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After viewing "Saw V" and walking out of the theater, then to my car, I noticed something very peculiar. I wasn't thinking about it. Every "Saw" film before it left me thinking about its ending and the events prior to it. Next to the first, "Saw V" is easily the weakest of the series.

Killing off your main villain in a more realistic horror franchise, then attempting to churn out more sequels seriously degrades the quality of the films. At least that's the secret "Saw V" let's us in on. They couldn't really bring Jigsaw back as a zombie-esque slasher maniac, ala Jason Voorhees, and we couldn't find out later that one John Kramer is aligned with some underground cult, carrying a curse that mysteriously gives him invulnerabiliy. Therefore most of the movie is presented in flashbacks in order to give the ol' Jigster proper screentime - also revealing how Detective Mark Hoffman became the key apprentice he was revealed to be at the end of "Saw IV" - and I REALLY appreciated all of the high-concept plot and big reveals. But Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan's script ("Feast 1 & 2") left little room for anything else.

With that said, the main game being played in "Saw V" is a major disappointment. As far as I'm concerned, it brings nothing to the film and, comparably, nothing new to the franchise as a whole. It is simply an excuse to kill off a number of mind-numbingly stupid people in increasingly grisly ways. That being said, "Saw V" also marks the one film in the franchise where the series' trademark traps, deaths, and torture devices truly begin to jump the shark. Not only is everything less imaginative, but it's also far less graphic than much of "Saw's III" and "IV." Horror sequels are supposed to up the ante - violence and gore included - and "V" rests firmly on its laurels.

Then again, it was great to see Tobin Bell as Jigsaw once again and, as always, he does not disappoint. He isn't on-screen enough, but when he is the man doesn't disappoint. Costas Mandylor, as Mark Hoffman, gets a much jucier role this time around and he doesn't waste it. I found myself rooting for Scott Patterson's Agent Strahm, but no one else in the cast really made much of an impact on me.

I even found myself jonesing for "Saw's 2, 3 & 4" director Darren Lynn Bousman's kinetic visual style. Not that David Hackl is talentless behind the lens, mind you, but the film just feels so lifeless; kind of like "Saw Sequel 101." Darren brought so much life to the franchise and truly made it his own, and Hackl is simply too point-and-shoot. I never thought the words "Saw sequel" and "generic direction" would fit firmly into the same sentence.

Even with all of the mediocre crap, "Saw V" is OK for what it is; a torture flick just in time for Halloween. It is definitely the weakest of the "Saw" films since the original. The gore is way too low (perhaps much of it was cut for an R rating?), much of the flick too inept to be considered anything more than just a decent time at the movies, and the ending is piss-poor. But that's not what "Saw" is. For the record, it should have ended at "III."

6/10