts, silly twists as the camp they are - 'Saw' as a distinct trashy aesthetic the audience applauds as the film becomes that thing. It starts and ends as two very different films - which is about as smart as these films have ever been. I don't know know if that makes any sense, it's hard to describe what I mean.
i was pretty on the fence about seeing sawx, but this video gave me what i needed to (hah) pull the trigger. also i'm glad to see you got signed to a publisher! i'd love to buy both fluids and girl flesh again, and i'm looking forward to whatever you write next
Gosh also amanda having some empathy for the woman who's also been addicted to drugs and her conflict abt helping her a little VS helping John Kramer bc he's her father figure is SO GOOD
Honestly just can Saw's current timeline, retcon everything, and start over if they're gonna make any more. OG timeline has wrapped up satisfactorily and it was a weird gimmick to start with. Very excited about your next book! Was literally just thinking about how I want to read more of your words!
i’m so excited that you’re uploading again, i was going to wait to watch this movie until it came out on streaming but i ended up driving an hour to watch it last night just so i could watch this video lol without spoiling anything lol. and i’m glad i did, i loved the movie.
Going over your questions now, it seems like John deliberately gave them false hope so theyd know how he felt in his life or death situation that they put him in. Missed you! Hope all is well❤
And here just yesterday I was think how I hadn’t seen a video from you in a minute. Loved this movie and having the experience of seeing it with my teenage daughter who loves horror but had never seen ANY of them prior.
hey gurl congratz on the new book I'd get one of the copies on bandcamp but i might not have money till like Saturday and they'll probably be sold out, but you're rad and ive supported you for like...a good while now, really happy you've been so productive in your creative pursuits
this is such a good video! the editing and jokes are great and your excitement is contagious :D i know you're focusing on other things but I'd love to see more reviews like this!
Amazing video and it's nice seeing you again. I can't wait to read your new book whenever it comes out. I've read both of your books and I love them both so much! Keep up the great work!
also, it's so optimistic of you to assume this is the end... like, should it be the end? yes. obviously. yes. but it won't. f. this movie fucking killed it at the box office. this franchise will never fucking die.
In lieu of gushing about your return, writing a dissertation on this series or marveling on how talented you are at EVERYTHING, I will just say, for the algorithm!
I’ve missed you and your reviews. Walked by the theater with my wife and noticed saw x. Super excited to go see it now… never thought I’d say that about a saw film 🫣 haven’t seen one since it first released when I was in high school 👵🏽🤘🏽
Finally watched this after watching all the movies over the course of three days. Immediately get called a nerd for knowing Mitch's name. I actually think Jigsaw had great traps and the bike one remains burned into recent memory. Also, my name is Mitch, so I may be biased.
mayyyy i loved it too!!! i never could pay attention past the 3rd movie because the story was so boooring like idc about these guys john fucking DIED... and now he is finally back... yes he is dying, but he must slay first.... in more than one way
at this point the whole "oh john isnt really a serial killer he doesnt kill people" thing REALLY doesnt work anymore, but in this one case i think it works because hes just going for revenge
You missed out the radiation trap... the most interesting thing being that she survived that one and we were routing for John to save her because she won her game, which made such an impact when the main villan killed her....proving she is worse than John could ever be.
The movie somehow managed to make John Kramer aka fuckin Jigsaw the guy we were rooting for and honestly, I consider that an accomplishment I think one of the reasons this was a good Saw movie is that it was very self- contained for the most part. It didn't try to connect anything to previous movies and it didn't try to leave anything open for a sequel. Rather than being part of an ongoing story, it was more of a side story that can be seen with or without the previous films. All of the knowledge we need to understand the movie is right there within and I think that was an excellent decision. If they do end up making more, I really hope they take this same approach
As a Mexican I was disappointed they kept bringing up aztec shit and didn’t really do anything that cool with it in the traps. Come on, missed opportunity 😔
I'm excited for your return to more basic movie reviews. I really like your stuff but I can't handle IRL fucked up shit so I had to sit out the entire NSFL saga (the Dog Dick video fucked me up for like a week because of the IRL animal deaths) so I'm excited for something "tamer" even if its a movie about fucked up traps.
3 minutes was enough for those traps, it’s just that Valentina and Mateo both spent most of their time screaming about how they “couldn’t do it.” Meanwhile Diego did the same thing that they did and screamed and ran around but he realized he’d die if he didn’t cut the bombs off and started cutting at like 1:23 left on his timer and managed to get the bombs off with like 3 seconds to jump out of the way of the explosion
