SAW X Commentary Track

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
How do you do?

(00:03):
The box office pulp board feels it would be a little unkind to present this podcast without just a word of friendly warning.
We're about to unfold a cinematic commentary track,
made by a group of men who sought to create a podcast after their own ravings,
without reckoning upon God.
It is one of the strangest tales ever told.
It deals with three great mysteries of the internet.

(00:25):
Analysis, observation, and deconstruction.
I think it will thrill you.
It may shock you.
It might even horrify you.
So if any of you feel you'd not care to subject your nerves to such a strain,
now's your chance to...
Well, we've warned you.
Now, to pause and refresh.

(00:47):
For your convenience, we have an attractive refreshment stand in the lobby,
with buttered popcorn, golden good and hot from the popper,
your favorite candies, wholesome and rich,
plus delicious Dr. Pepper,
so bright and bracing, with a tang and tingle unmatched by any other beverage.
Enjoy an ice-cold Dr. Pepper at our beverage stand right now,
and then return to fully appreciate this pop and a movie commentary track.

(01:11):
Enjoy.
We have a rope.
Welcome to Box Office Pulp, your one-stop podcast for movies, madness, moxie,

(01:39):
and tonight, I'm so happy I could cry,
because we're finally on the last Saw movie,
until Saw 11 hits theaters later this year.
But we've reached the end of the road for now,
and that's something to be proud of.
And if we make it through, we've survived the entire Saw gauntlet.
All ten movies.
And I'm pretty proud of us for doing that.

(01:59):
Anyways, I'm your host, Cody.
Joining me today are my co-host, Mike.
Say hello, Mike.
So I know we're at the, um, you know, end of the whole series and stuff for this,
but, um, I just had a suggestion for whenever you do your movie facts, Cody.
Yes.
Um, you should call them Jiggies.
Jiggies.
Yeah.
Um, I know, like, we've already done nine of these,

(02:22):
so it doesn't make any sense now,
but retroactively, I would like it to count,
so that way it feels like the audience has been collecting Jiggies this whole time,
which is a vague Banjo-Kazooie reference.
So it's kind of like a double.
Yeah.
Nope, I got that.
I got that.
Unfortunately, it also kind of sounds like I'm presenting a knockoff Oscar.
Like, here are the Jiggies.

(02:45):
A Jiggy sounds like an Oscar for jacking off.
Like, specifically, who jacked off the best.
I mean, there's a lot of ways you could assign that award.
It could be, uh...
Who's jacking off someone else the best?
Who's jacking off themselves the best?
Oh, I assume there's multiple categories.
Sure, sure.
Longest distance, most viscosity.

(03:06):
What are we here for?
Oh, right, Saw.
Anyways, say hello to my other co-host, Jamie.
Hello, Jamie.
When you played Banjo-Kazooie,
did you also have a visceral hatred for the Jinjos?
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Fuck those guys.
Like that, I always think of that tweet that's like,
if my friends and I had found E.T.

(03:27):
as kids, we would have beaten them to death with hammers.
That's how I felt about Jinjos.
Like, I wanted to rip them apart like they were gummy bears.
Just go full McCready and the thing on those things.
Just pull out the flamethrower.
There's something psychologically deep being exposed here

(03:48):
that I don't know we should have told the public about.
But, yeah, fuck those guys.
They do seem delicious, yeah, now that I think about it.
You know, I never thought about eating them.
Just murdering them.
And neither did I until right now.
Did you ever watch the Banjo-Kazooie promotional VHS
that Nintendo sent out that was narrated by John Lovitz?

(04:09):
That's a classic.
What?
No, you're making shit up.
You're pulling my leg.
He says Gruntilda.
I'm looking this up online because I don't believe you.
It's online.
Be sure to ask your parents for Banjo-Kazooie,
the newest hit game for the Nintendo 64.
From Rare Studios.
It's so fucking surreal.

(04:29):
Like, as a child, it was surreal to watch.
And then they gave him a bag of money.
OMG, Alice.
Yeah, no, according to JiggyWiki.com,
there is, in fact, a Banjo-Kazooie promo video with John Lovitz.
They sent that in the mail.
It just showed up at your house.
Like the ring tape?
Like, if you just see it seven days later,

(04:51):
he crawls out of your TV and strangles you?
That's how I got mine.
I believe it was gold, too.
If I remember correctly.
Wow.
There is a full rip on YouTube.
I'm not going to watch this now.
I'm going to put that away for later.
But I learned so much talking to you guys.
It's amazing.
It's a little late night treat for yourself later.
Yeah, a little snack.
You can hear Lovitz promote the password system

(05:11):
for Banjo-Kazooie 2 that was never implemented.
Oh.
Unfortunately, we slightly moved past my segue,
but I was going to say, speaking of treats,
Mike, Jamie, both of you have
mysterious questions.
Mysterious packages that were mailed to you.
I think now would be the time
to open your packages.

(05:31):
Yay.
I just want to describe this first.
I got this mysterious package,
Jamie, as well.
It's on the back.
It says, do not open until
saw X commentary.
The visceral fear I felt
when I read that word.
Good, good.
Hearing my girlfriend say,

(05:53):
you have a package
from Cody with the same
delivery as,
there's a girl in the garden.
She's still in her fucking blood as well.
There's someone at the door.
Oh, I'm not happy.
I'm not happy.

(06:14):
Alright.
I'm going in.
I'm going in.
Oh, God.
Emma marks the spot.
Oh, Jesus.
There's a lot to say.
God damn it.
Alright.
Cody, which do you open first?
The envelope or the package?

(06:35):
The envelope.
Okay.
I'll do it in the assigned order.
This is what happens
when you're drunk on Malort, isn't it?
I was dead sober, Mike.
Oh, my God.
I was not chained down by the Malort.
I can't believe you.
Okay.
For the folks at home,
we have an envelope
with a little,
a little Billy

(06:56):
drawn on it.
God damn it.
Ludicrously done, too.
That's this from the heart, Mike.
I put time and effort into that.
Okay.
Do we open the envelope now?
Yes.
It's the same message
for both of you
with just your names different,
to be honest.
Alright.
I'm going to open it.

(07:18):
It is a talking envelope.
It says,
play me on it.
All right.
I'm going to see if hopefully
the mic picks this up.
If not, I'll put it in post.

(07:40):
Hello, Mike.
For far too long,
you've been content
to sit back and watch
as your co-host
has consumed shot
after shot
of vile poison
for the entertainment
of your listeners.
Today,
you will learn to value
an untainted palette
inside this
package
is a vial
of Jepson's Malort.
Before the commentary
for Saw 10
can truly begin,

(08:00):
let's balance
the scales of entertainment
by sampling
this liquid carnage.
When faced with Malort,
will you have
the will to live,
drink or die, Mike?
The choice is yours.
Let the games
begin.
Like how it just
abruptly cuts off.
It goes for 40 seconds.
They said 45
on the package,
so I thought
I'd have like
five more seconds
and then just stop.
But luckily,

(08:21):
I was done talking,
so it worked out.
Do I just sit here
and then listen?
And then,
and then,
and then play back
my identical tape?
You're just Jamie.
It's slightly different.
It was personalized.
I was really taken
with the flashing lights
as these.

(08:41):
Mine was already
in the on position,
so I think the battery
ran out.
No, it's supposed
to stay on.
That's how it was
already on there.
OK, they claim
that battery will last
for years, Jamie.
It's a fucking vile.
But you still wrote

(09:01):
M on.
You can sit back
and watch
as your co-host
has consumed
shot after shot
of vile poison
for the entertainment
of your listeners.
Today,
you will learn
to value
an untainted palette.
Inside this package
is a vial
of Jepson's Malort.
Before the commentary
for Sawtech
can truly begin,

(09:22):
you must balance
the scales of entertainment
by sampling
the Vial of Jepson's Malort.
This liquid carnage
when faced with Mord,
will you have
the will to live,
drink, or die, Jamie?
The choice is yours.
Let the game
begin.
OK, Mike,
I think we may have
missed something,
so play your card again.
We do this
for three hours.

(09:43):
No, not yours.
Now we open
both at the same time.
Bum, bum, bum.
Cody, write this down.
No, no, see,
oh, no.
You just have to
drink the Malort.
We get Jigsaw on the phone.
You just have to
drink the Malort.
We need to clear
a few things up.
The thing that says M.

(10:04):
The package said
M marks the spot.
Drink the M.
Also, to be kind,
it's not just
Jepson's Malort.
I threw some
warheads in there.
Oh, boy.
You know,
like a little palette cleanser.
I'm so glad
I filled my water bottle
before doing this.
It won't help.
Also,
I'm,

(10:25):
I'm very proud of
this little callback.
Viewers,
if you go and listen
to our previous
commentary for Spiral,
there's a moment
where I finish
my awful drink
and I say,
oh, thank God
I can move on
to these
two shots
of coconut rum
and I make a big point
out of finishing them
and saying,
this might come
in handy later.
Those are the very same

(10:45):
vials you're drinking
out of now.
I can't get the cap off.
I'm terrified
of putting too much
effort in it
because if I spill it,
my office will smell
like Malort forever.
I did super glue
them shut
so they wouldn't
leak in the post.
Cody,
how are we supposed
to drink this?
Is this part of the challenge?

(11:06):
Yeah.
You gotta drink it.
I don't care how you do it.
I don't care how you do it.
Just like shotgun it.
I don't care.
Get like a little wrench
or something.
You can,
I bet you can do it.
I believe in you.
All right.
I'm going to go get
tools for this.
Tell them it's
Chicago's finest.
Jamie's still trying

(11:27):
to open the bottle.
I haven't heard
back from her.
So yes,
there might be
some slight editing
on this.
There's going to be
some editing area.
You're cutting
everything else around
and it's just going
to be us vamping
until Jamie comes back
and either says
I gave up on trying
to open the Malort
or my house is
covered in Malort.
I was exploded
like that one time
Homer opened
that shook beer.

(11:48):
Okay.
I want the folks
at home to know
that I had to go
to my laundry
room and get
my hedge clippers
to cut off
the top of the
Malort bottle
and I got a little
bit on my hand
and I feel like
the innocent
farmer's daughter
in the first act
of a zombie movie

(12:09):
who's you just
know is going
to get a shotgun
blast to the head
by the halfway
point.
Jamie,
I'm imagining
alien when they
first get the blood
on the floor.
It's just like
your skin is
styrofoam and
it's just sinking
right through.
Paul Reiser,
no.
Is this
supposed to
smell like
something I would
normally use
to remove a

(12:29):
chemical of
some kind?
Yeah.
It does smell
a lot like
if you wanted
to like thin
lacquer.
I put a little
goo gone on the
outside to get rid
of the label.
So maybe you're
picking up on that.
But Malort itself
smells very bad.
I'm glad you just
made this as toxic
as possible.
It was on the
outside after I
super glued it.
So I didn't get
inside.
Don't worry.

(12:51):
And I watched
it multiple times.
There was lots of
soap involved.
There should
not be any goo
gone left on the
bottle.
I think you're
actually just
smelling the
Malort.
I definitely
am.
Interesting.
Well, folks,
I didn't make
an official drink
for tonight's
episode.
So please,
please just
oh, I'm drinking
something delicious
on my own.
It's great.
I can kick him

(13:11):
back and enjoy
life.
All right.
On the
count of three,
Jamie.
All right.
One, two,
three.
Oh, God.
That is like
the worst kind
of.
Golf medicine.
Oh,
I've had a
little nip of

(13:31):
moonshine before.
It's not
dissimilar to
that, but
moonshine does
not have that
burn to it.
Hey, Mikey,
I think she
likes it.
You do seem
to be a fan.
I don't know
how about
that.
Jamie sounds
excited about it.
Oh, no, this
is how I the

(13:52):
exact same way I
reacted to that
new spin.
Spiced Coca-Cola
that they have
now.
I found out
about that
recently.
Saying spiced
Coca-Cola just
makes you sound
like a very old
person.
Like, oh, they've
started putting
something new into
sodas, which I
want to make
clear.
I don't mean
that in a good
way.
Just my reaction
to new flavors
is usually like
an anthropologist

(14:13):
encountering a new
tribe.
Oh, fascinating.
By the way, that
spiced Coke is so
fucking weird.
I've never had a
soft drink only
hit certain parts
of my palate
before.
It's got like
cinnamon and clove
in it.
It's weird.
I can taste it on
the front of my
tongue and the
back in the center
of my tongue.
It just tastes like
water and a soft
drink shouldn't be

(14:34):
a psychedelic
experience.
Why is the taste
of the Malort
staying only in the
back of my throat?
It's weird, right?
That's where it
belongs now is it's
made little caves
inside of your
throat and that's
where the Malort
lives.
I do not
recommend anyone
at home drink
for any reason
really, but
especially not
while listening to

(14:55):
Box Office Pulp,
but I like the
idea that anyone
also drinking
Malort right now
is having like a
4D experience
or bonding
right now.
We should just
promote this episode
like one of the
latter day saws
like his legacy
is spreading and
it's just people
drinking Malort

(15:15):
all across the
country.
Wait, wait, I
just we were
talking about this
before recording.
Is this our
version of the
fucking survey
crystal?
I don't think
they would have
as catchy of a
jingle.
Jefferson's Mort
is still a living
thriving company,
but I don't know
if they have a
jingle.
I imagine it'd be
something more like
a heavier rock
sound.

(15:36):
I'll actually be
right back in a
sec.
I'm already out
of a drink.
I need more
of so
because I don't
want to commentate
with this in the
back of my throat.
Good luck.
It'll hang around
for a while.
Yeah, probably
you'll get used
to it.
Stockholm syndrome.
With a drink.
Yeah, you just
forget it's there.
This is a commentary

(15:57):
that has broke
Mike's straight edge
vow.
It's like you cut
the hair of Samson.
Good.
I haven't met his
weakest.
And we should
probably start the
commentary.
Yeah, let's get
around to it.
All right, folks,
you know the rules
by now.
We're going to
count down from
three and then
start playing.
So X, you just
listen to us normal
if you want, though.
I don't care.
Yeah, do what you
want.

(16:17):
All right.
One.
Two.
Three.
Boom.
Old lines date
logo.
Yay.
It should be.
It's got the
goddamn long, but
yeah.
It always makes me
feel like I'm watching
Hellboy, too.
I love it.
Yeah.
Fun memories.

(16:38):
All right, let's
get these jiggies
out of the way.
Directed by Kevin
Greuter.
He's back.
Last time we saw
him, the director
chair was for
Saw 3D back in
2010.
After that, he
directed three
non-Saw related
films.
Jessabelle,
Visions, and
Jackals.
Big on Jays, I
think.

(16:58):
He also edited
Jigsaw.
This entry was
written by Josh
Stahlberg and
Peter Goldfinger
returning from
Spiral.
It's kind of
amazing.
These guys gave
us three very
distinct Saw
movies, and the
phone that finally
caught on and got
the fan base's
approval is their
swan song.
Like, they're not
on the next one.
I don't even know
if they've announced

(17:18):
who the writer for
Saw 11 is yet, but
it's not them.
It was an old
script, so who
knows?
They got so many
pitches in the
off years.
Yeah.
Some of the fan
theories going around
is that Kevin's going
to write, direct, and
edit the next one
all by himself, which
I wouldn't be too
surprised about.
He's been with all
the Saw movies, so
it makes sense he
just write one.
Yeah.
Anyways, our cast,

(17:39):
we've got, as you
can see, Tobin
Bell is back in
like an actual
role instead of
just playing like
cameo roles in a
baseball hat or,
you know, a
detective photo.
That's great.
We also have the
return of Shawnee
Smith.
There's Amanda
Young.
And then, oh no,
I'm so sorry to any
Norwegians who are
listening, but
Sinove Makodi

(18:00):
Lund, I hope I did
that close.
There's like an
accent mark on the
O I'm not sure what
to do with, playing
our villain, Cecilia
Peterson.
Lund has a pretty
small filmography,
only really starring
in three films before
Saw X, but she'd
had very steady
major roles in
television since
2015.
We also have

(18:20):
Stephen Brand as
Parker Sears.
He's a
Mike here will tell
you the most important
thing to know about
Brand is that he
played Memnon in
The Scorpion King.
Although we should
also mention that he
was in Hellraiser
Revelations and was
the big bad boss in
Mayhem.
And most
importantly, above
all else, beyond
Scorpion King, he

(18:41):
was Father Alexander
Anderson in
Hellsing.
So guys got
cred.
Our cinematography
here is by Nick
Matthews.
This was a bit of a
surprise going through
his IMDb.
I didn't see any
previous Saw credits
on his resume.
Most of the time,
the DP is
someone with some
connection to the

(19:01):
franchise, like they've
worked on previous
films, maybe they're a
camera operator and
they were moved up
through the ranks, but
he seems to be a new
face.
Our music is by
Charlie Clouser.
We've got editing by
Kevin Greuter
pulling double duty on
this movie.
Our release date was
September 29th, 2023,
which was a little
bit of an odd move.

(19:22):
Putting it on the
all the way back
before even October
started, but the
movie was a very
big hit.
So what do I know?
It doesn't have to be
October to be Saw.
Blasphemy.
It seems weird, right?
And the next one
started for September
as well.
So they've kind of
just abandoned
October.
If it's back to
school season, it
must be Saw.

(19:42):
If it's Labor Day,
it must be John's
time.
John executes
someone for wearing
white.
Our budget here was
$13 million.
So after the
disappointment of
Spiral, the budget
took a step back
for this entry.
I think that one was
closer to about $20
million.
Although I imagine a
big part of that is

(20:02):
they didn't have to pay
Chris Rock or Samuel
Jackson this time
around.
So you can probably
save a decent amount
of money when you
don't have major
AAA stars.
And for returns,
this movie pulled in
$111.8 million
worldwide.
So really big jump
back into big,
big old profits
considering $13 million
investment.

(20:23):
$112 return.
Not too shabby.
There's our jiggies.
Just in time for
our first trap of the
movie, which I'm of
mixed opinions about.
I'm mixed, but I
ultimately, I'm glad
it's here.
Like on the one hand,
I totally understand

(20:43):
like, oh God, it would
be just conceptually.
It would be so cool
to have a Saw movie
where no Saw thing
happens until like
halfway through the
movie.
But at the same time,
God, it's, there's
something so fascinating
about having a trap

(21:05):
that in addition to,
you know, it's narrative
purpose of just giving
us a little action for
a slow first act also
gives us kind of a look
into John's mind and
his thought process.
That's, that's where
I'm at.
Like,
it's, it's one of those
frustrating, okay, we

(21:25):
need a trap in here to
spice things up.
John, imagine someone
in a trap.
It feels narratively
a little cheap, but
they get out of it by
giving us a little window
into John's thought
process.
You know, we see him
peeking around the
hospital and using that
as inspiration for how
he had tortured this
guy.
It's kind of fascinating
that even in John's
fantasies, the people

(21:46):
fail the traps.
Yes, which says a lot
actually.
Yeah, just, just his
kind of view, pessimistic
view of the world.
No, it doesn't kill
him.
He fails it, but it
doesn't technically kill
him.
It probably sucked his
brains out too.
We just didn't see him
leaking out.
Also, I love his, I'm
sorry.
I think, no, I would
say, yeah, this works
for me because it
justifies itself, even

(22:07):
though if it was just,
oh, here's our way of
getting a trap in, I
probably would have
been fine with it.
But the purview into
like John's brain, the
way he's just in the
room starts putting
together what to use
for a trap.
And his feelings and
kind of like inner
anger, but also the
fact he kind of, it

(22:29):
shows like his morality
whenever the orderly
puts the stuff back
upon getting caught.
And John's like, yeah,
okay, that's good
enough.
I also just love the
almost self parody
moralizing about the
nobility of the
hospital janitor.

(22:51):
Almost like John is
saying, okay, if I were
to turn this into a
jigsaw thing, what
thing would I say as a
first draft?
I should say, when we
were talking about this
movie before recording
the episode, I kind of
made some comments like,
oh, I don't know.

(23:11):
I kind of wish they had
done more of the
stylistic editing of
Bozeman's entries and
then rewatching the film
and I was, oh, I said a
stupid thing.
Because if you watch
that scene, you can
clearly see it's as
stylized as ever, if not
more so than most of
the entries.
I particularly actually
like the camera rig they
have set up where when
the fingers are breaking,
the camera quickly does
like a 90 degree turn to
follow the action of the

(23:32):
finger.
It's very kinetic.
And I don't know what I
was thinking when I
complained about that.
I'd forgotten how much
work they had really done
to film these things in
a style similar to a lot
of the earlier entries.
Yeah, it's nowhere near
as grimy as the previous
entry, but you can tell
they very much
tried in both the

(23:53):
directorial style and
art design, all the
production stuff.
They kind of took
cherry picked little bits
and pieces from every
Saw movie to create a
unified aesthetic for the
series.
Yeah.
This is the first Saw
movie that looks like

(24:14):
what Saw looks like in
your head.
And one interesting thing
that I caught on the
commentary when they were
discussing filming choices
for the movie was how
they approached flashbacks
because the series has
been littered with
flashbacks, but their
normal approach on those
was to change the color
grading, like they would
put it into a different
color style, maybe make it

(24:35):
a little hazier or
whatever, and you would
get a very quick visual
sense.
Oh, yeah, this is
happening on a different
timeline.
And what they did here
was they decided that
looked too dated because
Saw has been around for
20 plus years.
They had to do some
things to freshen up.
And one of the choices
Reuter made was to
instead do flashbacks
with a much different
lens than the rest of

(24:56):
the film, like use, I
think using like a 16
millimeter lens, you
know, something like
that instead to give it
a very, very different
focal setting.
And you would be able
to tell that way
something maybe not as
obvious if you're not
paying full attention,
but clearly different
from the rest of the
film, which is kind of
an interesting way to go
to make the movie feel
modern while still giving
it a little bit of extra

(25:16):
juice.
Also, I just want to tag
up on that very
thoughtful comment with
is he about to tell
John that he needs
to seek out
commatage?
There's a new
Marvel movie.

(25:37):
So we we find out
that this movie really
was inspired by
part six.
There's a moment where
Jigsaw goes to
William, who is his
health care, well,
insurance guy.
And he's denied coverage
for the treatment that
this character is
currently explaining.
In that movie, they
make it sound like it's
an actual treatment and

(25:58):
the guy's just a jerk by
telling John, no, you
can't have it.
This movie, spoilers, we
find out it's all a scam
in the first place.
It's a neat bit of
continuity, but I'm glad
they don't stress it as
much as they could have
in the deleted scenes for
the film.
They actually have a
whole section where they
have footage from Saw
six just inserted into
this film.
And one, I'm glad they

(26:19):
didn't because I don't
think narratively it
works.
Perfectly, like you can
tell it's a bit of a
retcon.
And two, it looks very,
very silly to see John
from like 2012 all of a
sudden compared to John
from 2023.
A much cheaper looking
movie.
Look, I have a theory.
John has a rare type of
cancer that causes him to

(26:40):
age and de-age back and
forth rapidly.
That's what they call
that.
Spontaneous,
uncontrollable
bungeonitis.
My only question is,
my only regret is that I
have Benjamin
buttonitis.
I love that John still
has Windows 98.

(27:01):
And Hunts and Pecks.
They talked about this
pretty extensively in the
making of feature for the
movie, but one of the big
challenges with this film
is trying to do a John
story that doesn't make
him out to look like a
big old dummy.
Yeah, because the

(27:21):
crux of this is John
falls for a phishing scam.
So inherently it's set up
as John is being fooled
and taken advantage of,
but he is also, as the
rest of the series would
portray, like one of the
world's most brilliant men
and like raised tacticians
and he knows everything
about you, even if you
don't kind of guys.
So it's real hard to hit

(27:44):
that balance right.
And they mostly pull it
off.
And I think Tobin was
pretty instrumental in
that because he insisted
like, hey, I don't want
my guy to look like a
dummy.
I, you know, I love this
character and I really
don't want him to come
off as cheap just so we
can get this plot in
motion.
So I think you can tell
throughout this movie,
they go the extra effort
to show that, you know,

(28:04):
they're applying to his
emotions to really trick
him into this stuff.
And they take their time
getting to the point where
he sends the money, goes
to Mexico.
They don't rush through
it all in like a five
minute montage at the
very start of the film
so they can get to the
blood.
And they really show how
hopeless he is.
And bad off John is
prior to this.

(28:25):
So he's very susceptible.
I think that adds also to
his anger whenever he
discovers it's a ruse
too, is the fact that
to him, it's there's
also a bit of, but I'm
fucking jigsaw.
Yeah.
One thing I want to say
it's fucking hilarious to
me that John Kramer
sends all of his emails
and messages with
ellipses at the end.
Like, of course he
would.

(28:45):
I'm very interested.
Were you saying
anything, John?
No, that was the end
of the message.
Oh, that's a there's
a particular moment in
the deleted scenes
where you see John
kind of point out the
irony that of all the
people in the world
to be an old man

(29:07):
conned by a scheme.
It's me, jigsaw.
Well, I think the timing
on this works pretty well
to like it feels topical
without being overbearing
like this is going to
work in a few years.
But I think it hits
particularly well right
now.
It just just due to the
rise of kind of fishing

(29:27):
schemes that are dependent
on getting people kind of
emotionally invested in
this game.
Like during COVID, a lot
of people were just stuck
at home.
I think there was a
desperation for human
contact.
And you know what?
There was a John Oliver
segment yesterday on last
week tonight.
Just talking about how
this how many people fell
down that rabbit hole.
You know, you get a wrong
message.
They start talking to you

(29:47):
all of a sudden.
They seem nice.
You're lonely.
And then they start talking to you.
And then they set you up to
start investing in a fake
company.
And before you know it, oh,
no, I've lost three hundred
thousand dollars.
So we're in that phase where,
you know, it's happening all
the time.
A lot of older folks are kind
of desperate for that
connection.
And it makes sense for the
audience why John would fall
for something like this,
because we probably have a

(30:08):
relative who might have done
something stupid in the same
way.
And it's also another thing
where the.
Where the time period it
takes place in really helps
them there.
Because this is still pre
Nigerian Prince Internet
where everyone isn't
even with even though you can

(30:29):
Google somebody in two thousand
two, it's not the same as
trying to find out if
something's a scam now.
Like there was so resources
were so significantly smaller
back then.
Very true.
Plus, I wish they'd used the
new term for it, like pig
butchering would have been
thematically such a better fit
than just fishing.

(30:50):
Although we do have that fun
deleted scene where John starts
explaining, like you went
fishing over the pH.
I enjoy it because in the
making of feature ads, they go
into like we explain the
concept to Tobin Bell and he
went on that rant in real time
like he just made up that
dialogue.

(31:11):
Oh, God, nobody get him a DVD
of Catfish the series.
I love the idea of someone
explaining to Tobin Bell like
catfishing and him just like
immediately getting the concept
and starting to riff on it as
jigsaw like, oh, wait, I can
work with this.
Give me a second.
He can riff as jigsaw.

(31:34):
We're in yellow
tinted country.
And this is one of the things I
was kind of bitching about where
it's it's a little old hat to
say, oh, we're in Mexico.
All of a sudden, it's got to be
very warm tones.
But at a certain point, you have
to just give in that it's
cinematic shorthand at this
point.
Yeah.
Like, it's just a short
cut, you know, which I
true kind of.

(31:55):
I mean, it'd be weird if they
went something like if this was
bright blue or something,
everyone be scratching their
heads like, well, it doesn't
feel like they went to Mexico.
Yeah.
Then you would have thought,
are we in Norway?
I guess they looked at other
spots beside Mexico to film a
movie like they're thinking
like, oh, we could go to like
Bulgaria or some other cheaper
country.
And luckily, it all worked
out.
They actually filmed in Mexico.

(32:15):
Imagine the other world where
this was all shot in the
European castle that
Charles Band owns.
All right.
That'd been kind of fun,
though.
Just saw X on the set of
Castle Freak.
Castle Saw.
Also, I like how John gets to
be in Breaking Bad for 15
seconds.

(32:35):
It's definitely like doing the
walk in thing from Seven
Psychopaths.
Shoot me.
I think what's fascinating,
though, about stuff like this
is just seeing how helpless
and pathetic John actually
is.
He's never been an action
hero, you know, even in two
when he technically has all the

(32:55):
cards, he still gets his
fingers broken by Matthews and
his face beat in like he's
going to take a licking.
He really can't overpower you.
He kind of relies on help from
his assistants and his
persuasion to get all of his
deeds done and only find
himself in situations where he
is the only one who could
possibly be in control.

(33:18):
Yeah, he has to manufacture
everything.
He has to make himself being
powerful.
And I like how they really
highlight that with this by
and I think it would have been
easy in doing like a personal
like straight John story to
still try to make him kind of
cool.
Like a cool villain, but
he's just shaking and kind of

(33:40):
pathetic.
Well, this one, this one.
Boy, it kind of goes full
circle from where we started
with, where in Saw 1, we
know almost nothing about the
guy.
He pops up off the floor and
he's just kind of terrifying,
right?
Because we don't know anything
about him, but he managed to do
this whole thing while laying in
the room with you.
He has that thing on his face.

(34:02):
Yeah, this one goes the other
way around where we see him for
two hours as a frail, dying old
man who is just kind of sad
about things.
So it's very weird that we've
gone 10 movies in and our
monster is now more sympathetic
than ever.
And we see so much of his side
where we don't.
We don't hate him the way we
might have after several of the

(34:22):
other entries.
I don't know.
It's always been a weird thing
where people have revered John,
but you can clearly tell he's
doing evil things.
Yeah, I think they actually do a
pretty good job in this and
balancing of of really having it
called out like John, you are
being a hypocrite and doing evil
things.
Yeah, they finally have some
people that get to kind of lay

(34:44):
into him and hey, you don't have
the moral high ground here.
I wish those amounted to a little
more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Some of them ended up on the
cutting room floor, but it's
nice to get those moments.
Obviously, it didn't take
because this is like saw 1.5.
So he would double down on
everything when he gets back to
the United States.
I know one thing I know that's
frustrated you, especially in

(35:05):
the later movies, is those
little added technicalities to
the saw traps like, oh, you have
to cut your own head off and
also solve this math problem.
But you know, are always just
very trite ways of making sure
that the audience still gets blood
and guts at the end of the trap.

(35:25):
I love how this is the first
movie where those are there for
a very clear narrative purpose.
Like these are, it's made very
clear to the audience.
These are not John's regular
traps.
These are traps that are intended
to not be completed.
It's it still drives me kind of
batty where he is like, there's

(35:46):
moments where he can tell he is
sad.
When someone is dying or he
kind of wants them to get
through it, but he still put
them in a situation where he's
like, well, not only do you have
to chop your leg off, you have
to suck out the bone marrow from
the severed leg and then you
have to drop it into this vat.
And if you don't do it within
30 seconds, you will die while
swearing this isn't punishment
or revenge, right?
Yeah, it's John.

(36:07):
You can say that all you want.
It kind of feels like revenge.
Yeah, more or less having Amanda
calling him on his bullshit.
Which is fascinating.
When you consider like her
eventual arc, like, oh, John
really did fuck her up, like
mentally having her be actually

(36:27):
sympathetic and going, this is
not good.
Like this is none of this is
OK.
There's got to we'll get into
this later whenever she becomes
part of the movie, but just
spending time with an Amanda
who at this point has probably
killed Adam.

(36:48):
But have it hasn't killed.
Matthews.
Yeah, Matthews.
I almost called him Hoffman.
I was like, no, there are other
cops.
There's a lot of cops.
A lot of them.
So this is, I would say, a very
good mark of quality of the film
where I enjoy this movie, even

(37:10):
though I think this entire setup
is very, very obnoxious.
The whole scam is one thing, but
to actually have a movie that's
a base set up in Mexico, multiple
paid actors, a as we'll find out
later, actual surgical equipment
is there, even though they don't
use it.
They have like an actual
radiation machine in here.
It's it's like they really went

(37:31):
super, super far all to scan this
guy out of like two hundred
thousand bucks.
Like there's got to be easier
ways they could have just robbed
him when they like had him in the
taxi cab.
Well, that's something I think
that, you know, in my opinion,
kind of elevates things.
I think if the scam were less
elaborate.

(37:53):
It would just be John going up
against some assholes.
I think the theatricality raises
Cecilia to.
To John's level, like this is
somebody who is going to an
unnecessary degree to rob and

(38:13):
humiliate these people.
Like I think I think the unnecessary
quality of it is what sells it.
Yeah, they're equally intricate.
Also, honestly, that's how intricate
these real scams actually are.
I have some doubts to get to the
point of like relocating base for

(38:33):
every person they scam.
It feels like that really does.
That is actually usually how it
goes.
I mean, hell, you can actually go
losing so much on the set design.
Mike, it's not efficient.
You can actually go as far with
like the I'm always fascinated by
the people who go through the
go forward with the Nigerian print
scam to see exactly how far it will
go.
And you end up standing in a vault

(38:54):
in another country somewhere.
And they just.
Pretty much just eventually just
rob you because they are they're
out of steps.
Like you were supposed to give up
at some point.
I feel not swayed.
I mean, obviously people do go to
extreme lengths when they're trying
to take money from other folks.
The the larger point for me, though,

(39:17):
is.
I don't buy into the scam as being
realistic in any way.
It maybe fits into the saw universe
where things are very large and
theatrical, but it doesn't matter.
I still enjoy the film, which I think
is a pretty big mark on the quality
of it, where the dramatics of it
work so strong.
I don't care that it's a little goofy
getting to this point.
Well, it helps that this is the first
saw movie with an actual emotional

(39:39):
core since three.
That definitely helps.
Yeah, I buy into the story they're
telling here.
Not not the plot.
I guess, but like the actual
dramatics and emotions here way more
than pretty much any of the other
saws.
They still attempted them in the
other saw movies, but it never
landed for me.
It always felt like it was just
feather window dressing.

(40:01):
This works.
This feels like it's an actual movie.
Yeah, this feels honestly like the
first full on 100 percent narrative
driven saw movie since the first one.
Because even two and three, while
still being heavily narrative driven,
still had a lot of sauce.
Stuff going on.
Yeah, and a lot of the saw entries as
we've gone through were there to be a

(40:25):
rung on a ladder.
They were leading you to the next step
to the next step to the next step.
And there was an eventual.
Ending to the ladder, but it didn't
feel like they'd kind of figured that
out when they started building it.
Yeah, this was nice.
It ends and it's like, sure, there's
other avenues where they could go.
If you wanted to, you could go right
back into the other saw movies and it
fits nice enough.

(40:45):
But this feels like it's designed to
be its own.
Separate thing.
It tells a fairly complete story.
It's like an actual movie instead of
just a chapter.
This is Logan for Jigsaw.
Carlos.
So I adore how on the nose the subplot

(41:07):
is.
Pool.
This will come in handy later.
Hmm.
Also, you know, John,
it's time because if he was still
like healthy, he would have totally
learned Spanish before traveling to
Mexico.
That kind of asshole.

(41:28):
John would have actually been correcting
them on their pronunciation.
There's probably a whole deleted scene
about that where he's getting down to
somebody because their grammar shit.
I feel like it was probably Tobin
Bell's idea to have John specifically
constantly asking questions.
Yeah.
Like really wanting specifics of

(41:50):
everything and the fact they actually
have answers for everything he's
asking.
Like it shows that he's still like
cautious, but they keep actually
following through with with what he's
looking for.
Yeah.
The deleted scenes contain a whole
lot of medical jargon.
So in an earlier cut of this movie,
we were going to get a lot of

(42:11):
information on what exactly this
procedure was, which, by the way,
we've alluded to it a couple of times.
But.
The Blu-ray release of Saw X.
Has a deleted scenes reel.
There's, yeah, a good number of deleted
scenes.
There's a director's commentary.
There's selected scenes with extra

(42:32):
director's commentary.
There's like an hour and a half long
making of feature.
It's it's a surprisingly stacked
release.
What is this?
2011?
I couldn't believe it.
One thing to go back to your point,
Mike.
About Kramer's observations.
I liked in this moment.

(42:52):
And they've helped him out.
This isn't just a Kramer thing,
but he's looking around and he's
picking out these details and the
camera takes the time to show him
noticing and absorbing his
surroundings.
Yeah.
So they go that extra mile to make
him look perceptive and get the
audience to understand that, you
know, he's not just along for the
ride.
This is a guy who's still trying to
ingest the world around him.

(43:13):
Even when it's too late now to have
second thoughts because he's already
strapped into the table and they're
cutting him open.
Theoretically.
It's something they tried at the end
of Jigsaw, and I don't think it came
across as well because the timing was
bad.
You know, we're like the laser beams
are scorching the ceiling and you
realize one second before the movie

(43:33):
reveals that the lasers were fake.
This one lets this kind of sit for a
moment or two before John realizes
he's been had.
So it's it's.
Feels more earned.
It feels like better.
Filmmaking that they let those things
kind of digest with the audience.
Well, it's so lovely to be in a saw
movie that has the confidence to let

(43:54):
stuff like that breathe.
If this were made a decade ago,
everybody would be in the warehouse
by now.
Yeah, we are.
We're almost 30 minutes in 27,
almost 28 minutes in.
John saw a couple minutes before he
figures out he's been scammed.
There's still an hour and a half of
movie left.
They let this one be long.

(44:14):
They let this one have time to breathe
and develop.
Thank God.
And it works so much better than
than if they had made it even shorter
film.
When was the last time we had a two
hour long saw film?
Saw seven, I think.
That was surprisingly long.
Yeah.
And I know I think before that it was

(44:35):
saw three, which was a little bit
over two hours.
Actually, saw 3D is only an hour and
31 minutes.
It just feels like it's two hours long.
That's a story.
I think most of them are right around
that 90 minute mark.
Kevin Greider was was talking like
this was a unique challenge for him
because it's the only time he's had
too much footage.
Normally, he's worried about not
making a song movie long enough to

(44:56):
feel like a proper movie.
This one, he's like putting it
together and he had like a three
hour long cut.
He's like, something's gone wrong.
I don't know what to do.
I have too much.
Now, the original cut of the
getting to know you scene in the
warehouse later on is about 20
minutes.
Yeah.

(45:17):
Once again, what a what a weird
development considering the very first
saw film.
They literally had to use every scrap
of film they had.
They had like steel footage just to
make the movie long enough.
And this one is like, oh, my God,
fuck.
We have like two extra hours of
footage we could just throw out.
And it's nice that whatever weird
edict there was like, no, it has to
be an hour and a half long.

(45:38):
Nothing over seems to have
finally lifted and it paid off.
Imagine that.
Oh,
I don't know if the producers are
a little more hands off on this
entry because the previous two
hadn't quite connected.
But in the making of feature, you
don't hear as much of them saying,
hey, these are things we were
trying to do or change or control.

(46:00):
It felt a little bit more like
they let Greuter kind of do his
thing.
We had a script that had been
around for a while, too.
So they just went back to an idea
they thought was good.
Yeah.
They kind of trusted Tobin Bell to
carry the movie, which all were
smart choices.
They all they all went the right
direction.
Yeah.
This feels very.
From what we know of the producers
so far.
I say this with no offense, but

(46:22):
very anti them.
Yeah.
Also, God, I could watch an entire
movie of just this
montage.
Loving a life.
Jigsaw.
The product sponsorship.
I never thought we'd see like a
official like booze sponsor of a
movie of a saw movie.

(46:46):
So
that joke will make no sense by the
time we get this edited.
Now, people are going to forget
about it already.
The Internet may discover it again.
It'd be nice.
So as we're talking about the music,
though, I just want to go into how
unique the score is compared to
Charlie Clouser's other entries.
Like it's the least industrial of
all of them, which is the hallmark

(47:07):
of his saw music.
Obviously, he hasn't done that
entirely.
He's tried to get away from it.
I think in some of the later
entries, especially the spinoff
entries.
But if you pop on the DVD
and just like let it sit on the
opening menu, it feels like you're
listening to a classic score from
like a like a really dark thriller
or a monster movie.
It doesn't feel like

(47:28):
a jigsaw music.
It's also weird to have a saw
movie where the DVD credit
menu isn't just the sounds
of like metal scraping against
some.
But the one I have is like, yeah,
like bad fluorescent lights like
flickering in and out and then like
a gurney being pushed down a
hallway.
It sounds like a Halloween
soundtrack, you know, like put

(47:49):
this on for your haunted house.
That's one of the things I came
away really loving about this
movie is.
It has.
The the aesthetic
darkness that you want from a saw
movie, but it's not gross
and grimy
in the way that most of them
are. This isn't.

(48:11):
A dirty movie
visually.
There's a weird like a veneer
of almost like classic Hollywood
class to this.
It fits the fact we're following
John like it's
a very,
very clean, like classical
version of the normal

(48:33):
saw score.
There is such a rush.
They knocked over everything, but left the
monitors on.
These guys forgot their DVD.
That's like 20 bucks.
They'll never get back.
This is what I'm talking about.
They're not efficient scammers.
It's a VHS.

(48:54):
He presses play and it's
the video of that rock star from
the saw to DVD.
Why did that guy think his band
mates were going to be cool
about it?
So there we go.
Kind of a classic saw thing where you have a character
figuring out what's going on

(49:14):
by flashing back to the past.
Only this time they didn't save it for
the very end of the movie. We have this flashback
happening to John
30 minutes in kind of signaling
the end of act one.
We get a lot of flashbacks
to things earlier in the movie and
normal saw fashion. And I
love that. Like it happens multiple times.

(49:35):
We get a montage
of Amanda just doing Amanda
stuff at one point. It's delightful.
Amanda revealing herself to be
Amanda over and over.
Over and over again.
So here we get
kind of a nice twist on
jigsaw music where it's more

(49:55):
percussive. It sounds
I can tell you they're giving John like scary
monster movie music now.
Which I dig.
Oh yeah. Make him a little bit
more of a movie monster.
I mean we're 10 and I think it's okay.
We can just admit he's like an iconic character
in horror cinema. Just treat him like one.
So John must have been so happy.

(50:22):
A market with many masks.
His favorite thing. So many choices.
So I'm sorry but every time
we cut to the cabbie I just think
Dopinder from Deadpool.
I just keep thinking we're going to cut
inside it and it's just going to be Dopinder.

(50:44):
So we are
34 minutes
into the movie and outside
of that one fantasy sequence
this is the first
saw thing that happened.
Right? It's pretty weird.

(51:07):
And it's a gnarly one too.
We got pipe bombs. We got like
Edward Fortyhands but with knives.
I'm fascinated by
this scene in
particular because this is
the most
in my opinion the most
super villain John has

(51:28):
ever been in the series. This is just
some death
stroke shit.
I'm going to improvise
a saw trap just to
interrogate this dude.
And what's great is
there's no
real
reason for him to still do this
in a saw style. But that's just
how John operates. So he

(51:49):
just the fact he
improvises a full
saw plot instead of just
kidnapping the guy and interrogating him.
It's fun he knows how to make
pipe bombs. I like that fact.
Not only is he a civil engineer but he knows how
the anarchist's curveball works.
And graft them into somebody.

(52:11):
Also this is a trap that is so
like most of the traps
in this movie so creatively
gnarly.
I feel like a common
problem with saw traps is
the
setup is
very complicated but the
actual violence is

(52:32):
fairly simple.
Eyeball go boom.
Teeth get pulled out. Things like that.
There is something so
squeaky and wrong
about somebody just
digging things out of
their wrists.
Yeah we really are back in
the simplicity of

(52:52):
the early saws more than
whatever some
of the traps turned into.
Should I have
sent you guys as Malort wrapped in like 18
layers of duct tape to kind of simulate
having these duct tape hands?
Like play the message. I don't have fingers
John. It's hard to push the play button.

(53:14):
I like how he still went out and bought
a micro cassette tape tape
recorder. He just carries them with him
just in case he has ideas. I don't know.
John shower thoughts.
I want it. Yeah. A whole deleted scene where he's
just in Target or something like just walking around Kmart
like this could come in handy.
I need to build a new Billy.
I want to get

(53:34):
a cross made out of kryptonite
so that I can kill vampires
and Superman.
Or vampire Superman.
These have been
Deep Thoughts with John
Kramer.
I know
we're not there. We're not there for a while. Can we just
appreciate the fact that he told

(53:56):
Amanda specifically bring
Billy.
I'm so fascinated
that like a list was
made. Bring my instruments
of hell.
Can you get Billy through customs?
Did you ever hear the story
of like Jason Segel?
When he was making the Muppets, he had
his version of himself as a Muppet in his

(54:18):
carry-on luggage and like
TSA opened the box and like what's in here
and it's just him as a terrifying Muppet staring back
and they basically just closed the lid like
we don't want to know.
Just imagine that's what's going on with Billy.
Like some poor guy is just going to be like what the
fuck? Uh, all right.
This one's kind of interesting to me because of the choices

(54:38):
John made for this guy's trap. Like
one, this guy gets three whole minutes. It feels like he has
way more time than most other folks.
Two, he has to cut himself
up pretty bad and lose a lot of blood and skin.
But most of John's
traps are designed to like permanently maim you.
Like, oh, cut off a leg.
Break all of your fingers. Gouge out an eye.
Uh, stab this dead

(54:58):
guy and then, oh, he's alive.
This one is fairly
in regards to Jigsaw
lenient.
It's almost like he wants him to live so he can get information
and everybody else he wants to die.
Well, he still opens the
trap by saying, I already told you everything. I gave you all
the people. And I think the editing
of the deleted scenes kind of shows like he'd
already drilled this guy for information before

(55:20):
putting him in the trap. Yeah, he interrogates him
in the chair and then does
the game afterwards. This is still
like, I need to put you through a lesson.
You gotta learn.
I really like how the
design for all the traps are really just based
on what
John's gone through, what

(55:41):
they represent. Like, just having to
perform surgery in really specific
ways or go through medical
procedures. Yeah, well, it's just
John being angry. Yeah, well, this
one calls out, you cut the cancer out, the thing they couldn't
do to him. So he's going to make this guy
do it to himself.
You know, all the traps tie
pretty nicely, I think, to the predicament

(56:01):
that's going on.
I mean, honestly,
it'd be weird if we had a Saw where
it wasn't themed. I think they should have leaned into
it more in all the other movies.
But this
one, what? We've got technically
that self-surgery with the pipe bombs.
We have the surgery Saw
where a character has to cut their leg off with an old

(56:21):
school surgery Saw.
We've got the radiation
machine. What else am I
missing? I feel like most of them are actually
involving surgical tools or surgery
things. Yeah, the brain surgery.
Yeah, the brain. They're all very on
brand, which I appreciate.
The only other way
that would have been cool is all the traps were super
Mexico-themed, like the one where the guy does the brain

(56:43):
surgery and then the, like,
Aztec mask clamps on him at the end.
That was awesome. I wish John did a little bit
more of that. Just a little extra flair
for no reason whatsoever. Like, well, when in Mexico.
The only way to survive
this trap is to cut off your own heart.
Yeah. He goes
to New York City and does traps, and one of them
is like, oh, you'll be encased in the Statue of

(57:05):
Liberty for all time.
You'll drown in pizza dough.
Isn't it kind of surprising?
We never found a reason to do Saw
spinoffs that are just themed for location.
Like, he goes to
Washington, D.C. to fight politicians, and
all the traps are like, you get
crushed or impaled by the Washington
Monument in miniature. House of Jigsaw.

(57:28):
House of Jigsaw, yeah.
Jigsaw goes Hawaiian.
That would also be very fun.
So many pineapples.
So many pineapples. Oh, no.
I did just rewatch Little Nicky, so it'd be
that situation. They're just shoving pineapples up your ass.
Yeah.
God. Before we get too far away
from it, I just want to

(57:49):
talk about the use of color
in this sequence,
which I thought was really fascinating.
In
the entire
Amanda capturing victims
sequence, each of
these victims has their own
theme of color. Yes.
Other scenes designed around, which is a
color that comes up

(58:11):
later in the main
warehouse.
All of this inspired by Giallo.
They could not stop saying
Giallo when they were in the making of
Featurettes. This is very Giallo.
The number one thing they were saying over and over, they were just
such big fans of Giallo, they just
wanted to do their own focus
spin on it for once. Which makes a lot of sense
when you think about, okay, this was originally supposed

(58:32):
to be European.
God, we've been chasing
90s neo-noir
this entire series. Seeing this
go into the same
kind of territory that
Juan would be doing
not too long before
with Malignant. That's
really fresh. Because it
still kind of comes from the same

(58:53):
basic place, it doesn't feel out of place
for a Saw movie.
It's an Ouroboros. We always come back around
Giallo.
I would say to
that point and direction,
I've been, I would say
fairly hard on Greider's
Saw movies, because
I haven't enjoyed most of the ones he's

(59:13):
been the director on, or really heavily involved with.
Well, maybe that's not fair.
He's been heavily involved with all of them.
But the ones where he's the creative controller.
And then you get to this one,
which is really good. And it makes me
wonder, okay, have I just not been familiar
with your game the whole time? Because if you listen
to all of his commentary,
if you listen to him provide
the specific scene commentary,

(59:36):
he's very frank,
he's insightful, he's not full of
himself when he's talking about this stuff, he's not being
pretentious, he's not saying, oh, I've made a
masterpiece, or he's not dismissive
of the material, or, oh, we're just making a Saw movie.
He has an attitude
towards the whole thing that I really appreciate and admire.
And when you
start paying attention to some of those technical details
he's sprinkled throughout the film,

(59:58):
you know, they're very good.
Like, I'm surprised. Like, there's a lot
more craft going on than I would have expected
considering Saw VII.
And it makes you wonder how much of this was stuff out of his
control the entire time, where it was
time crackdowns, budget crackdowns,
studio,
video interference, bad scripts.
When he's got all the time to do
this stuff the way he wants to,

(01:00:19):
I'm assuming you get a movie like this,
and when outside forces kick him around
you get Saw VII.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, literally, he
just didn't even try
with Saw VII. And I think we know why
he didn't try with Saw VII.
That's the thing that still bothers me.
I haven't been able to figure out how they drew him back in.
Because after that treatment, as soon as my contract
is done, I've probably been like, nah, fuck you guys.

(01:00:42):
I don't know if it's just,
you know, well-paying work.
That's why the producers had to have just not had the same
level of power. And the fact that
this was like, hey, you know how you didn't have time
or money at all to
make something on the last ones
you directed? Here's
actually making a movie.
You get to actually make a movie this time.
But he's not even back for

(01:01:03):
Spiral and
Jigsaw. Like, Spiral,
they didn't think he was going to be back at all because
of scheduling conflicts, but they got him towards the end
of the movie to help with the edit. And I think he was going to be back.
He was also an executive producer.
And then Jigsaw, they got him back for
that as well, I think. Like, he's
pretty much gotten a part in
all of the movies. So it's just
surprising to me, after the treatment of him

(01:01:25):
on Seven, you'd almost think he'd be gone, but
he's right back in the fold.
I would love to know more about that, but I
suppose it's too much gossip stuff to ever come out to the
public.
I don't know. I'm too bitter. If it were me, I would have
just told Lionsgate to fuck off forever, and I never would have
been another Saw.
I'm making my own horror
franchise.

(01:01:46):
Well, you did try. I mean, there's
Jackals, Jezebel, whatever the other one
was, Visions.
I've only seen
Jackals, which I
didn't love,
to be honest.
He at least went out and cut his teeth as a filmmaker
more. Yeah.
He's worked on other stuff, too.

(01:02:07):
Like, he's got a couple different credits
in Barbarian.
Yeah.
So I don't know what level. I think he
consulted on some of the ideas for that. I think he
worked on some of the editing for that.
So he's definitely been around in other
movies and pictures. It's not like
he can only find work in Saw.
I do wonder
at least as far

(01:02:27):
as this project goes, if the script
played some part in that.
I know it would excite me
just looking at stuff like this on
the page and going, oh, well,
there will be sequences in this movie.
I don't think
we've seen actual
cat and mouse in a Saw movie
since, what, the first one?

(01:02:47):
It's kind of been a while.
They've tried doing some stuff where
they're outside, too, which
hasn't amounted to much, and it works
much better here than
in something like Jigsaw.
Speaking of Giallo, this
fucking sequence is Giallo as fuck.
I love
the inside baseball when they're talking about the filming of that
last little segment where, you know,

(01:03:09):
the pig head walks past the glass
and
Johnny Smith really wanted
to do that scene herself, and they couldn't let her
because apparently that ledge the person was
walking on was, like, four inches wide.
It's like, no, we really can't afford
to have one of our lead actresses, like, accidentally
fall off a building or, like, through glass.
We'll just have a stunt person do it. You're going to be wearing a mask,
so no one will know anyways.

(01:03:30):
I love the pure Giallo,
like, absurdity of Amanda on the roof.
So good.
And just, it's just so
fun. Amanda's on the roof.
Also, apparently,
Cecilia looking out.
The window there was the most
complicated shot in the entire
movie, to the point where the DVD
has a John Madden,

(01:03:50):
like, arrow
on the screen breakdown
of how they filmed that without
catching the camera and the reflection.
Because sometimes
basic filmmaking is the hardest
thing in the world.
Yeah, it's very convenient for us as critics. We can sit back
and just judge the product on screen without thinking
of how goddamn hard it is not to catch
a camera and a reflection.

(01:04:11):
Yeah.
Like, there have been so many movies where
you wouldn't even think about it, but it was a nightmare
to film because everything was
reflective. All the set design was designed to be
reflective. We've seen that
shot in Hook.
Or I'm thinking, like, 13 Ghosts
where they were talking about what a huge pain in the ass
that movie was, because everything was basically made out of glass.

(01:04:31):
So you're just catching
reflections on literally every surface
and everything gets smudged, so you can't have, like,
your cast and crew walking around that place or it looks
dirty.
A couple things here.
Quick succession. Smallest point to get
through. One, I hate these pig masks.
They just don't quite have the
same quality. I've already bitched about this in other commentaries.
Apparently, the original

(01:04:52):
Don Post
masks have gone out of production
and some reason the
Jigsaw production company just doesn't own, like,
fucking 90 of these masks in a warehouse somewhere.
It doesn't look like John bought
a Jigsaw pig
mask from a store.
Yeah, so these are kind of reschooled ones.
Yeah, they're just not as good.

(01:05:12):
It doesn't impact anything at all.
In fact, it's still kind of funny that they're wearing the pig
mask for no reason, but it, I guess, fits in
with the Jallo idea. Like, it visually
is a good cue. It helps Amanda get psyched
up. Yeah.
Two, it's great that we have
Amanda back. I absolutely love that we can
have the interplay between her and John, because I think
that adds so much to any movie when

(01:05:32):
you have those two working with each other.
But three,
if this movie had a larger budget, you have to
imagine they would have done a little bit of CGI
de-aging, right? Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's
weird. I'm weirdly
not bothered by
Tobin. Well, he's
supposed to be, like, cancer-stricken and dying, so you

(01:05:52):
can just kind of go, eh, alright, it makes sense he looks
older. And he's also, like, looked old since, I don't know,
the 90s.
But, yeah, I mean,
Johnny Smith, luckily, is
like, aged very gracefully,
but is obviously,
like, 15 years older.
It's not 2001.
Right, the fact that this is supposed to be firmly,
you know, like, Saw 1.5

(01:06:14):
territory, if you were to watch these
in chronological order, like, at a
party, you'd be very taken aback
when all of a sudden it's like, wait,
this is supposed to be the next one? And the wig's
rough. It's rough. It's real
rough. The wig was
real bad.
I think her body language
is all pretty much exactly the same. It's just

(01:06:34):
the wig and... Yeah.
You just kind of have to accept that she
looks noticeably much older.
You're right. And it's one of those deals where,
if you didn't have the idea this was supposed
to be young Amanda,
it wouldn't matter in the slightest.
But if you're a nitpicky nerd, then it's gonna be
frustrating. It's really, and it's really
weird. Arguably,

(01:06:54):
Shawnee Smith looked exactly the same
until,
I don't know, like, seven years ago.
So it's like,
if you just made this, like, five
years earlier, it would have been
perfectly fine. Well, I mean, the Saw series
has been pretty bad at making people look young.
Like, just think of the last movie.
Why with Tobin Bell? Samuel L. Jackson,
make him look young, they just kind of slapped a mustache on him.

(01:07:16):
Or Tobin Bell, they just, like, made him wear a hoodie
and a hat. I don't
think they're very good at flashback aging folks.
I don't think they have necessarily the money for it,
and they're just trusting that the audience is gonna get over it.
It
definitely helps that
you're essentially
watching what amounts to

(01:07:36):
a full-budget
Saw fan film
in what it's going for.
I mean, I'm way more
forgiving of goofy shit
like that than I would in a different production.
I want to get back
to the idea of fan film in a minute,
so don't let me forget. But before we get to that,
I have a fun fact, not-so-fun fact, about
Pee-Wee's Playhouse, tied to the

(01:07:58):
de-aging. I learned recently
that, you know, there was the Pee-Wee movie for
Netflix, and apparently
it did fairly well, ratings-wise. And the
reason we never got a follow-up was
it was too expensive to keep
CGI-ing Pee-Wee Herman to be a younger-looking,
man.
Because Paul Reubens insisted Pee-Wee Herman
should not look old. We should
make him kind of young, that's part of his character.

(01:08:21):
So they spent a lot of money on
de-aging technology to smooth him out
for his Netflix special.
And that was part of the reason why they
said, well, you did good, but you didn't draw
enough viewers to justify the expense of
de-aging you for another movie.
And Paul Reubens didn't want to do one if they made Pee-Wee
look old. I honestly
did not notice that at all.
I feel like he didn't

(01:08:42):
look old enough when you could just do it in
makeup. You would think,
but apparently that was the route and
one of the arguing points he kind of got stuck on.
So, who would have guessed?
He just looked like
old Paul Reubens. It didn't work.
Just think, if they'd

(01:09:02):
only waited another 20 years, we could have had an immortal
CGI hologram of Pee-Wee Herman. They could have
just pumped them out for decades.
God, that's a bad wig.
I wonder how much
not noticeable
the age difference would be
if the wig was good.
I think if the wig was good, this would be fine.
I think you would just kind of ignore everything else.

(01:09:25):
It's not like she looks
200 years old or has a huge amount
of plastic surgery and leaves a totally different
face.
She's not Mickey Rourke.
Yeah, exactly.
I do want to point out that they have
kept Amanda pushing carts around.
Which is apparently her favorite thing
in the world to do.

(01:09:45):
That's her thing. It takes the edge off.
We should also mention that
surprise, surprise, I saw a film had a hard time
with the MPAA.
This scene apparently gave them a lot
of trouble because towards the end of the leg
amputation, you see the top of the
leg, the flesh kind of bulging up
with the saw as she struggles to cut through
the final strip after the leg is already

(01:10:06):
basically severed.
They didn't like that. They apparently had a hard time
getting that specific thing through.
So random.
Everything else is fine.
I mean, they had to make edits
to a lot of other spots, you know, to get the traps down
and all that, but it's funny when
they pick very specific things like
that detail is too much. That's in my

(01:10:26):
nightmares. Oh, we got a John explosion.
A rarity.
That's always nice when he does those
little pops. We lose control.
I really wish he had the soul patch.
Could you imagine that if he's bald and just had the soul

(01:10:48):
patch and he's wearing the red robe the entire time?
So this
is something that I find interesting here
because in the deleted scenes, they really expand
on Peterson
trying to hoodwink
John again saying, well, my dad actually could
do the cure. I couldn't
hear or your case was different, but
if we went to him, he could fix you

(01:11:10):
in this movie. They like bring up
just for this one line and they basically call
her a liar and bring up all the dead people that she
didn't cure. The deleted scenes
really keep hammering this and they get into a
deeper philosophical discussion about moral high
grounds. She doesn't let the idea go
that there's actually a cure out there if
John would help her out.
Which is weird because I'm

(01:11:30):
like, is that necessary? Is that
supposed to be like
leftover thread for a deeper idea
you could follow in a sequel?
Or what was the purpose of that?
Yeah.
Well, it's an entire
thing with Cecilia's character
that's left on the cutting room floor.
The fact that she's motivated

(01:11:50):
out of wanting to shame her
father
who, for all
intents and purposes, seems to be a
genius, but
because he was a bad father
she wants to pervert
what he did, which again, that's
so fat. I'm so frustrated
that's not in the movie because that makes
her such a fascinating foil for

(01:12:12):
John, where
ultimately it's not even
about the fortune she's making.
It's a very petty
psychological reason.
Well,
I have a feeling she'll be back in Saw 11
so maybe that's something they can explore in that one.
I think they've kind of hinted around at that
anyway. Yeah. She does survive

(01:12:34):
in a weird deleted scene that
I guess was supposed to be the original
after credits scene before
we got big Papa Hoff coming back.
They do still have Amanda
going like, so what if
she's telling the truth though?
Which is interesting.
I think they wanted to play with that.
Is John being so steadfastly

(01:12:56):
jigsaw and
so angry that he is
giving up something
that could theoretically
help him?
Especially because at this point we still don't know if the
guy who told him about the treatment was lying
or not.
They're setting up an alternate
universe where Jigsaw actually is cured and then
they just keep making Saw movies for as long

(01:13:18):
as Tobin Bell wants to make them.
Wouldn't that
be fucking wild if they just kind of pulled like a
Halloween 2018 and they just retconned
everything after Saw 1 and they
didn't tell us until Saw 11?
Oh, it's the ultimate plot
twist.
I mean, I think if you announce that
literally, oh, we're just doing a different timeline
the fans would go, oh.

(01:13:40):
Alright, cool.
I don't.
I don't even think there'd be pushback.
I think they'd just be along for the ride as long as you're open
about it and you didn't try and do some weird twist like
well, John snuck off and got cured
and his evil brother was the one
on the autopsy table.
Absolutely no Hoffman in this universe.
Well, we've
already seen him in this one, so I think we're stuck with
this Hoffman. I hate that

(01:14:01):
I popped for Hoffman.
I know. The moment John
referenced his detective
friend.
Jigsaw's
network of agents.
They somehow gave Hoffman
like three different cameos, like
levels of cameos.

(01:14:23):
It's like
Apocalypse Now.
Like they just keep hinting at more and more of them
until you finally see him in the end.
It makes me at least
want like, okay, can we
do a movie where it's John, Amanda
and Hoffman to make Hoffman work?
It was so great actually getting a John and Amanda

(01:14:44):
movie here. It adds so much
to the movies that are already
made, two and three.
So I
think this might be
like as simple as it is
the gnarliest
trap in this entire
franchise. This is some terrifier

(01:15:06):
shit to me. Oh, yeah.
I mean, you have to be
so active during it.
Like there's so much you have to tie a
tourniquet. You're on a timer. One
most of us don't know how to tie a tourniquet
if we had like YouTube in front of us, let alone
just figure it out on the fly. Two
you have to saw your leg off. Then you have
to figure out how this this fucking needle works
to suck the marrow out.

(01:15:28):
It's it's a lot. John's
asking a lot. He really wants this person to die.
There's other saw traps where it literally comes down to
like, hey man, if you just cut
your leg off and shoot a guy, you're done. Like
you're okay. This one like
I fucking got a like a nine
step program. I got to go through
and then there's
something and you

(01:15:50):
talked a couple of commentaries ago about
how much
is lost whenever you
don't let the traps
have any kind of mounting
tension. The fact that this movie
has enough air in it for us
to basically get like 10
15 minutes of build up
to this. And then once
you get to the scene, it delivers.

(01:16:12):
Well, I think the
original cut of the movie. They said this this first
trap was supposed to be like a seven minute long thing
even though it's time for like three minutes
just to show you how much extra stuff
they're going to do into the lead up and like the
tension and the in between bits and
that we just saw the skin flap
but they didn't like that. Like the actual
Garrett garotting is so

(01:16:32):
short compared
to the build up because of
all of those steps along the
way.
It
goes back to what
made, you know, the first saw
traps in the original so terrifying
like it's
it's not about, you know,

(01:16:53):
the
Rube Goldberg contraptions.
It's not about
like a hyper
specific gore. It's just about
the simplicity of what
would you do if you were in this
situation and you had to do the
worst thing in the world to yourself to
survive?
Yeah, that always works more for me because
everyone can understand on a visceral level when it's

(01:17:15):
one of those where okay, we have to sit down and
do a brain teaser to survive this puzzle
and then we realize 20 minutes later. We did
the puzzle wrong.
Those kind of bum me out. I love
this because they couldn't find a way
to get that level to drop
evenly. So that is the director
behind the scenes physically moving
the lever down trying to be as steady as possible

(01:17:35):
because that was the easiest
solution. It's like a Jurassic Park when you find out they're
just plucking a guitar string underneath the water.
Glass.
This is one of the other things just due to
dramatic styling.
You always have to make it close. You always got to make it look
like they're, oh, if they had five more seconds, they
could have done it.
But it just feels cheap at

(01:17:57):
that point because like
the movie dictates I have to get close, but they'll never
make it. So it removes some of the
fun for me when no one gets through their
goddamn traps. Yeah, it's
one of those.
The bomb always gets
deactivated at once.
Second kind of deals like, yeah, it's
like there's no real good
way to do it. Unfortunately,

(01:18:17):
like you remove all the tension if she's like,
yeah, didn't even get close
like she was fucking spent three minutes just sitting there
crying like that's just sad for us. Like the
amount of times I've I've been
watching like a movie like this and trying
to think up like
narrative ways to do
sequences like that differently
to avoid the cliche
and there's just no good way

(01:18:39):
to do it. You just have to
it sucks though. It sucks that you have
to eat. There's only like one
normal way to do it. I
think they had the right idea with
was it three
where the judge survives his trap like
they get him out of the pig drowning situation
and then they kill him later in a different trap
like they kind of got to have their cake

(01:18:59):
and eat it too because he gets a really gross trap
that gets that reaction from the audience
and they've almost a couple times.
Yeah, but I think the traps
work best when you can sprinkle more of that in and you
just know it's not gonna be out dead dead dead
dead. Some of the
saw films really work out like each room
one person dies and becomes too formulaic.

(01:19:20):
So an idea
I want to get back to before I forget about it again.
Jamie, you mentioned this is basically
saw the fan film and
I wouldn't disagree
with that, but also
in in the media escape we have
now where callbacks
are always needed or there needs to be some deep
lore for the huge true fans
and always feels like the filmmakers'

(01:19:41):
are pandering to an audience.
This one is loaded with
past characters, little references
and nods to the previous films, but I never
got that hit over the head sense
that this is just fan service in the movie.
And I think a lot of it is because they allow
us to spend so much time with these characters.
It doesn't feel like lip service. It feels
like, no, they're back. We know you love

(01:20:03):
them. We're going to give you the reason why you love
them. The underlying cause, not just
the superficial, look, it's
everyone's favorite apprentice. You know her,
moving on. You get to see
Amanda doing Amanda things for an extended
time, which is
really what the audience wants. They don't want to
just see a lip service paid to a character.
And this movie gets that
idea. You really actually have to delve

(01:20:24):
into these things. And
fuck, no one really gets that. Even something like
Ghostbusters has repeatedly
tried to revive the magic of one and they never
really quite figured out what that was.
This is obviously
a very different movie than Saw, but I
think it hits on so many of the things the fans
came to love about the series over the years
that it doesn't feel
like a legacy sequel.

(01:20:47):
It doesn't feel like
a remake in disguise.
It feels like an honest-to-God entry
of what everyone wanted.
I'm reminded of
when Joss Whedon was talking about
doing Age of Ultron. He said,
we're not going to go bigger, we're going to go deeper.
And he didn't do that.
But that applies here.

(01:21:10):
Now, to
defend Age of Ultron, we got Vision, who
is the best character in the entire
MCU. That's true.
I know
people don't like Age of Ultron
and I'm not going to sit here and defend it as a great movie,
but, boy,
I really enjoy a lot of the scenes with
Vision in that movie. Every scene with Vision
is golden. It's the only thing that works.

(01:21:31):
The little ending bit there was
like, well, I was born yesterday.
Great show. Great scene.
There's a lot of good stuff in Age of Ultron.
There are. It's broken, but
alright, now we're getting to something here that's
fascinating. Yes. Something John didn't
quite anticipate, and it's the characters
being more brutal than he
is. And the ingenuity
of, if I was in a saw trap, how would I get out?

(01:21:52):
And when you're sitting around in a room with your friends drunk
and you say something like, oh, we'd make a rope with intestines!
That character actually did it.
So it's great about having her
kind of be the intellectual
equal to Jigsaw.
Even though he still
does kind of anticipate she's going to
try something like this. Yeah.
He's not totally... Just not to like, this
to preach. Yeah. I would

(01:22:14):
have killed to have been in a
packed theater for We Have a Rope.
Also, God,
in... After
eight movies of
dumbass
saw victims,

(01:22:36):
it's really nice
to see someone...
you know, using the
environment again.
Again, for the first time since
the first movie, which might as well
be the tagline for this commentary.
Two
things about this. One, another comment
back to
my bitching about Spiral. Just...

(01:22:59):
We had a moment kind of like this,
but it felt lazier when Chris Rock gets out of his
trap because it doesn't feel, like, as inspired.
This is great! Like, it's a character
scheming their way out of the situation.
Two, I swear,
I'm gonna quit bitching about Spiral. We move past.
Two,
I love in the commentary, they mentioned that
the fake intestines they had, they thought
they were gonna take all day to throw these things around

(01:23:20):
the cart. They did that twice, and both
times, the rope worked perfectly. Like, just
wrapped around the tires, and they couldn't believe
their luck. It was like in fucking Hannibal
where they threw the potato up in the air, and it
perfectly got stabbed on the knife the first time
Mads tried it, instead of, like, having to bring in, like, a professional
juggler.
Gore finds a way.

(01:23:40):
I'd like to know what they make
fake intestines out of. Like, what's the material
there? Don't they just
use, uh, like, pig
tripe or something?
Isn't that fresh?
Sometimes?
You know, in movies like The Thing, they'll use actual
animal intestines. The problem there
is, boy, is it gross, and it gets

(01:24:01):
smelly. Um, especially
under hot studio lights. So I feel
like if you're trying to do stunt stuff, they
might have something different, like
an actual prop.
That would be a prop. Yeah. I don't
think they'd use actual real guts for that
either. It's probably less common these days, too,
because I feel like you do have to get, like, a, you know,
no animals were harmed in the making
of this film thing, and I don't know if they count, like,

(01:24:23):
buying intestines.
Also, just to offset Cody
shitting on Spiral, I just wanted
to restate for the record, I love Spiral.
Took a number two with his rifle, yeah?
Also, once
again,
Tony Smith is having so much goddamn fun.
I never expected her to get this much

(01:24:44):
screen time. I thought she was a cameo.
I was shocked we were getting a full
Manda and John movie. When they announced she was
coming back, it was really like, oh, cool, so she'll get, like,
a scene, and then she'll be out of the movie, just to make the fans
happy. So it really blows
my mind. She's, like, co-lead after that first,
like, 45 minutes.

(01:25:05):
Also, a nice
thing here, we're moving through
our traps. We've got one person
dead. There's not a ton
of people in this room, but they're taking
their time. It's not like, oh, trap, someone's dead,
five minutes later, oh, another trap, someone's dead.
They're kind of letting these things play out.
They're letting scenes develop in between.
There's plot
happenings beyond just trap,

(01:25:26):
trap, trap.
It's very nice. It feels
like a movie. Measured.
Like, it's not breakneck pacing,
which is something weird to say
about a Saw film where, like, oh, thank God
they're slowing down. But we've
had enough of them moving too fast for their own
good. It's good they can have some... They got too fast, yeah.
Yeah. How much the last, like,

(01:25:47):
five have been too fast.
No, the dummy!
So unnecessary to use a real head.
No, Logan was in there.
Right, that's just, that's extra.
Everyone in this movie's just so
extra.

(01:26:07):
The way this film
is structured reminds me just kind of of
a
more foreign film.
Like, more European, maybe
British or something.
But
it feels more like
something you'd see on the indie scene in another
country than, like, a big movie
here, which is cool.
I mean, to me, it's a revenge film.

(01:26:28):
So it's basically, I spit on your grave.
Well, maybe
a little classier than I spit on your grave. But, you know,
that idea.
I'd say, going back
to its origin
point,
this feels very much like
a French New Extremity movie.
Yeah.
Almost, like, similar to something like Martyrs.

(01:26:48):
Those movies that
are based
more around the threat
of a horrible thing happening
and the tension and
conversations around that situation
rather than the actual acts themselves.
I might
be not too far off to say that, considering
we have things like High Tension, where, you know,
a major twist is kind of baked in.

(01:27:10):
To the DNA of the film.
This is definitely...
It doesn't have the same impact,
maybe, as John getting up from the floor of Saw 1,
but it's a very twisty film.
Like, they get you with a couple different ones in here.
One, we get John Hoogdwinked, which is one the audience
knows about ahead of time due to marketing and...
Well, one, it'd be weird if he was
cured of cancer in this movie and then had it again later.

(01:27:31):
God!
That's why John got crueler.
He just went into remission. He's like,
well, back to the killing.
Oh, no!
I turned on the...
I turned on the microwave
while it was plugged into the wrong outlet,
and now I have radiation sickness.
God damn it!
John gets cancer a different time every movie.

(01:27:53):
But we kind of have building twists here, right?
Like, this character turns out he's in cahoots
with the evil doctor,
and then they turn the table on John,
but it turns out John planned for this,
so he turns the tables back on them!
And there's kind of that back and forth twisting.
It's...
It works better, because at this point,
we know in a Saw movie,
there's going to be one big twist at the end.

(01:28:13):
So having that offset by a series of smaller twists
throughout the movies,
I think holds the spirit of the franchise in place
without giving the same formula
we've kind of gotten tired of.
It's not a twist movie.
The twists throughout it are plot happenings
more than, like, big twists.
The closest you can get to a big twist is...
Carlos.

(01:28:35):
Like, something John didn't anticipate.
Yeah.
Coming into play, but...
Other than that,
I'm kind of bummed that
we do learn that John knows, like,
this dude's real story.
Because I just love how aggressively, like,
bullshitty he was.
Like, oh no, it's only okay for me

(01:28:55):
to try to beat cancer.
You shouldn't try.
Oh, but guns are my favorite.
Going to the Carlos thing.
Obviously, that'll pop up later,
but it is kind of amazing.

(01:29:15):
This is only, like, really the second time
a child's been put in danger in Saw,
and the first time it's been explicit.
Because we had the...
I forget the name of the child
that was kidnapped and basically held in a safe
in Saw 3.
But she was never actually in danger.
Not really, no.
Yeah, it was always their plan to, like,
release her and use her as part of the frame.
It was only over Gordon's kid.

(01:29:37):
That's true.
Yeah, actually, I forgot about that.
Because when they were talking about this movie,
they were talking about how the producers
had kind of drawn a line in the sand,
saying, hey, we don't ever want to actively
put a kid in a trap.
And they had to be talked into it.
Like, no, other movies have done it.
I like that they used hereditary as an example.
Like, hey, that one kid got her head cleaned off
by a telephone pole.
And the producer was like, well, you got us there.

(01:29:58):
That movie did pretty well.
That was a laugh, right?
I always think back, like, it's weird
that kids have been so taboo in horror,
considering most audiences,
for horror films are kids,
are younger, you know, like maybe teenagers.
And it would make more sense to put people
of their own age into these traps
because they're going to identify with that more.

(01:30:19):
I think a lot of it is like people become parents
and they don't want to imagine putting a kid,
their kid in a trap.
And they kind of go, no, no,
that makes me feel uncomfortable.
Let's not do it.
Which is all the more reason to do it.
Well, it's fascinating that that's a,
that's a fear of a moral backlash
that to my knowledge,
has never actually happened.

(01:30:41):
You look at all the moral panics over horror
over the 20th century.
None of them seem to be based around media
depicting anything happening to kids explicitly.
It's all just adult situations with adults.
I think it's more preemptive though.
I think people are afraid they're going to get hit by it.

(01:31:02):
So studios just haven't allowed it to happen.
It's just weird.
That's a, that's a,
that's a shoe that has never dropped
in the history of horror.
You have moral panics.
Yeah.
Like, uh,
fuck, uh,
Guillermo del Toro apparently had it.
I'm sorry.
It's Billy.
Del Toro apparently had a hard time
selling the script for mimic
because that was a big part of it
where like kids go down to the subway station,

(01:31:23):
get murdered by the, uh,
like the Judas insects.
Oh God.
Remember the relic,
that movie that has a kid
just straight up gobbled up hole.
That was shocking at the time.
Like that was not done.
Rock and roll.
Like Cody,
like Cody said,
a lot of it is on the creators
usually have kids or around kids or something

(01:31:46):
and then just feel uncomfortable doing it.
So they kind of like,
it reminds me like Scott Snyder was asked
like why he never used Damien.
And his thing was,
he finally said,
because my kids the same age as Damien.
So having him be shot and punched
is really uncomfortable for me.
Yeah.
Well,
it's changing attitudes as directors get older too.

(01:32:08):
You talk to Sam Raimi,
now,
and he basically tell you like,
ah,
I was kind of a dumb kid.
So I would not have made a lot of the evil dead choices
today that I made then.
Like the tree rape or a lot of those kinds of things.
It's like,
nah,
that was a,
that was an edge master kind of thing as a kid.
Now that I'm adult,
I'm like,
yeah,
no,
that was stupid.
Shouldn't have done it.
The tree rape was Tapper.
That's not surprising.

(01:32:28):
Yeah.
The checks.
I still,
my favorite is the commentary for army of darkness
where they just have naked women and chains being led around
by the skeletons.
And Sam Raimi on the commentary goes,
that was Tapper's idea.
I don't,
I don't really know why we did this,
but he insisted.

(01:32:48):
So we just did this.
Love that.
Like,
of course,
throw the guy under the bus tires immediately.
That's like,
what did they do with them?
What did the,
what did the skeletons do?
I don't know,
but they've all got boners.
Oh,
I set you up.
You knocked them down.
It's in the fucking commentary.
I don't know.
I'm still got it.
Oh,
made for intellectuals.

(01:33:10):
We still got like 45 minutes.
Uh,
we got a vamp.
That's why I was talking about mimic.
I had to,
I had to fill airtime.
So yay.
Brain surgery.
Brain surgery.
I like how retro,
like so much of this film that happens in it retroactively make things that
would happen to John later.
Some like weird karmic irony,

(01:33:30):
like him actually having brain surgery after being fake,
having brain surgery.
And then this,
but he brings it on himself.
Like he sets up,
he knows he needs the brain surgery.
So he arranges that whole trap,
which has another little layer of irony to it.
Also,
it's probably,
I haven't rewatched the movie since going through 10 again,
but it's kind of a fun twist.

(01:33:51):
If you know,
John knows what it's like to have witnessed a man die during brain surgery.
And he knows he has to go through it with a person doing it under duress.
That's a neat wrinkle to his characters.
It's like another fabric.
He could enjoy rewatching three.
Yeah.
Obviously they didn't know that was the,
the case.
It's all retroactive,
but you can put it in your head.
It's cool how it works.

(01:34:12):
I think whenever you're kind of doing stuff like this,
trying to,
you don't want to,
it's one thing to go like,
Hey,
let's call back to something that,
that would happen,
that we know would happen in the future or whatever.
Like that's easy when you kind of like in the DNA of this,
like between sequel type thing,

(01:34:35):
putting,
putting,
putting something in there that will,
that can hearken back,
that can kind of echo throughout the plots to come is to me way more
rewarding.
Like being able to go like do this.
Now you've,
you've built on something that already existed.

(01:34:57):
It's wild that we have a textually rich saw sequel.
So,
one thing I was always a little confused about.
There's a character twist with Dr.
Peterson where she's very encouraging to all these guys during their traps.
Like she's talking them through it.

(01:35:18):
She's telling them like,
Hey,
get your shit together.
You're not going to die like this.
But then with like the next trap,
she changes her tune and finishes off one of the survivors.
And that's after she now is back in power.
It's just,
yeah,
I guess that'd be a way to look at it,
but it threw me off because it felt like the,
the character motivation basically just turned on a dime and I didn't quite get

(01:35:40):
it because right now she just wants people to survive for her own self-survival.
I like the idea of an army of trap survivors overpowering jigsaw while bleeding
to death.
Well,
we did get the,
uh,

(01:36:00):
saw support group in seven.
We're a superhero team.
Yeah,
they didn't,
they didn't,
they didn't have the budget to show us all those survivors in like their true capacity.
We got the one girl with a missing arm and the overall guys.
This is great.
Can I just say that?
This is great.
This was the trap that sold me on this movie.

(01:36:24):
When I saw the trailer,
like I was hopping up and down like a little kid watching Saturday morning cartoons.
They're gonna make a surgeon operate on his own brain.
It's,
it's,
it's,
I mean,
in the terms of complicated saw traps,
I think this edges a little bit more towards it because you have a guy who has a mirror
so he can watch his own surgery and then he's got to like fill the tank up.

(01:36:46):
But this works a lot better for me than something say like the trap where they had to cut pieces
of their bodies off to tip scales.
It helps that there's escalation in the complexity of the traps.
Yeah.
Plus,
I like when his brain comes out.
It just looks real good.
Fantastic.
The balls,

(01:37:06):
the balls of the Saul series to go,
you know,
we're going to do brain surgery scenes twice.
Also,
like,
come on,
man.
Some of these people,
their traps are like,
I mean,
we're going to suck your eyeballs out and you just have to break all your fingers.
Otherwise,
this one is,
you have to literally pull out parts of your own brain.

(01:37:27):
John,
you're giving this man like permanent brain damage.
He's missing parts of his thoughts.
Oh,
it's the perfect crime.
He won't remember.
That John's jigsaw afterwards.
This for all we know,
he might lose motor function after like the third piece of brain he pulls out.
At least the other people are like,

(01:37:47):
well,
you lost a foot.
That kind of stinks.
And he's trying to make him nice.
Plus,
how overtop is this?
Like,
he has a deadly mask come onto his face and electrocute and fry and burn him.
Yeah.
To death on top of like having parts of his brain removed.

(01:38:09):
At least the other person got killed instantly through decapitation.
This is a bit of an extra torture here.
You know,
part of me wanted it to open and then it should have been inside,
but then also didn't want it to open because that's still kind of cool that they kept it behind the mask.
It's a cool visual mind mask,
but it still would have been fucking cool if I think open and they're just like a smoking burnt skull underneath.

(01:38:32):
I would have liked it.
So I'm curious with it with this subplot.
Did you guys ever for a second to think that that dude was for real?

(01:38:54):
Oh,
no.
Like with the neck thing,
like because he mentioned having the surgery on his neck.
And obviously he could have been scammed to the whole time,
but it just felt like,
I think he would be aware right away.
Like if someone cut your neck open or not,
or like did surgery on your neck.
I didn't even bother to cut like Kramer open,
right?
They just kind of like pretend to shave his head and like knocked him out.

(01:39:17):
Yeah.
I'm good.
I don't know if there's really a way to do that kind of twist in a way where the audience isn't going to see it coming.
Yeah.
Well,
that's the really the problem with honestly,
the assault movie in general is you're kind of looking at twists everywhere.
You kind of make up twists in your head.
Like after you do one movie with a major twist,

(01:39:39):
you're fucked.
Like,
yeah,
people are going to expect them.
So they're going to be disappointed if you don't.
And they're going to be looking for twists the entire time.
So you either have to make your movie foolproof,
which is impossible or just admit,
okay,
the audience is smarter than us.
Let's just go for it with the one we have.
And hopefully they buy into it enough at the end.
This kind of works though,
because even though the audience is in on the act,

(01:40:00):
probably right away,
like we're going to know it.
There's still not sure if Jigsaw knows it.
So it's the idea of Kramer kind of playing it up.
Like he believes in this guy only for us to get the flashback later that he
tampered with the bullets.
So I think that's where the fun comes in.
Plus you get to do some of like the hypocrite stuff with,
with him,

(01:40:21):
like lambasting him.
So if you think the Jigsaw doesn't know,
it's like it adds to John's character.
I was seeing billion going.
No,
it's way funny.
It was about before we get too far away from the scene.
Uh,
I am not too big to admit that a scene in a saw movie made me well up with

(01:40:49):
tears.
Was it the brain surgery?
Yes,
actually it was,
it was Donnie Wahlberg,
right?
Oh,
it was actually him.
Uh,
smashing his foot with that rock.
Brutality finish them.

(01:41:10):
This is,
this is like the one.
It seems like he actually wants her to get out of the trap.
Like this is the one person he's like,
it's also so needlessly cruel.
Well,
especially like all are,
but this one especially is like uncomfortably cruel.
Well,
she gets through the first part of the trap and then he has to relocate the,
the fucking radiation machine to realign with her.

(01:41:31):
It's like,
even look sad doing is like,
John,
you're making the rules,
man.
And she already has to like break her other limb,
just to get out of this thing.
And she's half burnt to death.
It's,
it's a weird mix.
Cause it feels like he really does want her to get out,
but he's like,
I also really,
really want to punish her first.
Yeah.
And you have Amanda more or less just actively campaigning for her,

(01:41:53):
for her to just be released.
Like,
no,
this isn't,
this isn't right.
Like Amanda,
knowing how,
what reality actually is.
And John just like,
no,
everything's in black and white.
Well,
and with the John character,
she's specifically the one he's coming back to give the bottle of booze to,
and the nice card.
Yeah.
She's like the most hospitable to him when he's in the hospital.

(01:42:15):
So he forms that connection.
And I think he feels the most betrayed by her,
even though he realizes she had the least to do with his scam.
So maybe that's his conflict there.
Like he really wants to punish her because she should have,
she should have been the nice person he thought he thought she was,
but she didn't,
cut him open.
She didn't pretend to cut him open.

(01:42:36):
She didn't sell him this scam.
She didn't do all this other shit.
Well,
so I feel like he got that jacket on.
Just do something with the jacket.
Like just put it over your face while you're swinging the hammer.
So ignoring the fact that she's hanging in the air and there's a fucking radiation gun point at her face.

(01:43:01):
This I like it's very direct.
Okay.
You have a,
you have to basically destroy your ankle and your arm to escape this trap.
It's the only way.
And it's not even specifically timed.
You have forever theoretically until this thing burns you to death,
which I like when there's not a clock on the wall.
It's just really a matter of your own less clocks.

(01:43:23):
Yes.
It's just a matter of your own vitality.
One kind of bummer here is because they're using this bright red light.
It blares out most of the burn makeup that they have applied here.
You get to see it better when she falls out of the light.
And it's pretty gnarly,
but it's a shame that that effect kind of gets,
uh,
hidden by the lighting.

(01:43:45):
It would've been really awkward if she dropped the hammer.
I was thinking that the whole time I watched the movie the first time,
like I'm,
I'm betting like she swings and just accidentally drops it somehow and just gets stuck there.
Yeah.
So there's really does feel like they looked at the opening of a saw three and thought to themselves,

(01:44:17):
what if we base a trap out of how utterly disgusting that is to watch?
Yeah,
I guess when we say simple,
this is what I mean.
It's,
it's just coming down to you get to watch a person's reaction and something gross happening.
You're getting,
you're getting like the misery reaction of a broken ankle.
And you're not even showing every single hit.

(01:44:38):
Most of them.
Yeah.
Most of the hits are not shown.
It's just her reaction selling it.
This fucking moment destroyed me.
It's like,
you kind of know it's coming,
but God damn it.
We didn't know we had a track.
It's again,

(01:44:59):
just the so much more needlessly cruel than,
um,
honestly,
the other ones.
Yeah.
Kind of over the top.
This is,
there's something about the more simple it is,
the more cruel it is.
So which makes it feel more personal.
Yeah.
This is just roasting somebody in front of a heat lamp.

(01:45:20):
Yeah.
And it feels more like you could survive something like this.
So it's frustrating.
A person doesn't know the other ones where you have to remove like bodily fluids by ripping off a limb and,
and carefully weighing on a scale.
It feels very,
very technical.
It's a lot of work.
It's like,
I probably wouldn't be able to do that.
I wouldn't be able to open up my own brain and then drop it into a vat.
This is moving parts.

(01:45:41):
So I could,
I could definitely smash my leg with a sledgehammer.
I wouldn't be happy about it,
but live or die.
I could make that choice.
There's so much you're going to read into the psychology of how the traps and this particular entry are staged.
Like I do really get the impression from that one that ideally John would like for her to survive,

(01:46:04):
but he wants to make sure that she suffers more physical pain before and after the trap than anyone else.
Like he wants her to be in pain for the rest of her life,
but still live.
Well,
you know,
as soon as she solves a trap,
he immediately tells Amanda,
get her to a hospital.
Like he,
he doesn't wait at all.
So the intention seems pure in that sense.

(01:46:26):
Like he does not want this person to die despite setting up the trap.
So she will die.
John Kramer.
He's just a weird guy.
You know,
very complicated.
He's sticking like all of his moral code codes are codes.
He.
Our codes,

(01:46:47):
he adheres to him himself to a psychotic degree,
and it's almost to keep himself in check at a certain point.
It's like Batman's no kill rule.
Oh God,
we're getting into the no kill rule,
especially on today of all days,
but Zack Snyder's like,
maybe Batman should kill people all the time.
Let's not date ourselves that much too late.

(01:47:13):
But I,
that,
that is to me what makes John's.
It's an interesting,
like movie monster type is with his,
his rules and his games.
He kind of just wants to kill everybody and wants to watch them die.
But he sets these things up to kind of separate himself,
self and make himself holier than thou in the process.

(01:47:38):
And also I would say probably to make it more interesting on top of everything
else.
I think a key component to his psychology is a very Hannibal Lecter,
like curiosity to a curiosity for just how,

(01:48:00):
uh,
much you can bend to people before they break.
Just what happens when you put people in the absolute worst possible situations.
And here,
classic,
classic saw writing.

(01:48:22):
Huh?
We have the upper hand on this guy and could just kill him.
Better put him in a trap.
It always,
it always has to be like,
we've got to turn this around.
We've got to,
they punish you the same way you were going to punish us.
And it's like,
ah,
guys,
it's,
it's John Kramer.
Even though it's John Kramer,
I would not do this.
His whole thing is putting people in traps and getting out of them.
I love how in the commentary,

(01:48:43):
they full on call this their Adam West,
Batman moment.
Especially.
Yeah.
Cause they like leave the room while they're still in the trap.
It's like,
Oh no,
they haven't seen a movie in their lives.
That's why the,
the after credit scene ends with a spiral to the camera.
Johnny Smith getting to do or hear hidden talent of screaming in a song.

(01:49:13):
Scream acting.
Amanda's very visceral,
emotional reaction to Gabrielle dying.
Once again,
it's the little things that add to already existing arcs that we're aware of.
Well,
we know Gabrielle is like the drug addict character.
She's doing this because she needs drug money,
which obviously is going to tie closely into Amanda,
who is a drug addict in the earlier entries.

(01:49:34):
So that's a nice time.
And I'm glad,
you know,
folks that didn't watch the other saws,
like if they,
for some reason were dragged to 10 might not get that connection,
but they would still know there was something there intrinsically just from
the reaction.
Yeah.
It feels honest for the character,
even if you don't have the whole lore.
And I like that.

(01:49:54):
And it,
it feels like a missing piece that you weren't aware of in Amanda's overall
arc where now you can watch that in succession of the,
of the original three films and go,
okay,
this is Amanda before she has gone full killer and like completely devolved

(01:50:15):
into just pure id.
I'm sorry.
We missed it.
John went into power mode.
I don't know why.
It's a great,
just raising his fist.
Oh,
John's going super saying,
look out,
reloading.
He's raising his arms.
Like he's Henry Cavill.
He's raising his cheese.
To be able to survive the blood punishment.

(01:50:37):
Also,
were you amused?
They brought back jig fucking saw as a line,
seemingly just so they could put it into a better movie.
If it's good,
it gets recycled.
It's fine to go way back though.
And this is just a me thing.
Anytime they have the Billy puppet moving,

(01:50:58):
it's,
it's,
it's very funny to me.
Like I can't take it seriously.
Like at least it's not like jigsaw where they put an action cam on him when he
goes around the corner,
but this one,
we just have jigsaw coming down the,
the kind of the hall and he's big enough where it almost looks like they just
have an actor in there.
Just I'm surprised they've never done that.

(01:51:21):
He seems noticeably bigger this time around.
So I,
I know it's supposed to be spooky,
scary,
but inside my head the whole time,
I'm just giggling like,
Oh my God,
they have a Billy puppet,
man.
I mean,
I guess in some way it's supposed to be a little bit camp.
Just,
yeah,
I'm sure it is to some degree.
I just like more stationary one per way better.

(01:51:42):
The version from two where the tricycle looks like it's on wires and it just
kind of gets yanked over and it has like the cheap Halloween soundboard
ghoul laugh when he moves the legs.
But a TV Billy is always the best.
Yeah.
When he's more stationary,
that's,
that's when I can buy him being creepy.

(01:52:02):
Anytime he moves,
the illusion is broken for me.
Billy is supposed to be jigsaw whenever he appears on video.
This fucking kid.
Well,
I'm time to play soccer at night again.
This kid must be so goddamn bored.
All he does is just kick that soccer ball to the exact same spot in the same
building.

(01:52:22):
Oh,
he does that at area 51.
Sometimes they'll leave a candy bar out there.
This,
uh,
this kid actually grows up to be saber tooth.
Also,
Dr.
Peterson going full arch at this point.
We're like,
well,
we should also murder a child.
I think that'll,
that'll tie this up nicely.
Like what?

(01:52:44):
You can just kill this guy right now.
You don't have to bring in a child.
I like this character.
I,
I think this is the one thing that's dangerous to me because the movie dips a
little into schmaltz with jigsaw being like,
Carlos,
you're a warrior.
And the,
the respect jigsaw has for this small boy,
it gets,

(01:53:05):
it gets a little too sappy sentimental for me.
You said that about everything that gets sentimental though.
That's true.
I mean,
everyone has different quotients for how much they can take,
but in a soft film,
I feel like you can't put much in before it feels very at odds with
everything else in the movie.
See,
I would say that about any other entry,

(01:53:25):
but I feel like I see,
I love,
how traditional this movie is in its schmaltziness and the way it handles
emotion.
It feels almost transgressive to me.
Like John walks away from this movie with a ward and a girl on his arm.

(01:53:49):
Like he's an action hero.
Like he's,
he's given the traditional Hollywood happy ending with all of these
signifiers that come with it.
And it's very,
very wrong.
And it's not how a saw movie should,
should end.
And it makes no sense narratively for where John's story is going

(01:54:13):
immediately after this.
And I think that's like the brilliance of it.
It's,
it's a middle finger to storytelling convention and it's perfect for a
series.
That's all about telling things out of order.
And the,
the truth,
the truth that can be found from seeing things out of order.

(01:54:33):
Like there's something,
uh,
wait a minute,
you're just describing a memento.
There's something kind of beautiful about taking a snapshot of a very
tragic character and going,
okay,
if,
if we stop paying attention to his story right here,
it's happily ever after.

(01:54:54):
And particularly doing that with a villain character,
like it's,
it's really interesting to me.
You could have done one good thing.
I think that is like this being like this weird bump in jigsaw story where
he kind of did a positive thing inadvertently in the middle of this.

(01:55:17):
And it's something that he didn't plan to do.
Just kind of fascinating.
Like he didn't expect Carlos to show up.
This has nothing to do with anything,
but then he ends up giving Carlos the money and,
uh,
so I just,
this is the difference between jigsaw and myself.
I sure.
Maybe give Carlos some of the money,
but I also would have been like,
well,
I have to deduct my,

(01:55:37):
my expenses.
I had to build a Billy puppet.
I had to fly Amanda down.
Yeah.
I gave her like $150,000 of my own money in the down payment.
Uh,
I'm going to,
I'm going to skim a little off the top and the kid,
we can go halfsies.
Maybe.
Oh,
jigsaw kept a finder's fee.
I think it's only fair.

(01:55:58):
I was in the situation.
It's like,
I'm not going to go to Mexico and lose money on this endeavor.
You know,
we we've talked a little bit over the commentaries about the debt that saw
owes to the abominable Dr.
Fibes films.
And Mike,
I'm curious if you agree,
do you get extremely fives rises again?

(01:56:21):
Vibes from the end of this movie?
Oh,
definitely.
Like all it's missing is him singing somewhere over the,
over the rainbow.
Yes.
I am surprised.
No one making the film brought that up.
Cause it feels intentional at times.
Like it,
it feels like a fives movie more than anything else.
This feels like,

(01:56:42):
um,
fives rises again.
This is extremely nine killed her nine shall pay.
This just makes me sad though,
that Tobin bill has not been used as a modern day Vincent price,
like starting four different horror movies as like the veteran credible actor.
To rise up this whole production.
There was some movie I came across on to be the stars.

(01:57:04):
Cause right now my Roku just gives me Tobin Bella movies.
Cause I've watched so much saw recently.
Just Tobin Bell.
That's the only thing it suggests.
Uh,
so hold on.
I got to find this.
He's it's like,
um,
a heavy metal horror movie and he's in it.
Oh,
I vaguely remember that.
Oh,
it was a stage fright.
No,

(01:57:24):
I don't think so.
Hold on.
Um,
also,
getting waterboard boarded by blood is so gnarly raining blood boardings.
Cause they wanted to write that line so bad.
Right.
It's too cool.
Once you say it to not use it.
He stars in clown motel.
I didn't know that.
Hmm.
Going back to like elder Statesman of horror,
like in the,

(01:57:45):
the olden days where you'd have,
you know,
Christopher Lee and those folks appearing over and over is,
is like the only really dependable one we have right now.
Lynn Shay.
I feel like she's the only one like just pops up in a bunch of horror movies
when they need someone with cred.
Yup.
That's weird.
I mean,
it's great.
We have her.
I love that she's around doing,
you know,
a bunch of insidious movies and all that.
We should have more though.

(01:58:06):
We should have more distinguished older actors just in fucking everything.
Also,
Jamie,
I completely forgot that Tobin bell was Savitar and Dr.
Alchemy in the flash.
That's right.
I forgot.
I forgot.
What?
What?
What?
What?

(01:58:28):
This movie has a child waterboarded by choice.
He's doing it to himself.
Don't pull Carlos.
Don't pull.
Just turn your head to the side.
John,
just turn your head to the side.
Little did John know that Carlos had actually stolen a Twix bar a week before.

(01:58:52):
That'll be saw 11.
Carlos like,
Hey buddy,
you took the money and really you should have given it back.
Cause it wasn't yours.
Uh,
so your next trap will be crushed to death by a thousand pennies.
I like,
I should have said more than a thousand,
but I like to think that Carlos,
uh,
just like manages a best buy.

(01:59:12):
Now he's fine.
Nothing weird happened after this point.
You just put this behind him.
Like,
yeah,
there's this one weird night where people dumped a bunch of blood on me and I don't speak English.
So I don't know what the deal was.
I cherish my life for entirely healthy reasons.
Then an old man gave me a bag of like a million dollars.
It was fucking wild.
That's crazy.
What the fuck does this kid think is happening?
Carlos grew up and thought he was on an unscripted episode of pure factor.

(01:59:37):
He thought he just won fear factor and like,
he just forgot to sign a release.
Oh,
I found the movie.
It is 61 highway to hell from 2017.
Oh,
tells the story of Richter scale,
a talentless LA based rock band,
desperate for fame.
That's awesome.

(01:59:58):
I'm glad that's the name of the band.
I thought that was the name of a character.
I thought they actually named a guy Richter scale.
They are on the verge of breaking up when their manager convinces them.
The only thing standing between them and glory is a pact with the devil.
So they borrow an RV and head out on the infamous crossroads of Mississippi.
But with questions looming,
will the devil actually show up to meet them there?
And more importantly,

(02:00:18):
will he even want their souls?
A weird plot description.
Anyway,
Tobin Bell plays the devil.
Ah,
well,
that's fun.
Also the classic.
Hello,
Zep.
And our kind of backing twist.
Which,
yeah,
you know,
I wasn't too surprised by this one,
but it works anyway as a movie.

(02:00:38):
There's some movies where the twist,
if it fails,
the movie fails.
Since this is more of a character study than a lot of the other saws,
it doesn't matter if the twist is seen ahead of time.
Yeah.
This is more or less just signaling to you like,
oh,
don't worry.
This is the finale of the film.
It's going to be done soon.
Rather than,
like,
trying to shock you,

(02:00:59):
I guess.
It's not like a spiral where you're just kind of waiting for his partner to show back up.
Right.
Yeah.
See,
Mike did at that time.
It wasn't me.
We did a whole commentary.
People know my thoughts.
I'm just saying I was going to stop shitting on spiral.
And then you're doing one more.
Nobody knows Mike's thoughts.

(02:01:22):
No one wants to.
Also,
if only Tobin Bell pulled off a bunch of shit on his face,
again,
he was never covered in blood at all.
He was wearing a flesh colored stocking over his face.
Remember Batman and Robin where Robin pulls off the wax lips?
Just him doing that for his entire face just to get the blood off.

(02:01:44):
Rubber lips are immune to your charms.
Going back to Carlos,
it's going to be very weird when he goes to his dad and he's just soaked head to tail in blood.
And he has a bag of like a million dollars.
And he's gonna be like,
who did you kill,
Carlos?
Who did you kill?
Oh,
not at all.
Not again,
Carlos.
Not again.
Just to go back a moment,
though.
Oh,
boy,

(02:02:05):
my boy.
I absolutely love the little bit of acting Tobin does where he gets out of the trap and like people are kind of calling at him.
But he has to take a moment to like a recenter himself and apparently focus his mental powers by pressing on his skull.
I just I just like that that little flair because I'm assuming that's an actor idea,
not a director going like,
hey,
what do you like massage away a migraine as your recovery mode?

(02:02:28):
It's so human.
This really is like everything Tobin Bell has deserved from a movie.
It reminds me.
No,
I don't like the movie,
but it's nice that Red State exists just for a movie that gives everything to Michael Parks.
Yeah,
it's nice that Parks gets to do his thing.
Yeah,
I don't love the film.

(02:02:50):
But it's cool.
He gets to go out there and do so.
Also,
John Goodman's having a little bit of fun in it.
Yeah,
sure.
But,
you know,
mostly Parks.
Yeah.
And I kind of,
I feel that way about this.
Like,
man,
why,
why couldn't we have appreciated Tobin Bell and given him all the things?
Well,
it's just astounding again to be 10 movies in and still making something that's a viable theatrical product.
Like they haven't scraped the bottom of the well.

(02:03:12):
They actually in this one do more honor to Tobin Bell than in any of the other entries.
Pretty much.
It's,
it's just wild to get this far in and have things working out so hot,
especially after two failed reboots in a row.
It's astounding to me that the producers stuck to their guns.
And said,
no,
we know this is going to make money.
We know there's a fan base for it.

(02:03:32):
We're not going to go straight to video.
We're not going to give up.
We're going to recenter ourselves.
We'll just go back to what we know the folks want.
Tobin Bell.
We'll let him kind of take center stage again and we'll see what happens.
I think nine out of 10 times,
if this was a hell raiser situation,
they would have been done.
You know,
they wouldn't have been like,
Hey,
let's do another one that really lets Doug Bradley take over the screen.

(02:03:55):
They clearly didn't.
They went straight to video.
They eventually stopped bringing him back.
If it was fucking,
I don't know.
Even stuff like tremors eventually went straight to video and started to feel
a little cheaper and further off from what it should have been.
They killed the gummer.
Yeah.
They,
they,
they stuck true this whole time,
which is astounding.
I never would have thought they'd be like,

(02:04:15):
no,
no,
no.
We have to recenter on our 80 some year old aging star,
but it was absolutely the right move.
And I got to applaud them for having the guts to do it.
It got people talking about saw again,
for real this time,
not just the,
the kind of,
uh,
but like sideways buzz that jigsaw and spiral had that were more like,

(02:04:39):
well,
like we're,
we're interested that this movie's happening.
We're not necessarily interested for the movie itself.
People were counting down the days to see this movie.
Shocked me.
I was just,
I was just assumed like,
Oh,
that's gonna,
hopefully that's really good.
Even though it'll bomb,
horribly did not expect saw X to be a cultural event.

(02:05:03):
Did help that it had one of the greatest trailers ever.
Oh,
of course.
I still watch that sometimes delightful to watch the,
the,
the focus on design too,
for this one.
I don't know if it felt as strong in the previous two movies,
like it didn't have quite the identity that the original saw series had,
but this one going all in like the Aztec death calendar and the kind of things

(02:05:26):
they did to promote it.
That was,
that way it felt unique,
but still tied into the series.
So it was kind of a stroke of genius there.
Like,
Hey,
it's new,
but it's old.
Not to mention it does help that it's a saw movie with,
you know,
a premise this time.
Yeah.
It helps that you actually have an elevator pitch for this movie.

(02:05:46):
That isn't just more saw or saw with a twist.
Well,
I think they got everyone hooked to,
to,
to go back to the posters,
like the original one of the guy in the eye trap with the tubes crossed.
Like that immediately makes you think like,
okay,
what's going on here?
What's what,
what the fuck is this trap?
How does this work?
What's going on with his eyeballs?
On top of it all.
I mean,
let's face it.

(02:06:06):
We haven't gotten the saw movie with jigsaws,
the villain since three.
Yeah.
I mean,
four or secondly is sideways,
but you know,
it's focus off of him.
And even in three,
you know,
he's,
he's basically on death's door the whole time.
So it's almost more of an Amanda story.

(02:06:27):
Yeah.
This is basically a followup to saw two in a way.
Everything's good.
Now I've got my money.
Goodbye.
Come on,
Billy.
Behind them.
He pulled up a little string.
So unfair.

(02:06:47):
Whole place explodes.
Problem solved.
Only got John got to walk away from an explosion.
Backwards.
Like Wolverine.
And Kevin Greider talks about this just briefly in his commentary that he wanted to kind of bookend one where it opens with or ends with jigsaw slamming that door and saying game over.

(02:07:10):
This one feels oddly hopeful.
Like even though he's dying,
it's a start of a new life.
Ignoring the fact that he's gonna go on to kill a lot more people with the door opening to light and leaving it open.
If you ignore all the other movies after this one,
it's a,
it's actually kind of an inspiring,
handy.
But it,
if,
if there was one movie that was a singular John story,

(02:07:35):
then it ending in like a weirdly positive light where it's like John kind of did a good thing.
And for him,
this was kind of a fulfilling story.
That makes sense.
Then he goes back to him just like to everybody else.
He's a fucking serial killer.
Well,
that's a Carlos,

(02:07:55):
but to John,
he's kind of content in that moment.
Yeah.
It's got his little family with them.
Yeah.
He taught some people the value of not doing scams.
It was a good day.
I wish he brought Carlos back to the States.
It's just,
it's,
it's jigsaw.
He finally has a kid who hasn't been crushed in a doorway.

(02:08:16):
The kids got auntie Amanda and uncle Hoffman.
Mike,
be careful.
They're,
they're making saw 11 right now.
We have to assume it's,
it's that shortly after this one.
Let me make it only has months left.
Let me make it.
I want to,
I want to do this.
All we know.
They just took Carlos with them back to the United States.
And he's like the fifth secret apprentice.

(02:08:37):
He's been,
he's been hanging out with talk.
Speaking of
so someone to let me,
how the fuck is this trap supposed to work?
It doesn't work.
Or is it just like,
we need to like a scary looking thing and let's call it a day.
I don't know.
I mean,
it's,
he's supposed to,
I guess,
dig into,
to his own stomach.
And I assume he's supposed to like press it down and kind of flex it.

(02:09:01):
So that way it crawl it like the,
uh,
the tendrils of it kind of like start digging into his stomach where his,
uh,
fake scar was.
It's very hell razor.
Random.
Hoffman looking weirdly the same.
I'm just saying,
this is like a very intricate kind of trap digger thing.

(02:09:22):
It's like,
just,
just give him a knife and tell him he's got to cut his guts out.
I love that this line was in the trailer and we still didn't know it was Hoffman.
Also Hoffman said,
epic bad luck,
which wasn't an expression when this movie takes place,
which means Hoffman invented it.

(02:09:43):
I love that Hoffman's last line is stupid.
Oh,
he said the line.
It's like at this point,
there's something between the,
uh,
the,
the,
the optimistic door opening and then one last visit with Hoffman.

(02:10:04):
And it feels like the series is saying goodbye to box office pulp.
It does.
It's like when we got to the end of crime watch 1994 on pulp nightmare.
And we saw OJ was here in the last episode of American crime story.
It's like,
Oh,
we have gone.

(02:10:25):
We have gone on a journey.
Haven't we?
This did feel like a,
a reward for us for everything we've put up with so far.
I'm free.
There's no more Malort in my future.
You didn't have Malort today.
Well,
I didn't have any Malort.
You had Malort.
That's true.
I'm out.
I used literally the last drop I had to find out.
Jamie likes Malort by the way.

(02:10:46):
Oh,
you can send yours to Jamie.
I'm glad I got to spread Malort to the East coast.
I ate all three of those warheads.
And the taste,
the taste of Malort is still in my mouth.
It doesn't leave.
I,
uh,
I grabbed a Tums.
I chewed a Tums.
Oh,
gone.
Wow.
I never,
it never considered Tums.
I do wish there was an extra after credit scene.

(02:11:08):
I don't know what it would be,
but I just for the fuck of it,
a full fan service,
just like two after credit scenes.
There's,
there's like a weird Mandela thing happening to me.
Cause I really thought the deleted scene of Peterson pulling her head out of
that tube was the second after credit scene,
but it's,
it's just a deleted scene.
On the DVD.
I don't know why I thought that was like actually part of the movie.

(02:11:29):
It's heavily implied that happens 30 seconds later.
Yeah.
And I'm pretty sure I like have my suspicions.
She's really going to be the focus of the next one.
Probably.
I mean,
and probably like all scarred up from the gas.
She's going to be like,
kind of like backwards jigsaw be fun.
Uh,
fragile from a death stranding.

(02:11:51):
I'm curious again.
I don't know who the writers are.
They had this one in their back pocket for,
for years so they could kind of refine it and think about it until a spiral
popped up and they decided to switch course.
I'm terrified.
So what are they going to do when they have less than a year to pump out
another one?
I'm very,
there's actually a decent amount of turnover in some of like the returning
crew is at least a preexisting script.
Cause I'm just,
I do not like how we've gone back to it's Halloween.

(02:12:13):
So it must be saw.
Well,
now it's September.
So I guess it's not even a Halloween thing.
So yeah,
it's taking less time now.
Um,
well,
I mean,
September is September.
It's an equal amount of time,
but,
but I just,
you don't have to do it every year.
I agree.
We'll book of saw again,
at least.
Rushing it is bad,

(02:12:34):
but on the other hand,
Tobin Bell is not getting any younger.
So if you want to just make as much as you can with him,
we've seen some pretty bad saw movies without him.
Let's,
let's get some mediocre ones with him or even ones if we're lucky.
Just my heart can't take anymore.
I just,
I just don't know what,
like,
I'm very curious.
If it's,

(02:12:55):
if it's a,
if it's a,
if it's a script that was floating around,
does it include John in a major way?
Is it another prequel or is it another fucking like a apprentice spinoff?
They've kind of implied it's directly,
it's a direct sequel to X.
I,
they,
they've kind of implied,
yeah,
Peterson might be back,
which would kind of imply it's right after this.

(02:13:15):
Cause if they wait any longer,
John will be dead.
Um,
along with everyone else,
he actually cared about,
uh,
getting revenge on,
but they've also said a few things about like kind of jokingly,
like,
Oh,
if we keep doing these,
we're going to get to tell the rest of Hoffman's story,
which,
which seemed more like a joke.
Like if these are still successful,
eventually we can't just keep doing in between movies and we'll have to
advance the plot.

(02:13:35):
So I don't know.
I'm,
I'm so curious.
I guess we have to wait until the trailer comes out in a couple of months
here.
I mean,
honestly,
if the,
if the sequels stay good,
like if the next one's on this level of quality and they're able to do
that and set up how the saw series can then go forward into the
presence in a,
a way that makes sense and continue on past John's death.

(02:13:58):
I don't know how you do though.
I don't know how either,
but you're left with cheating and saying Hoffman survived.
And that's like,
no,
it's not.
There is no more Hoffman.
Even if Hoffman's alive,
that is not how you continue the series.
Right.
But like,
you're not going to go back to Logan and you're probably not going to go
back to spiral.
What the,
what the fuck do you do?
I'm sorry.
I don't know.
I think they're still in the same box there before.

(02:14:19):
Evil Carlos.
Evil Carlos.
I'm telling you,
they just,
do an alternate universe where after this one,
they just ignore everything from saw one onward.
And they,
they just do a weird saw timeline of one,
10,
11,
12.
Superboy prime punches the source wall and.
Oh no.
Races Hoffman from existence.

(02:14:42):
God,
I had,
I'd actually forgotten.
That's how they just rewrote a lot of DC.
I,
that I had spaced that out of my mind.
And now it's right back to this goddamn Superboy punching continuity in the
face.
52 is like three years later.
That,
that,
that was,
how Jason Todd was,
was canonically brought back from the dead for like eight years until they
retconned that.

(02:15:03):
We don't have anything better.
So we're going to go with it.
Just Superboy punched time and he woke up in his grave.
What the fuck?
One of the dumbest pages of a comic book I've ever read.
Well,
the important thing is we have survived 10 saw movies.
We didn't get into saw the video game.

(02:15:24):
I feel like if we ever do a,
like a Twitch stream,
we got to,
we got to,
we got to set that up and do it.
I was still all for it.
It would be fun.
If you'd like to give box office pulp too much money to set up a streaming
studio,
you can send your money too.
And then I just list my entire credit card and get scammed.
And then we go through the plot of this movie,
but in Wisconsin.
Oh,
and you lose all of your kidneys,

(02:15:45):
all of them.
You can sound like you have more than two.
No,
I didn't tell you the story.
Uh,
uh,
my mom worked at Keenan house.
This place.
And when people would get new kidneys,
like they wouldn't cut the old ones out.
Like if you had a bum kidney,
they wouldn't remove it.
And then give you the new kidney.
They would just kind of attach the new one to the same.
Like really?

(02:16:05):
So there would be people walking around that had like two or three failed
kidney transplants.
And so they were just stuffed with kidneys.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Apparently it's like more of a risk to take them out sometimes.
So they'll just leave them in and splice the new one into like the same
system.
That must feel so weird.
Much.
I imagine those people are just very lumpy.
Yeah.
I don't like that.
No,

(02:16:25):
no.
I like to tell that as my not fun facts when I'm meeting people at
parties,
which explains why I don't have friends.
That's,
that's very bad.
So yeah,
just think there's a,
who knows?
Probably tons of people out there right now with too many organs
stuffed in their body.
I'd like more spleens.
Uh,
why?
Just to,
just to say I have more spleens.
Well,
I was trying to do a nice way to wrap this up and I don't know how

(02:16:47):
we got the kidneys,
but,
uh,
folks,
thank you for sticking with us for this entire commentary series.
We finally did one all the way through.
Just imagine there's balloons falling on,
If you would like more of this,
obviously we have all those other commentaries.
You can go back and listen to as much as you want.
Uh,
we have tons of other commentaries.
Occasionally we actually do episodes that are just discussing movies
that are not formatted this rigidly,

(02:17:07):
but who has the time to go find all those and who even knows where
they are.
I can't wait to do that again.
We've been doing nothing but saw for so long.
It's been 84 years,
but folks,
you actually can find more of those things at box office,
pulp.com.
We are on Google music.
We are on iTunes.

(02:17:27):
We are on Spotify and you can even send us weird letters at box office,
pulp at Gmail.
If you feel so inclined,
I don't know if we ever checked that account.
So,
uh,
you're probably better off actually contacting us on Twitter at box office,
pulp or Facebook at box office,
pulp.
Just,
just always check box office,
pulp.
That's the key.
We're all in blue sky too.
Oh yeah,

(02:17:48):
that's right.
But on our individual names.
So you make a pop on there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's open to everyone now,
so we can just do that.
We don't have to wait for referral codes,
which means I have an extra referral code that matters.
Worthless.
Yeah.
Kind of bums me out.
Eh,
what are you going to do?
You should have sold Mike when the market was high.
Anyways,
folks,
thank you so much for joining us.
This has been box office,

(02:18:09):
pulp,
uh,
liver,
die,
et cetera.
Choose,
choose,
choose,
uh,
get the hell out of here.
You get more out of life when you go out to a movie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did anyone look at,
and this is going to be an awful post-credit tags is just us discussing business.

(02:18:29):
Uh,
did anyone look at the,
uh,
messenger notice we got to the other day from box office pulp?
Oh yeah.
I saw that.
Yeah.
It was a guy offering to grow our business.
Hey,
that totally didn't sound like a scam.
Not at all.
Oh no,
Mike,
we could have had our own interactive saw X experience.
We could have gotten scammed for the show.

(02:18:51):
That would have been worth it.
The tie in.
We could have done merchandising tie ins for that with us,
without any of our organs merchandising tie ins.
I liked the idea of,
I got scammed and all I got was this t-shirt.
Yes,
we should actually sell that.
I got ripped off by box office,
Paul.
And all I got was this t-shirt,
but it's a white shirt written in Sharpie by us with a white Sharpie.

(02:19:15):
Uh,
it looks exactly like the mail I sent you.
There's just a square box that says,
play me written over the belly.
Just out of curiosity,
how much did it cost to sell it?
How much did it cost to send this?
Uh,
$5 a person.
It's not bad.
No,
no,
not at all.
The cards were more expensive.
Uh,
and if you want to reuse the cards,
uh,

(02:19:35):
if you push down the two little knobs inside of it,
uh,
until it beeps,
you can record a 40 second long message and you can do that as many times as you want until
the battery runs out.
No,
I don't,
I don't want to,
I don't want to ever erase you.
If you die,
this is my only recording of you.
Cause I wouldn't then,
after you,
after your death,
erased box office,
this would be the only recording of you.
I'm like,

(02:19:56):
besides the 10 years of recording episodes we've done together.
Nope.
Cody's dead.
Time to erase him from existence.
Throw it all out.
Burn it down,
boys.
Uh,
whenever I'm speaking at your funeral,
I'm just going to approach the microphone and be like,
uh,
Cody,
uh,
asked me to say a few words for,

(02:20:17):
uh,
such an occasion.
Meanwhile,
you're just guzzling Malora in the background.
I really appreciate how the recorded card,
uh,
makes the audio sound shitty enough to BSL recording.

(02:20:39):
Like I heard that.
I'm like,
this is fucking aces.
Like it really,
it really just sounds inside of a jar.
Yeah,
I had,
you wouldn't believe how hard it was to record that.
Cause you have to be pushing down with both hands to record the car.
And I'm also trying to start the music by using my elbow,
my mouse,
the play button on Spotify.
And to do all this too,

(02:21:00):
I had to take the speaker on my computer and put it right next to the mouse.
So then I can hold the card up next to it.
So it'd pick up the sounds of Spotify.
So just imagine me hunched over my computer,
like my hands in front of me,
like a T-Rex clicking this thing and then hitting the mouse,
but like the mouse sliding off course and not clicking on anything.
So I have to restart.
I had to do this like fucking 10 times per card.

(02:21:21):
You're doing all this while the saw theme plays over and over.
And I'm like,
it's gotta be the first 45 seconds.
Cause then I know where I am in the recording so I can finish on time.
And it actually like,
it's the right spot.
It sounds correct on the recording.
Anything later.
And it sounds wrong.
It was,
it was an actual endeavor.
It was a pain in the ass to do this.

(02:21:42):
I want you to know something.
Eventually the rest of the Malort in this bottle is going to find its way back
to you.
And I want you,
don't threaten me.
Just give it to friends or enemies at home.
This is in the back of your brain.
Just,
just bring your family over and be like,
everyone,
I need you to try the worst thing in the world.
Just a sip.
No,
he's going to send it to you in a box containing the Houdini DVD.

(02:22:05):
Just,
just,
I don't know,
get to Matt or somebody.
Go give it to,
give it to other folk.
Mike,
you'd make me the happiest person in the world.
If you actually combed through the last commentary and took out the moment
where I mentioned like,
Oh,
I have these two bottles and spliced it into this.
Like,
these might come in handy later.
Once I did that,
I was so mad at myself for not seeding this idea into all of the episodes.
And then you get your,
finally your,
your game over moments.

(02:22:26):
Yeah.
It's just video of me slamming the lid down on an empty bottle of Malort and then tripping
and falling off of my balcony to my death.
Over game.
Oh God.
It's a Homer Simpson,
jumping Springfield Gorge.
It's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,

(02:22:47):
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
it's a,
a 전면 순간
Please remember to replace the speaker on the post when you leave the theatre.
Okay.
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(02:23:11):
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(02:23:34):
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