The eight previous installments may have combined to earn over $976 million at the box office and establish the brand as one of horror’s premiere franchises for close to a decade, but you can’t argue that Saw was little more than a gimmick. After the murder mystery thriller elements of the first movie were dropped, the subsequent seven films were sold almost entirely on the back of Jigsaw’s elaborate traps.
Admittedly, it wasn’t a bad selling point, and it at least gave each new Saw a fresh coat of paint in terms of set pieces, as the fatal contraptions became more and more elaborate. It would be fair to say that torture porn has long since been played out at this point, though, and based on the talent involved it’s clear that Spiral is going to be a completely fresh approach to the mythology.
After all, Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson wouldn’t have agreed to star in the ninth movie in a B-tier horror property unless it was worth their time, and everyone involved in Spiral is certainly saying the right things. For instance, director Darren Lynn Bousman revealed that Rock pitched him the story as being inspired by David Fincher’s Se7en, which would indicate that things are going to be a lot less bloody and much more cerebral this time around.
In fact, in a recent interview, the filmmaker admitted that both the premise and he himself as a director have evolved to the point where excessive gore isn’t required, or even wanted, to drive the plot forward.
“I was a younger person. Gore and violence was the gimmick, I think. Gore and violent is no longer a gimmick, it just serves the story. This is much more about character, tension and fear.”
Bousman was only 25 years old when Saw II hit theaters in October 2004, and with seventeen years more experience under his belt, fans shouldn’t go into Spiral expecting him to simply hit the same beats as he did during his initial time at the helm.
