Dr. K's Waiting Room

Released: 29 September 2023
Director: Kevin Greutert
Distributor: Lionsgate
Budget: $13 million 
Cast: Tobin Bell, Synnøve Macody Lund, Shawnee Smith, Renata Vaca, Octavio Hinojosa, Paulette Hernández, and Steven Brand 

The Plot: 
With only two months left to live thanks to a malignant brain tumour, John Kramer (Bell) desperately searches for a cure to prolong his work as the infamous Jigsaw. When Cecilia Pederson (Lund) offers an unsanctioned operation that claims to save his life, John puts his unique brand of justice into motion after learning he’s been scammed by an elaborate hoax. 

The Background:
In 2004, Australian writer/director duo Leigh Whannell and James Wan brought us Saw, a low-budget horror affair inspired by the unexpected success of The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and Sánchez, 1999). The film’s iconic death traps helped popularise the “torture porn” sub-genre and stir up some controversy but its $103.9 million box office made it the most profitable horror film since Scream (Craven, 1996). This success naturally led to sequels, and soon a dense and popular horror franchise was born; however, while the box office of the Saw series remained strong, critical reaction soon became mixed as the concept was dragged out over numerous sequels and tie-in merchandise. Although Saw 3D: The Final Chapter (Greutert, 2010) was intended to be the final film in the series, Lionsgate twice tried to revive the franchise over the next decade or so, with mixed results. After Spiral: From the Book of Saw (Bousman, 2021) became the lowest-grossing film in the series and was blasted by negative reviews, Lionsgate decided to revive previous ideas for this tenth instalment. The film’s placement in the convoluted Saw timeline allowed star Tobin Bell to return and he was excited to be more heavily involved in the plot and production this time around, and he was joined by some returning cast and crew. Director Kevin Greutert was adamant about returning to Saw’s roots, including employing practical effects for the traps and death scenes, and ultimately decided against digitally de-aging the returning actors to retain their performances. As of this writing, Saw X has grossed over $60 million worldwide, making it the second-least-profitable of the franchise, though the critical reaction was largely positive; while the traps and gore were noticeablypraised, it was Bell’s performance that won the most acclaim amidst criticisms of the film’s plot and other characterisations.

The Review: 
I’ve always been a big fan of the Saw franchise; it’s a big claim to fame of mine to say that I saw every film in the series at the cinema (with the exception of Spiral; thanks, Covid!) and I’ve always taken a perverse pleasure in the unique blend of horror used in the series. There’s a dirty, gritty, frantic appeal to Saw, one that relies heavily on explicit and elaborate traps, but the franchise is just as appealing thanks to its alluring and contradictory main antagonist, John Kramer. Saw has never been a linear franchise; all the films have played with the timeline to come up with ways to flesh out John’s character even after his untimely death, but Saw X may be the most unique in that it takes place in a grey area between Saw, Saw II (Bousman, 2005), and Saw III (ibid 2006).  This means that John is still alive, though gaunt and noticeably wizened from his inoperable brain tumour, which has numbered his days dramatically. John’s despair at his impending demise isn’t just because he’s not ready to die yet; it’s also because he has established himself as “Jigsaw”, a sadistic (and yet unnervingly fair) punisher of those who do not appreciate their lives. John is distraught at the idea of dying before he’s had a chance to “help” others with his work and finds little comfort in the pragmatic advice of his doctor (David Alfano) or the cancer support group he begrudgingly attends. 

However, when a member of this group, Henry Kessler (Michael Beach), makes a miraculous recovery, John learns about Cecilia Pederson, daughter of world-renowned surgeon Doctor Finn Pederson (Donagh Gordon), and her off-the-grid clinic that claims to have developed a radical new procedure and drug concoction which has a 90% success rate in cancer patients. Despite being portrayed as one of the most intelligent and Machiavellian horror villains of all time, desperation sees John cling to this unbelievable hope, and he makes the trip out to Mexico to meet with Cecilia. He’s abducted and brought to an isolated villa where he’s introduced to Cecilia and her team: brain surgeon Doctor Cortez (Joshua Okamoto), anaesthesiologist Mateo (Hinojosa), nurse Valentina (Hernández), and two of Cecilla’s former patients, the kindly Gabriela (Vaca) and grateful Parker Sears (Brand). John is welcomed into the villa, which is also home to a former chemical plant that has been adapted into a makeshift operating theatre. In keeping with his intellectual superiority, John asks many questions and is both reassured and overwhelmed by Cecilia’s kindness, knowledge, and success rate. Since being diagnosed with brain cancer, John has made it his life’s work to teach others to appreciate their lives, putting them through horrendous physical and mental tests as Jigsaw to give them a chance at redemption and to show them the value of their comparative health and happiness. It’s all he’s lived for and has consumed him, costing him both friends and family, but Cecilia offers him a true opportunity to regain his life and to set aside this crusade, and John is completely taken in by her words and soon undergoing brain surgery to remove the tumour from his head. 

When he awakens, John is elated to learn that the operation was a success. He’s grateful beyond words to Cecilia and feels immediately reinvigorated by a new appreciation for life. Although he was transported to the villa in secret and Cecilia’s entire operation was performed under the radar to avoid reprisals from “big pharma”, John uses his astute intelligence to find the villa in a bid to express his gratitude and say goodbye to the friends he made there. Unfortunately, he finds the villa deserted and that the entire operation was a scam; they simply lured him in with false promises, drugged him, and pretended to perform surgery using an educational video to help sell the illusion. Previously depicted as a polite, learned, and grateful man who was desperate to regain his life, John’s demeanour immediately snaps upon learning he was scammed; he allows himself one brief emotional outburst before placing a called to his apprentice, Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), to help him track down those responsible for duping him was false hope, making a fool of him, and stealing $250,000 of his money. Given his frail disposition, he’s aided by his other apprentice, former drug addict Amanda Young (Smith), who delights in playing an integral role in abducting and tormenting Cecilia and her team. Although Amanda clearly looks fifteen years older than she should, it’s mostly covered by some make-up effects and the film spends a surprising amount of time fleshing out her relationship with John; she’s distraught by his impending death and angered at the scam, wishing to simply kill those responsible and begrudgingly allowing John to subject them to his tests due to his twisted moral code. She also shows an unexpected glimmer of humanity and hesitation since she feels a kinship to Gabriela, who was simply duped into Cecilia’s plot due to her addiction to drugs. However, John keeps Amanda focused on the task at hand and uses the entire situation as a learning opportunity for all involved; Amanda needs to learn to be dispassionate about the job she’s been primed to take on after his death and Cecilia and her team need to learn that their actions have consequences. 

The Nitty-Gritty: 
One of the things I love about the Saw franchise is the complexity and hypocrisy of John Kramer. Jigsaw has always claimed (as he does in this film) that he’s not a murder; that he presents his subjects with a choice (“live or die”) and they are the ones who mutilate themselves or lose their lives by failing to follow his rules or lacking he will to live. For the longest time, Jigsaw’s campaign seemed methodical but ultimately impartial; his victims were people he observed and deemed unworthy of their fortune, so he put them to the test. Over time, though, this motivation has been skewed; Jigsaw has targeted doctors, lawyers, and police officers who have wronged or pushed too hard into investigating him and many of his victims have been those responsible for his greatest tragedies, be it the loss of his unborn son, not covering his medical bills, or diagnosing his condition in the first place. Saw X continues this hypocritical vendetta; John projects an emotional detachment to the “game” he subjects Cecilia and the others to, but has brief flares of emotion because of his personal attachment to the game and it’s obvious that the only reason they’re being targeted is because they wronged him. Saw X shows that John is always on the lookout for new subjects; he suspects everyone and not only sketches ideas for new traps but also envisions how those traps will work, showing a hyper awareness of his surroundings. It’s no wonder, then, that he’s so enraged by Cecilia’s deception and shows no mercy to her or any of her team, no matter how much they beg, and simply coldly advises them to “play [the] game” to show how much they’re willing to sacrifice to atone for their sins and continue living. 

This is a major aspect of Saw X; after ten films in the franchise, it’s important for a new Saw movie to give us something new, and Saw X decides to do that by firmly casting John as the aggrieved protagonist. Previously, there was always a twisted logic behind Jigsaw; you could usually understand where he was coming from and even sympathise with him, no matter how twisted his games were, but Saw X explicitly asks you to root for him by casting him as a victim and presenting a character (Cecilia) who’s even more obnoxious and malicious since she lacks even his skewed moral code. This means that the traps presented have a different level of catharsis; usually, we’re supposed to root for his victims to survive, but this time you want to see them suffer and fail for taking advantage of so many desperate people. Unfortunately, I wasn’t too blown away by Saw X’s traps; I was hoping for the film to return to the more grounded traps for the first two films, but these are again pretty elaborate and complex considering how close to death John is. Things start off well with John subjecting a thieving orderly (Isan Beomhyun Lee) to a vacuum trap that sucks out his eyes if he doesn’t break his fingers, but this turns out to simply be a fantasy of John’s. When he tracks down Dr. Cortez (actually Diego, his taxi driver), he forces him to slice chunks out of his arm to remove two explosives, a gruesome task that Diego surprisingly survives. Valentina is forced to severe her leg and drain bone marrow to keep her head from being sliced off, which is extremely gory and harrowing and results in failure, while Gabriela is suspended by chains and must smash her wrist and ankle to avoid being roasted by radiation. Mateo is subjected to the most elaborate and bonkers scenario; he’s strapped to a chair and forced to cut into his brain to avoid being roasted by a heated mask, something he obviously struggles to do as he’s just a vet rather than a trained doctor. 

I think what bugged me the most about these traps isn’t just how lacklustre a lot of them were, but also that John’s vengeance was flawed, as Amanda points out. Cecilia was the mastermind behind the whole operation and the others waste no time in selling her out, but to John they’re all as culpable as each other. However, I do think the traps would’ve worked better if Cecilia had been forced to take part in them. Perhaps she could’ve been strung up by chains like a puppet and forced to slice off Valentia’s leg; she also would’ve been better suited to perform Mateo’s makeshift brain surgery, and Gabriela’s trap could’ve been reworked so Cecilia could’ve taken part in it. Think Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfadyen) in Saw III; his test was to save others from a gruesome fate, and I definitely think this would’ve been a better fit here. Instead, there’s a lot of unnecessary waiting around; I like that John is front and centre for this game, directly interacting with his subjects and overseeing it from a control room, but there’s a huge gap between Valentina’s death and Mateo’s trap. This is, of course, all part of John’s plan but I think his larger plot would’ve succeeded without there being so much waiting around. At first, it seems there’s the hope of salvation for John’s victims and the possibility of a new recruit for John when Parker comes by angrily looking to confront Cecilia for scamming him. Subdued by Amanda, Parker briefly acts as a witness to John’s sadistic game and seems conflicted; like John, he wants to see Cecilia and the others punished for their misdeeds, but his vengeance extended simply to getting his money back and yelling at the con artists, not witnessing their brutal dismemberment. His presence is particularly unnerving to Amanda, to whom the entire ordeal is an additional test of her will; unfortunately, a lot of this tension is exhausted since we know Amanda’s fate, but it’s interesting seeing her as a flawed but devoted follower of John’s. 

Parker is so horrified by what he’s witnessing that he disobeys John’s rules, retrieves his gun, and interrupts the game; nonplussed by Parker’s threats, John calmly agrees to free Cecilia and barely flinches when Parker is revealed to have been in on it all (largely because Diego spilled the beans on the whole operation earlier). It’s here where Saw X takes a weird turn; freed from her shackles, Cecilia forces John and Amanda to lock themselves in and delights in lording her superiority over the legendary “Jig-fucking-saw”. Rather that force John and Amanda to endure her test, Cecilia takes young Carlos (Jorge Briseño) hostage when he wanders past and forces him to join John in a particularly dreadful trap. John and Carlos are held down on a seesaw like platform by chains and waterboarded with blood; the only way to survive is for one of them to pull on a lever, subjecting the other to the torture. Although John begs Carlos not to pull the lever and is prepared to endure the torture himself, Carlos shows incredible resolve and takes his fair share of the punishment. This whole trap casts John in an extremely different light; earlier, he showed kindness to Carlos and he’s clearly conflicted and disturbed at an innocent child (and “unexpected” victim) being caught up in his plot. Indeed, the film paints John in a heroic light as he’s willing to sacrifice himself to spare the boy, though both are ultimately spared when Cecilia and Parker retrieve their cash and set off another trap. This disables the waterboard trap, allowing John, Amanda, and Carlos to escape, and sets off a corrosive gas in the control room. Cecilia and Parker are forced to fight for the death to reach a ventilation hole only big enough for one of them, a fight the cruel Cecilia wins by stabbing Parker, though her fate is left ambiguous as John, Amanda, and Carlos simply leave her there.   

The Summary: 
Even I, as a big Saw fan, must admit that the franchise quickly became quite derivative; even now, I struggle to remember which film is which and I can see how a lot of the entries are very similar and stretched the premise way too far. In hindsight, I think the producers made a mistake killing Jigsaw in Saw III; they could’ve left him alive for a couple more films and done a bit more with him, since he’s one of the most compelling aspects of the franchise. In Saw X, John is front and centre, but this lands in such a weird way; here’s a morally reprehensible guy, a villain for all intents and purposes, and we’re asked to sympathise and root for him. In this context, he’s justified in seeking retribution (even if he denies this is his obvious motive), but it’s an interesting way to present him. In many ways, I would’ve liked to see this format used for previous Saw movies; take John and have him use his skills in interesting ways against people who wrong him, kinda like when arrogant mobsters unknowingly incite the wrath of the likes of John Wick (Keanu Reeves). As a character study of John, Saw X sheds a little more light and humanity on him, but again it’s not really anything we didn’t learn from the myriad of flashbacks across the other films. Normally, a Saw movie compensates for its paper-thin plot with gore and traps; however, while Saw X has plenty of gore, the traps are just as ludicrous as ever, which is a shame as I would’ve liked to see a grittier, more realistic bent to the traps given John’s more personal vendetta here. Ultimately, Saw X is like a love letter to the series; it puts the focus squarely on Jigsaw, giving him one last swansong, and contains some fun cameos and fan service here and there, but it was lacking something for me to really rate it much higher. It’s interesting seeing John be scammed like this, but I really don’t think he would’ve been; even at his most desperate, he was always ten steps ahead of everyone, so the premise was flawed for me from the start and the execution of the game failed to impress, despite how interesting John’s characterisation is throughout. 

My Rating:

Could Be Better

What did you think to Saw X? Did you buy the John would be so easily fooled by Cecilia’s scam? What did you think to the traps and the execution of John’s game? Were you surprised that Amanda has such a big role in the film? Did you see the twists coming in the finale? Where would you rank Saw X against the other films in the franchise and do you think you would survive one of Jigsaw’s games? Whatever you think about Saw X, and Saw in general, leave a comment below.