Entertainment
DVD Corner: Saw IV
Greg Kaczynski |
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 The Saw franchise is a curious one in that it rides a narrow line between dark crime films like Se7en and the current torture-porn trend of movies like Hostel. Saw IV grows up and pulls this off even more effectively than any of the prior films in the series.
While not necessarily a spoiler, it must be understood that Saw IV runs concurrently with the events of Saw III, and to truly appreciate the detail (and logic) of the film, viewers should watch its predecessor first. Viewers follow SWAT Commander Rigg (Lyriq Bent) as he is forced to play one of Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) infamous games, putting several innocent people’s lives in danger while the villain tries to teach Rigg a valuable personal lesson. Also on the Jigsaw case are Agents Perez (Athena Karkanis) and Strahm (Scott Patterson), who always seem one step behind Rigg and Jigsaw, but are learning scads about Jigsaw’s history.
While there are the obligatory vicious death traps that have become the signature for the series, Saw IV becomes satisfyingly complex as audiences see how “Jigsaw” was born. Also, an impressive amount of characters from the Saw universe appear throughout the movie, fleshing out who they are. The film really shines here in that often the audience is pushed to think for themselves, draw conclusions and put some pieces together without much help. Yes, there are still incredible gaps in logic and the movie isn’t a groundbreaking masterpiece, but it is notable within the current state of horror films.
 Most compelling is the way the filmmakers play with time. Saw IV, at times, plays like an ADHD version of Pulp Fiction, hurling the audience back and forth through time, telling various backstories, showing connections between characters and frequently creating delicious tension. The transitions are clear enough (and are usually spelled out just in case), keeping things moving and the viewer guessing. Besides, horror can easily be reduced to hunt, kill, hunt, kill, and this helps to maintain Saw’s freshness.
The unrated director’s cut DVD (Lionsgate, MSRP: $29.95) is a lovely widescreen transfer, capturing all of the weirdly green off-color schemes the franchise is known for. The 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS sound is appropriately piercing as sharp knives are wielded, rusty metal gears grind together and body parts are torn asunder.
The unrated cut doesn’t add too much as far as special effects or gore (besides a couple minor, enjoyable adds). Mostly, director Darren Lynn Bousman has replaced many of his trademark transitions that were trimmed, a lesser subplot concerning a particular key and a few other scenes; nothing mind-blowing. It is nice to see the iconic key be brought in, though, especially since Bousman sees (and explains in his commentary) such relevance in it.
 The commentaries (there are two) are half-good. The Bousman commentary is the good one. For some reason, Lyriq Bent is also included on this track, but doesn’t do much beyond dramatically reacting to the on-screen violence. Bousman tells a lot about the ideas behind the film, the process of making it under such a tight schedule (a Saw film has been produced and distributed every year since 2004), filmmaking by committee and he’s very good at explaining many of the technical aspects of the sets and effects. Listening to Bousman also helps put the numerous events and characters together in an understandable way. Bent just squeals and groans a lot.
The other commentary track, however, feels like a vanity project as two producers, Oren Koules and Mark Burg, pair up with executive producers Peter Block and Jason Constantine to gab about the Red Sox, how much they dislike Bousman’s attention to detail and complain about the cost of things. Of course, they also repeat a lot of the same information that is dropped in the other commentary track, but this one is coated in stereotypical producer gimcrack. It also gets tiring to hear them bad-mouth the director behind his back, a director who has made three very successful films for them. To have this come out during the writers strike over the WGA/AMPTP dispute is just adding fuel to the bad-image fire for producers.
Other features on the single-disc DVD are adequate and run slightly over an hour (if you include the lame “I.V.” music video by X Japan [5:07]). There’s a quick deleted scene (0:45) in the police station between Agents Perez, Strahm and Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), which might be slightly interesting to fans of the film looking for more clues.
 Darren’s Video Diary (33:00) is an entertaining glimpse into the world of making a Saw film. Viewers witness the meetings, the process, writing the movie as they’re filming--it’s kind of shocking, actually, how shaky the Saw machine seems versus how efficiently it runs. Audiences also see the culture on-set: the camaraderie is strong, the cast all seems to get along and, honestly, it looks like a lot of fun. There’s even a point where a dead lady pulls a ticket for the daily set raffle. Oh yeah, and there’s lots and lots of screaming.
The most intriguing extras, though, are “The Traps of Saw IV“ (15:41) and “The Props of Saw IV” (8:58). The “Traps” segment is broken down into several individual chapters, each revolving around the centerpiece death machines: the engineering behind each one and the process of capturing each one on film. It is truly astounding, simply because each of these devices actually works. Yikes.
The “Props” featurette is also fascinating as it showcases several specific props--some of which are memorable, others totally forgettable. However, the amount of thought and work that went into each one is remarkable.
 All said and done, the Saw IV Unrated Widescreen DVD is a fantastic value for fans of the series, and honestly, if you haven’t been following this batch of films, this may not be a bad one to jump on with. Granted, viewings of the previous Saw films might become compulsory if you find yourself sucked into this nasty little universe, but, really, is that such a bad thing?
Saw IV is now available on DVD.
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