After a plethora of awful sequels, and poorly conceived reboots, Saw seemed to be stuck. Yeah, you could always relish in all the blood you could imagine with these films, but all things grow stale with time and Saw needed a revival.
Enter Saw X, the tenth entry, and among the best yet. It breathes new life into this franchise by taking the story in a fresh new direction. This time its not about a clueless band of cops trying to unravel the murders of Kramer or his accomplices, rather, X centers its focus upon the human side of the narrative by branding Kramer (Tobin Bell) as the protagonist. This is perhaps the smartest thing Saw has done in decades.
Saw X actually cares about it's narrative, it tries its absolute best to get you emphasize with this frail, broken man, and it works fantastically with his growing desperation, and smaller, more humane moments, like those with Carlos. These really help solidify Kramer as someone to root for when the narrative switches gears.
As to be expected, X does not skimp on the blood. Oh yes, there will be blood. Being among the bloodiest in the series, and having the antagonist placed as a hero, you'd need some truly dastardly villains for this to reach its truest potential.
Luckily for all of us, X strikes thrice with some truly horrible antagonists, (Of course, in a good way) they're not the deepest, but they don't need to be as they serve their purpose as the narrative shift needed for John to complete his character drive, and it does so in terrific, suitably bloody fashion.
Saw X is a human driven story with top-notch acting while not dismissing what you're likely there for: grisly, gory traps. This paves a new route for these films, and i'm frankly exited to see where this new, rejuvenating direction takes Kramer and his band of misfits. This is the icebreaker of awful sequels, and freed Saw from it's own trap; staleness.
