'Saw X' review: Decapitations, amputations, mutilation and fun

The "Saw" series hits double digits — and, in its own way, comes of age — in "Saw X," a back-to-basics exercise in gross-outs that manages to be the series' best entry since the 2004 original.

Not that the "Saw" sequels have given it much competition. The franchise has spent the better part of the last 20 years twisting itself in indecipherable knots with storylines that reached back, looked forward and became impossible to make sense of, mistaking themselves for some grand, elaborate morality play as they drifted further away from the relative simplicity of director James Wan's first "Saw."

"Saw X" wipes that silliness out, positioning itself as a direct sequel to "Saw" and presenting a singular, streamlined story of revenge that works from a clear channel of logic. In so doing, its squirms are squirmier and its icks are ickier, because there are defined characters who make choices and face consequences for their actions. See now that wasn't so hard, was it?

Tobin Bell is back as John Kramer, also known as Jigsaw for the complicated death traps he places his victims inside, making them atone for their own dishonesty or moral misgivings by harming themselves for salvation. He's not so much a killer as he is an avenging angel, asking people to own their mistakes by sacrificing pieces of themselves — literal pieces of themselves — in exchange for their freedom. Or he's just a sicko with a God complex, either read works.

Kramer is seeking treatment for his debilitating brain cancer, and through a support group contact he's turned on to an experimental treatment facility headed by Cecilia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund), which runs out of Mexico City. They have an opening in their schedule and can fit Kramer in immediately. But when things turn out a little too good to be true, Kramer concocts a plan for revenge and the bloodletting begins.

The story by Peter Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg is contained and concise, and director Kevin Greutert, back for his third "Saw" ride (and his first since 2010's "Saw 3D"), creates an effectively unsettling atmosphere for his characters and their theater of pain. There aren't scares, per se, but there are unpleasantries aplenty: you've heard of waterboarding, but are you ready for blood boarding?

"Saw X" is both a reset and a bounce back for a series that hit rock bottom with 2021's Chris Rock-starring "Spiral." It's fanservice done right, a reunion tour that proves there's a little gas left in the engine. And it's a game that "Saw" fans will finally, at long last, want to play.

'Saw X'

GRADE: B

Rated R: for sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture, language and some drug use

Running time: 118 minutes

In theaters

agraham@detroitnews.com