With over $ 1 billion in revenue worldwide, Saw is one of the most lucrative horror franchises in the world. Yes Saw 7 (hihi) was presented as the final chapter of the saga in 2010, the Jigsaw was already making its return a few years later in an eponymous film. Finally, the Jigaw being – attention spoilers – dead since episode 3, it was either an accomplice, an heir, or a pretext. In theaters Wednesday, the ninth film is no longer even titled Saw, But Spiral: The Legacy of Saw, as if to mark the distance with the first films, representatives in their time of the torture porn.
Hollywood casting
Death traps are back, but take a less central place. Besides, Chris Rock didn’t want to deal with it. Chris Rock the comedian and humorist, what’s the connection? Absolute fan of Saw, he is at the initiative of this Spiral, and also producer and actor. He plays Lieutenant Zeke Banks, who with his father legend the police (Samuel L. Jackson) and his new partner (Max Minghella), investigates a series of murders in operator mode close to that of the Jigsaw.
In nine films, the saga had never paid for such a casting, worthy of a Hollywood production, and this is what makes this episode unique but also what convinced the director Darren Lynn Bousman to come back behind the camera after Saw 2, 3 and 4. If its staging keeps the same tics, it tries to move away from the horror film to the Saw for the crime thriller at the Seven. All the kept proportions.
A more political subtext
Blazing sun, treasure hunts, race against time… It is always a question of unmasking the killer, but also, and this is a novelty, of commenting on his time, here the corruption of the police and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. It’s subtext, not subtle, but a change from the (counter) philosophy about the life value of the original Jigsaw. Would the franchise try to redeem its conscience, to find a place in mainstream cinema? To be confirmed with the next film, already confirmed.