Product Description

Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 01/20/2009 Run time: 96 minutes Rating: Ur

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1573 in DVD
• Brand: LIONSGATE ENT.
• Released on: 2009-01-20
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 5.00 pounds
• Running time: 96 minutes

Features

• In the fifth installment of the SAW franchise, Detective Hoffman is seemingly the last person alive to carry on the Jigsaw legacy. But when his secret is threatened, he must go on the hunt to eliminate all loose ends. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR Age: 031398104704 UPC: 031398104704 Manufacturer No: 24773

Amazon.com
How do you keep a horror franchise going when your villain has been unquestionably and irrevocably killed off? That's a conundrum any number of genre series have tackled--to varying degrees of success--and the problem facing the sadistic Saw films in its latest entry, Saw V. The filmmakers' answer--faithful henchmen--is at first blush a savvy idea, as it allows the mayhem of original bad guy Jigsaw to continue unabated, despite the fact that he was dissected on a morgue slab in the previous film. Saw V extends the premise by having disgraced detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor from the previous two films) don the pig mask to unleash horrific tortures on another group of seemingly unconnected strangers. Scott Patterson (Aliens in America) also returns as Hoffman's Javert, a dogged fellow agent who escapes death in the fourth film and an ugly fate in this entry to continue his pursuit. All the elements that have made the Saw series popular with horror fans--the elaborate killing machines, the trompe l'oeil plotting, and the sociopathic judgments handed down by Jigsaw--are intact in Saw V, which is a positive for its most faithful followers, but a negative for just about everyone else. Saw V covers no new ground, expands no part of the mythology of the series and seems perfectly content to present a lifeless retread of Saw III and IV. It also suffers from the absence of Tobin Bell as Jigsaw, who despite his top billing, is glimpsed only in brief flashbacks. Bell, who could be unsettling even in the stillest moments, gave the series a gravity that kept its least plausible moments in check, and Mandylor, though game, simply cannot provide the same. What's left is dreary and relentlessly downbeat, and to make matters worse, ends on an open note that clearly indicates that a sixth film is in the works, no matter how obvious that the diabolical ingenuity of the original Saw has been worn to the bone by its sequels. Only diehard Saw fans need to sign up for this round of Jigsaw's games. -- Paul Gaita

Beyond Saw V on DVD

Saw 1-4 (Amazon.com Exclusive) on DVD

Saw V the Soundtrack

Customer Reviews

Hoffman continues as the killer.
I will not tell all the surprises in this film.
It is very important that you have seen SAW 2, SAW 3 and SAW 4 to understand what is going on here. If you missed SAW 4, you might pick up on what is going on in SAW 5, but then again, you don't know about the "death" of Jigsaw John and how and why the "games" and traps continue.
Returning for another go around is Tobin Bell as "Jigsaw John" who you will see in new footage of "flashbacks".
Also returning is Costas Mandylor as "Hoffman" who we met in SAW 3 as "Forensic Hoffman" and SAW 4 as "Detective Hoffman".
Scott Patterson returns as "Agent Strahm" from SAW 4 and Besty Russell returns as "Jill" whom we met in SAW 3 and SAW 4.
Mike Realba returns as "Detective Fisk".
Also in new footage of "flashbacks" is Mike Butters of the first SAW (2004) and Tim Burd as "Obi" and Tony Nappo as "Gus" from SAW 2 (2005).
Bill Vilbert returns as a cop.
Niamh Wilson returns as the little girl "Corbett".

In archive footage: Danny Glover, Shawnee Smith, Donnie Wahlberg, Lyriq Bent, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh, Athena Karkanis, Justin Lovis.

When we last left SAW 4 (2007), we discovered that Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) was the new killer taking the place of Jigsaw John (Tobin Bell) and he had survived the trap that killed Officer Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg).
The story continues as we see a man, Seth, (Joris Jarsky) strapped to a table with a pendulum swinging back and forth getting closer and closer to his naked, chiseled stomach. He must reach into these hand vises to try to stop the pendulum, but his hands become cut and crushed. He is running out of time. The pain too great. He fails the game and the pendulum cuts him deeply to his death. Just before he dies, he sees an eye looking at him from a hole.
We will soon find out who it was.
Now beginning with the same night as Saw 3 and SAW 4, Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) is on this case and is getting closer to finding out who the killer is, but everyone believes it was Jigsaw John.
The movie viewers know that Jigsaw John is dead as we saw for our selves in SAW 3 and SAW 4. We know Hoffman is the killer.
Agent Strahm is investigating the rooms where the murders took place. He winds up back at the Gideon warehouse in the room where Jeff (Angus Macfadyen) who he accidently killed in self-defense, Lynn (Bahar Soomekh), who we found out is Jeff's wife, Amanda (Shawnee Smith) and Jigsaw John have died.
To the left, he sees the tiled wall with drawings hung up. He suddenly kicks the wall and a door opens up in to a secret passageway.
Agent Strahm goes into this passageway and is assaulted by someone dressed in the pig's mask.
Strahm finds himself in a trap. A glass cube is fixed around his head with lights inside. It fills up with a liquid. Frantic to get loose and to breath, he reaches for a sharp object in his pocket and stabs his own throat to continue breathing. He manages to survive the trap and is helped by a back-up unit. Jeff and Lynn's little girl has been saved.
Also helped by back-up is Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), but the police department does not know yet, he is the killer.
Erickson (Mark Rolston) takes Agent Strahm off the case and is put on medical leave, however, that is not going to stop Strahm from getting more clues.
Strahm is still tracing the footsteps of the killer off-duty and goes through the department's files. He is hot on the trail, but Erickson catches him in the station and is getting suspicious.
Meanwhile, there are 5 people who are in a room (Laura gordon, Megan Good, Greg Bryk, Julie Benz, Carlo Rota). They are all wearing a neck collar device cabled to a wall, but behind each of them is a locker space with very sharp blades that could behead them. On the other side of the room are the keys in a glass case they need to be set free. The more that someone pulls on a cable, the others are put back further to the blades. There is also a jar of explosive nails ready to kill them all, so they must work together and fast. The timer is going.
As in SAW 2, each room has a trap.
This film shows less of the traps and victims and less gore. Most of the plot is the cat-and-mouse chase between Strahm and Hoffman.
Along the way in this film, we will see brand new footage of "flashbacks" that are missing pieces to the first SAW, SAW 2, SAW 3 and SAW 4.
Also there is a very nice surprise for all of us SAW fans.

The Unrated Director's Cut (Widescreen) runs 95 min.

DVD container is wrapped in tight plastic, but please be careful, there is a protective coverslip that lifts off that you need to save. Notice the security seals still on your container. You can carefully peel these or cut them. I prefer to leave them intacted. The DVD itself has blue printing.

There are some problems with the disc from the Unrated Director's Cut. The picture will freeze once it is on the Option Menu or will freeze up and skip after playing the preview of My Bloody Valentine 3-D (2009).
After about 3 plays, the DVD would start to work better.
if the Option Menu freezes on you. keep trying to load in the DVD. If it skips and plays, wait for the little black dot to appear by "Play", and press "Enter" on your remote control. The movie will play fine.

Special features: 2 audio commentaries. The first audio commentary with Director David Hackl and First Assistant Director Steve Webb is very informative. They are oh so careful not to reveal secrets of the upcoming SAW VI (2009). But they almost did.
The Penduluim Trap ( Approx.5 min.), The Cube Trap ( Approx.5 min.), The Coffin Trap ( Approx. 5 min.), The Fatal Trap (Approx. 11 min.), Slicing the Cube: Editing the Cube Trap (Approx. 5 min.), Theatrical Trailer.

***Update: SAW IV was released October 23, 2009. What is in the box?

SAW 7 3-D will be released October 22, 2010. SAW 8 (2011) is also planned.

it's a good police drama
I'm a big fan of the series, especially 2 and 3. I think Saw 2 is one of the best horror films ever made. Beautifully done, excellent script, and 2 main surprises at the end. I first became disappointed with the series at seeing Saw 4, not necessarily because Jigsaw is dead, though he IS the dominating force and needs to come back. (If I had written #4, I would've started it at the end of 3, making the father save Jigsaw with a transfusion so he could find out where his daughter is; plus, his wife was a nurse, so he would conceivably know CPR, etc.) Anyway, I found little clever about the end of #4, and far less at the end of #5. 4 was written as a horror movie, not a hybrid mystery/horror movie, which is what brought me into the series in the first place. And #5 is more like a TV police drama than anything else. As one who doesn't watch any TV, I guess I'm more sensitive to how Saw 5 plays than an audience full of people who don't go to the movies as often as I do. It's too bad. But I'm Still looking forward to #6 of course. And will keep watching the series, hoping the cleverness of 2 and 3 will return.

Game in Overtime
"I want to play a game." Well, we all knew that. But with Jigsaw dead, how does the Saw series keep the game from becoming overtly predictable? The answer is not revealed in "Saw V," which shows the series becoming an utterly predictable Halloween event.

Jigsaw (Tobin Bell, weirdly malevolent as ever) is still dead. That minor fact, however, does not negate his being in "Saw V" in various states of criminal commission, with or without Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) as his accomplice. Still hot on the case FBI Agent Pete Strahm (Scott Patterson) is on Hoffman's trail, and there are five hapless but interconnected folks now secured in one of Jigsaw's traps.

The traps are, as usual, freaky. The FBI cops are trying to figure out who dunnit. Mrs. Jigsaw discovers she has inherited a mysterious box from her dearly departed, but we aren't allowed to see the contents after she peeks in (hmmm, preview of the plot for "Saw VI"?). What is missing is any sense of newness to the film, or a real hard twist at the end. For a film with a tagline of "You won't believe how it ends," that's only partway true. I was really expecting more.

While I still think Saw II is the best of the series, "Saw V" comes off as little else than a cop caper with some of that old time gore tossed in for squeamish factor. Saw IV was definitely more squirm inducing, which makes you wonder why they didn't spend a little more time trimming the fat and adding a bit more slashing. As a cop chase flick with a side plot of torture, "Saw V" comes off as just an average flick. Of course, I'll be back next Halloween.