Live or die. The choice is yours. But if you reach ten sequels, shit’s probably going to get weird. This week, the Saw franchise returns with Saw X. Which means people really like to see other people tortured and I’m judging every single one of us. It also means the Saw franchise has done something quite special. Not many horror franchises make it this long. Not even Freddy himself has crossed the tenth movie finish line. Scream. Evil Dead. Child’s Play. Paranormal Activity. The Conjuring. Even when you include the spinoffs, none of them have hit ten films!
But Saw X isn’t the first horror franchise to reach that landmark. So, let’s play a game and take a look at how other franchises have fared in their milestone tenth installments…
Jason X (2001)
Walk into one room and bemoan Jason X and everyone will laugh and agree. Walk into another and people will fight you to the death that it’s a blast and you take yourself too seriously. All in all, when you make the tenth movie in a franchise and that movie is “Insert Here Goes To Space,” the best you can probably hope for is a fun time and good kills. Jason X has that in spades. Even if it does feel like a Xena: Warrior Princess Sci-Fi spinoff at times.
Between the nitrogen face plant and the infamous sleeping bag slap down, Jason X features some of the best kills in the franchise. Regardless of how you may feel about how crazy with the stick they get with the ideas, at least we received plenty of Jason killing folks on screen. While the movie may have officially jumped the shark, Jason (Kane Hodder) was still taken seriously and the character lived to fight another day. Not an easy feat to accomplish considering Jason X sat on a shelf for nearly two years, leaked on the internet and bombed at the box office.
Regardless of which room you walk in, I think we can all agree Jason X is not the vibe Saw X is hoping to achieve. That being said, if Tobin Bell ends up in space by the end of the film, I think it will definitely be the twist of the year. Why not, right?!
Amityville: The Awakening (2017)
Now here’s an interesting concept for a tenth entry in a franchise! In a super meta twist, Amityville: The Awakening picks up forty years after the Ronald DeFeo Jr. murders and acknowledges the entire franchise as fiction. At one point a group of teenagers even watch the original Amityville Horror DVD inside of the Amityville house.
It’s a fantastic idea to reset the entire franchise, and this Blumhouse/Dimension team up may actually boast one of the better sequels for the franchise. Although, that in itself is not saying much. The IP for Amityville has been open to anyone who wants to make a go of it including Amityville in Space, Amityville Karen and Amityville in the Hood (seriously). Still yet, this film features an interesting spin on the possession angle that’s so often exploited to boring results.
In the film, Joan (Jennifer Jason Leigh) clashes with her daughter Belle (Bella Thorne) over whether or not to keep their brother James (Cameron Monaghan) hooked to a machine in the house after an accident leaves him on life support. He receives his medical care in the Amityville home, and the demon begins to possess him and bring him slowly back to life. Joan completely overlooks all the freaky impossibilities happening around her in the face of possibly getting her son back. Things end up pretty status quo by film’s end but for the first couple of acts, The Awakening is a pretty creepy low budget jump scare ride with a very interesting cast that the Conjuring spin off crowd would have come to enjoy. Had the marketing and release been there.
Saw X would be lucky to avoid the fate of The Awakening nonetheless as the film was in release hell for several years and ended up with a messy rollout theatrically. Not to mention the fan fare was just not there for a franchise that hadn’t created anything noteworthy in some time.
Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (2009)
We’ve arrived at the most divisive and wild tenth entry in a franchise. Probably ever. A movie so strange that after seeing it for the first time in theaters, I declared it an absolute masterpiece. Telling everyone I knew how amazing it was. When I saw it again one day later, I sat there with my mouth agape wondering who in the hell must have drugged my Butterfinger minis the night before.
If Saw X tried with all of its might, I don’t think it could end up as controversial as Halloween II. Beautifully shot with intense kills and an opening that is arguably the most gnarly moment of the entire franchise (if it hadn’t ended up being a dream sequence), it’s also a movie that completely takes beloved franchise characters and burns their ethos to ashes before scattering them in go-fuck-yourself lake. This is all for better or worse, depending on the viewer. Zombie’s Halloween II is mostly maligned by franchise fans but those who love it really love it.
Halloween II definitely went with the “burn it all, let the studio sort em’ out” mentality for their tenth franchise entry. This isn’t a route we’re likely to see Saw X go. The trailer looks to be knee deep in love for its franchise members. Even going as far as making Jigsaw a far more sympathetic character than we’ve seen in the past by having his victims be the doctors we’ll see take advantage of him. Regardless of how you feel about the movie, I think Saw X can go ahead and mark itself “safe from Rob Zombie’s Halloween II” territory.
Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018)
In a franchise messier than a Saw 3 crime scene, Children of the Corn: Runaway slows everything down… to a grinding halt. The story features a Gatlin runaway who decides she wants a better life for her son than having him worship murder corn. Not everything goes to plan, however, as she is kind of-sort of wrecking his whole life in the process. They are homeless, on the run with no money or future. Back home he would have been murdering people in diners and what not, sure. At least he’d have air conditioning. A window unit at the very least.
Runaway makes a mistake that would be absolutely egregious for Saw X to make. It’s frightfully boring. The film attempts to make up for its low budget by piling on the slow burn melodrama about the relationship between a struggling mother and son but fails to do so in a gripping manner. You’re more or less just wondering what the hell any of this has to do with kids and corn while over the top small-town archetypes become increasingly obnoxious. The film ends in an almost Saw-like twist but the lack of interest has at this point permeated your soul to a point of no return. Like when one of Jigsaw’s victims spends half of their time screaming and ends up both mutilating themselves and dying anyway because they ran out of time.
If the early reviews (including our own) have anything to say about it? This won’t be a problem in Saw X.
Hellraiser: Judgement (2018)
This tenth sequel had more of an uphill battle than perhaps any other. Dimension Films had a habit of making terrible low budget movies for their franchises just to keep the rights from expiring and reverting to another company. Judgement was destined to become another one of these trash bin throwaways just as its predecessor and low point in the franchise, Revelations.
Instead, longtime Hellraiser makeup and FX guru Gary Tunnicliffe stepped in and walked a tightrope made out of twine. A passion project he’d been fighting to make for years, Dimension finally relinquished and let him have his movie. For a whole $350,000. That’s like asking someone to fix your car engine with a snorkel and a putting wedge. With that in mind, I have no doubt for all its shortcomings Judgement was made as well as it possibly could have been… and you know what? It wasn’t bad! Especially considering they didn’t even have Doug “Pinhead” Bradley on board. The production had to cast stage actor Paul T. Taylor in the role Bradley made famous, and he did an admirable job as one of Satan’s favorite masochists’ despite limited screen time.
Judgement won’t be considered one of the classic Hellraiser films by any stretch of the imagination but it injected an earnest effort into a franchise that desperately needed it. It’s a shockingly watchable deep cut franchise sequel with more than a few impressive visuals. You can tell it was made with love by the guy behind the camera.
Saw X opens in theaters nationwide on September 29, 2023.
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