Saw V

Saw V is a 2008 horror film directed by David Hackl and written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan and stars Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor and Scott Patterson. The film, the fifth installment in the Saw franchise, was released on October 23, 2008 in Australia and October 24 in North America.

David Hackl, who served as the production designer of Saw II, III, and IV, and second-unit director for Saw III and IV made his directorial debut with Saw V. Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, the writers of the previous film, returned to write the film. Charlie Clouser, who provided the score for all previous Saw films, also returned to compose the score for the film. Saw creators, James Wan and Leigh Whannell served as executive producers.

The film focuses primarily on the events that led up to Detective Mark Hoffman becoming an apprentice of the Jigsaw Killer, as well as his efforts to prevent anyone else from learning his secret.

Plot
Seth Baxter (Joris Jarsky), a convicted murderer, awakens chained to a table beneath a pendulum blade. In order to release himself, he must crush his hands by putting them into two presses and pushing the buttons inside. He does as the video tells him, but the pendulum still swings down and violently cuts him in half. Just before he dies, he sees an eye watching him through a hole in the wall.

In a scene from the end of Saw IV, Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) kills Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfadyen) in self-defense. After being sealed in the sickroom, he escapes through a hidden passage, where he is captured by a figure wearing a pig mask. He awakens with his head trapped in a glass box slowly being filled with water; he survives by performing a tracheotomy on himself using a pen to keep him breathing. Outside the meatpacking plant, Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) returns Corbett Denlon (Niamh Wilson), Jeff's daughter, to the police. He claims they are the only two survivors, only to be shocked to see Strahm carried out alive as well.

In his will, John Kramer (Tobin Bell) leaves Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) a box and a videotape, which informs her that the items in the box are of "grave importance". She opens the box using a key around her neck, then leaves without disclosing its contents. Meanwhile, a memorial service is held for the five detectives killed in action; during the memorial, Hoffman is promoted to detective lieutenant by the chief of police. While taking Strahm's phone, he is informed that Strahm's partner, Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis), died from her shrapnel wounds. He meets Strahm at the hospital, where Strahm tells him that Perez's last words were "Detective Hoffman." Strahm is taken off of duty by his boss, Dan Erickson (Mark Rolston), and begins researching past Jigsaw victims, now obsessed with piecing together Hoffman's involvement. Through his research, he learns that Hoffman killed Seth Baxter with the pendulum trap after Seth killed Hoffman's sister, and that John used this information to blackmail Hoffman into working with him. The two worked together to set up most of John's tests, most notably the razor-wire maze and the nerve gas house. Additionally, Hoffman planted the penlight that framed Lawrence Gordon and provided the files for the victims of the gas house. At the end of his quest, Strahm discovers that everyone was meant to die in the meatpacking plant except for Hoffman, who was to be the hero who closed the case.

Meanwhile, five more victims awaken in an underground trap with collars locked around their necks connecting them to mounted razor blades. The keys to their collars are in glass boxes across the room, but moving for them will set off a one-minute timer. All but Ashley (Laura Gordon) retrieve their keys, and she is decapitated when her collar retracts. In the second room, keys must be found in overhead jars in order to unlock three chambers that will protect them from bombs. Charles (Carlo Rota) attacks Mallick (Greg Bryk) and takes his key, but is struck by Luba (Meagan Good) and is killed when the bombs explode. In the third room, five cables must be connected to a full bathtub to unlock five locks on the door, though none are long enough to reach. Luba attacks Mallick to use his body to close the circuits, but Brit (Julie Benz) stabs her in the neck and they use Luba's body instead. In the final room, the door must be opened by filling a beaker, positioned in a machine fitted with circular saws, with ten pints of blood. They notice that there are five armholes and realize that all five victims were to work together to survive in every game: In the first test, any of the five keys in the room would have unlocked all the collars; the three chambers in the second test could have easily fit two people; the five victims could have closed the circuit in the third test without receiving a lethal amount of electricity and in the final test the five victims could have provided enough blood to fill the ten pints without experiencing the degree of injury experienced if there were only two. They also realize that all five of them were connected to a building fire that killed eight people. With no other choices, they begin sawing their arms to provide the ten pints.

Hoffman plants Strahm's phone, which is being tracked by Erickson, and Erickson's personnel file in the fifth room, which is found by Erickson when he arrives soon after. He also finds Brit, who managed to crawl out of the fourth room when Mallick passed out from blood loss, and calls for medical assistance, then places an all-points bulletin for Strahm's arrest, as he now believes Strahm to be Jigsaw's second accomplice. Meanwhile, Strahm follows Hoffman to the renovated nerve gas house and makes his way to a small underground room, which contains a clear box filled with broken glass. Hoffman's tape recorder informs Strahm that he must trust him and enter the box, but Strahm stops the tape short and ambushes Hoffman when he arrives, ultimately sealing Hoffman in the box and causing the room to seal itself. Hoffman indicates the tape, which tells Strahm that if he chooses not to, he will "simply vanish" and Hoffman's legacy will become his own. The glass box is lowered safely into the floor as the walls close in on Strahm and crush him to death while he attempts to escape through the ceiling grid.

Production
Saw V was written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, and the film went into production after Christmas 2007. Principal photography took place from March 17, 2008 to April 28, 2008 in Toronto. By mid–July 2008, there had been three photos released of David Hackl at the set of Saw V. The first trailer, depicting Agent Strahm's box trap, was released at Comic-Con 08 as a short clip and the trailer was also shown before The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The website opened on August 6, 2008. On September 17, 2008, a new clip was available on the Saw V website, depicting the Pendulum Trap.

Release
The film was released in Australia on October 23, 2008, in North America and the United Kingdom on October 24, 2008, and in New Zealand on October 30, 2008.

Box Office
In its opening weekend, Saw V grossed $30 million in 3,060 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #2 at the box office behind High School Musical 3: Senior Year. It grossed $56,746,769 in North America, and an additional $57,110,764 internationally, for a worldwide total of $113,857,533. With the highest budget and lowest gross of all five films, Saw V was the least successful of the series. This counts as the second film in the series to not be #1 at the box office, the first was the first film.

Critical Reception
The film received generally negative reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 14% of critics gave the film positive reviews, making it the second poorest-reviewed film in the series, losing to the most recent Saw 3D. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus states "If its plot were as interesting as its torture devices, or its violence less painful than its performances, perhaps Saw V might not feel like it was running on fumes." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 19 out of 100, based on 12 reviews.

Elizabeth Weizman of the New York Daily News believed that the lack of Tobin Bell's Jigsaw character hurt the film: "Bell's deliciously twisted madman was the lifeline of this series, and without him, we're left watching a routine horror flick that might as well have gone straight to DVD. The series began with two major assets that set it apart: the concept of a brilliantly righteous executioner, and the actor who played him. Now, aside from Bell's brief, intermittent cameos, it has neither. So where the original Saw was diabolical fun, this fifth installment is as bloodless as the most unfortunate of Jigsaw's victims." Sam Adams of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "The virtues of the individual films are almost beside the point, since it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to pick up the thread at this late date, but Saw V is a particularly dull and discombobulated affair, shot and acted with all the flair of a basic-cable procedural".

Some reviews were positive, however. The British website Digital Spy rated it 3/5 stars and commended the film for its "solid acting, slick direction and suitably filthy cinematography too", while also stating it will "make far more sense to those familiar with the previous installments". IGN awarded the film with 3 out of 5 stars stating that the film ties up most of the loose ends of the previous 4 installments while also having a more straightforward and less complicated storyline. They also praised the traps for being the most inventive and best that the Saw franchise has had to offer.

Unrated Director's Cut
During an interview at the 2008 Scream Awards, David Hackl claimed that his director's cut of Saw V (released on DVD January 20, 2009), would run approximately 14 minutes longer than the theatrical cut. Hackl also stated that a number of scenes in the film would be re-ordered and arranged differently than in the theatrical cut. However, only a few changes were made and the extra footage was never released, running only four minutes longer than the theatrical version.

Unrated Collector's Edition
A collector's edition is available with exclusive packaging. It features sound effects, a collector's booklet, and a spinning "saw blade". The features on the DVD itself are the same as the standard Unrated Director's Cut.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack was released on October 21, 2008 by Artists' Addiction Records.