Saw IV

Now, this may appear even more confusing than the previous part, but really it gives you so many answers and - if you are patient - you will figure it out in the end.

As I so often do, I will now give you one big spoiler off the bat: whatever happens after the beginning credits happens more or less at the same time as the entirety of part III. Before the credits you see what happens after Jigsaw died. This may not make much sense on paper, but it does once you give yourself over to the notion that this is not linear storytelling.

The players this time are the law enforcement officers. A local police officer is still looking for Eric Matthews from all the way back in part II. He has been missing for 6 months now but his former colleague is sent on a scavenger hunt to his location. The FBI meanwhile is hunting the hunter, who they believe to be helping Jigsaw (because he himself is too sick to arrange all the elaborate machinery and Amanda is too small to do all of the heavy lifting the preparation has required).

Unfortunately, the FBI agents have to deal with some of the dumbest and one dimensional dialogue in (probably) horror film history. Also, the two actors are terribly wooden (and, yes, well, one dimensional).

Eric Matthews is the one I felt most sorry for. While everyone is off trying to beat the clock and find whoever it is that is now working for Jigsaw, he is stood on a block of ice while at the same time has a noose around his neck. The idea is that he will hang himself once the ice is melted enough while at the same time lowering a see saw contraption that on the other side will put another police guy into water that will then have an unpleasant union with electricity.

The really rough part, however, that no matter if he survives long enough to be presumably saved by his former colleague, as soon as said colleague opens the door to the room, the contraption is rigged to smash his head with two more blocks of ice. (And it does.)

In the end the surviving FBI agent encounters - and shoots - Jeff, who is still stumbling through the building, now looking for his daughter. Also, we now know who Jigsaw's successor is.

At this point I am very much looking forward to the next part(s) and hoping for better dialogue.

6/10