Saw VI

Directed by Kevin Greutert, this latest installment in the seemingly endless torture-porn franchise about Jigsaw John (Tobin Bell)—the maniac who devises elaborate death-traps for people he feels need to be taught a lesson about the value of life—lacks any hint of the cleverness that marked the 2004 original. Instead, Saw VI is simply a mess with two equally disgusting plot lines. The first ties together many loose ends from the previous films as it follows Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) through his grisly duties as the late Jigsaw's factotum while also trying to keep his complicity buried as investigators literally resuscitated from the last movie close in on him (this convoluted story requires repeated flashbacks to earlier scenes to remind us of past horrors that would have been best left forgotten). The second plot thread details Jigsaw's posthumous revenge on an insurance executive who worked out a scheme to deny policies to bad risks and cancel coverage on spurious grounds for policyholders who fall ill. The man is forced to decide which of his friends and family will survive and which won't, a situation that brings him face to face with people devastated by his decisions. The gory business revolving around Hoffman is bad enough, but the tawdry use of important real-life social issues for cheap sadism makes this entry even worse than its predecessors. Not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include two audio commentaries (the first with executive producers Peter Block and Jason Constantine; the second with director Kevin Greutert and writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton), “A Killer Maze” featurette on creating the “Saw: Game Over” theme park attraction (11 min.), “The Traps of Saw VI” production featurette (9 min.), “Jigsaw Revealed” on killer costar Tobin Bell (6 min.), the music videos “Your Soul Is Mine” by Mushroomhead, “Ghost in the Mirror” by Memphis May Fire, “In Ashes They Shall Reap” by Hatebreed, and “Genocide (Saw VI Remix)” by Suicide Silence, a copy of the original Saw film, and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a fine extras package for another misfire in this too-long-running series.] (F. Swietek)