Review #379: Saw 3D (2010)

October 2026 Horror Reviews #7 - Saw 3D (2010)

Saw 3D (originally known as Saw: The Final Chapter) is the seventh of ten Saw movies, and the end of the current movie timeline (I say this because, of the three remaining films, one follows an entirely new set of characters some time later, one is an explicit spin-off, and the other takes place entirely between Saw I and Saw II). In this entry, Hoffman has survived being put into a deathtrap by Jill in the previous movie, so he essentially abandons his life and identity to hide out and orchestrate a series of events that will let him corner Jill and get his revenge. Meanwhile, a self-help writer who has gained fame and fortune by pretending to be a survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps is captured and put in an actual Jigsaw trap (it's unclear exactly how or why or when Hoffman had the time to set this up, but the movie doesn't care so you shouldn't either).

Back when this movie came out I remember it being made pretty explicit that they had intended to make at least one more movie after this (the ending, which I'll talk about a little later, VERY clearly sets up what would have been the thrust of the next one), but due to poor box-office turnout any plans for that were scrapped. After six years of annual releases, the Saw juggernaut was finally brought to a halt, with another seven years passing before the confusingly-named Jigsaw in 2017, and as I mentioned, that one follows pretty much an entirely new set of characters and I don't think it mentions Hoffman a single time. (I'll find out tomorrow if I'm wrong.)

I'm wracking my brain to figure out if there was anything in particular I liked about this movie- basically every element I can think of is something that annoys me or is laughably absurd. Another ridiculously elaborate and complicated deathtrap dungeon is set up while Hoffman is on the run, which makes no sense. Apparently the Jigsaw Killer and his elaborate deathtraps have become so infamous that a person can become world-famous by claiming to have survived one of them, despite the fact that these murders have been entirely localized in one city and by all appearances most of them (all of them from the last five entries) took place over the like two-week period surrounding Saw III. This series plays so loosey-goosey with any details of where, when, and how, that any time you actually sit down and look at the big picture, it makes NO sense.

Case in point: there's a flashback in this movie where John (back when he was alive, since remember, he's been dead for more than half of the series) goes to a book signing with the self-help guy who, again, claims to have survived a Jigsaw deathtrap. (Oh, and John's wearing a backwards baseball cap in an extremely feeble attempt to make the actor look younger. It's hilarious.) This means Jigsaw's MO was well-known enough during his life that people could get famous just through association, and yet if you look back at the only two movies where John was still alive, most of the characters who live in the city where he operates are like "Jigsaw? Who's that?" The filmmakers clearly want the audience to forget what actually happened in-canon and instead think "Oh yeah, this movie series has been a worldwide phenomenon for the better part of a decade, I guess that applies in the movie's world too" even when it contradicts the actual events of the films.

So, the plot has all of the same problems the last three or four have had, where it's all inscrutable melodrama and insane leaps of logic to anyone who hasn't just finished re-watching the entire series. Additionally, there's a couple acting performances in his movie that just plain suck (I'm sorry to say, but the actor playing the head detective, Gibson, is doing a terrible job, and this is my first time mentioning her but the actress who plays Jill similarly puts on one of the most wooden performances I've seen and they've brought her back time and time again). Normally I could praise the special effects I guess, but this movie came out during the mid-oughts 3D obsession, so half of the special effects shots have something shoot straight at the screen- in a way that does nothing special now that 3D has been put back out to pasture. So, what else does this movie have?

The typical answer would be "a twist", since that's usually one of the pillars of the Saw franchise. But like last time, I kind of feel like this movie doesn't really have one. I mean, it does- there's a definite twist right in the last couple minutes that I do want to talk about- but it has so little impact on anything (serving only to paper over some plot holes from the past six movies) that I feel like it almost doesn't even count. Most likely it would have led directly into Saw VIII, but since we never got that movie, it just goes nowhere.

I do want to briefly talk about that twist though, so if you don't want it spoiled, this can be your off-ramp. I think I'm gonna rate it a 4/10 Exploding Junkyards.

Alright, now that the spoiler warning is out of the way:

The "twist" of this movie is that, after being presumed dead after the events of the first Saw movie, Dr. Gordon is actually alive and well, and he's ALSO a Jigsaw apprentice! So all of the times that the movies have acted like all of these deathtraps were set up and carried out by Hoffman alone, there was actually TWO people, Hoffman and Gordon! Except (as if that would make it feasible, which it doesn't) the way the end of this movie is shot, it's actually extremely unclear whether Hoffman knew that Gordon was a member of the team. I mean, it would be silly for there to be additional Jigsaw apprentices without Hoffman knowing, so maybe that's not what the filmmakers meant, but is it that much sillier than there being another apprentice (or three more apprentices, since Gordon has two more masked people with him when he shows up) that conveniently were never mentioned a single time and were never around in any of the countless flashbacks that showed them setting everything up?

The real purpose of Gordon's inclusion, though (beyond just trying to inject a twist into this lame plot), is to retroactively fix a number of plot holes that everyone surely noticed. When Hoffman joined the series, they used his role in the police department to explain how John had all of this privileged information about so many characters' criminal pasts. Now that Gordon is here, it explains how all of these traps (often involving surgery) were set up. Maybe in the planned eighth entry we would have learned that Jigsaw also had the inventor of a time machine on his team, and that would explain why nothing about the series timeline makes a single lick of sense.

Anyway, this one was pretty disappointing. Not as offensively mundane as Saw III, but just not really worth watching. I sincerely hope that since the final three entries leave this plotline behind, they'll be able to make something that can stand on its own.

Overall Rating: 4/10 Exploding Junkyards

Hang On A Minute: While finishing up this review I just realized something- this movie begins with quite possibly the most absurd deathtrap of the entire series, where three victims are attached to a big buzzsaw machine in the middle of a crowded public square, with no explanation whatsoever for how Jigsaw's team was able to set this up without people noticing. And it just occurred to me, this scene had NO BEARING ON THE PLOT WHATSOEVER. It never came up again, it never got mentioned by the characters, and to my knowledge none of the characters involved ever show up again. It literally was just there for a cold open with an extra kill or two before the movie starts for real. All of the Saw sequels have had a cold open like this, but this is the only one where it never factors into the plot even a little bit. WTF guys?

Next Up: Jigsaw (2017)!