Hear me out, good people. Imagine an alternate universe where the Saw series ran like this. The first and second film remain the same. The third expands the universe by being a one room thriller with no outside influence; just Jigsaw, Amanda, and the good doctor fighting against time for the completion of Jigsaw's largest, but unseen, game. Saw IV would be that game, uninterrupted by the medical drama of III. And Saw V would remain the same. Forget the nonsense of IV with the become Jigsaw/let's pretend someone who clearly wasn't involved is really the killer. Then we might have a truly remarkable horror series. Saw V is the oddest entry in the series. Writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (who wrote IV, as well) are clearly given free reign to try something different. Five victims wake up chained by their necks to a killer trap. In one minute, whoever does not free themselves will be decapitated. They are given cryptic instructions, "five will become one," and face a second timer that will kill them all in 15 minutes if they do not escape the room.
At the same time, the FBI agent who realized that the victim from the last film was not Jigsaw's apprentice (in the final moments, don't give him too much credit) escapes a trap that was meant to murder him. He realizes straight away who the real apprentice must be: Detective Hoffman. He just needs to find the evidence to prove his case.
The balance between the two stories is better than any of the other split narratives in the series. The focus is not on the entire police force, but on one rogue agent stalking another. The game creates an interesting dynamic of unlikable privilege facing actual challenges for once. The connection between the characters in the game is weak, but their interactions are actually strong in the game.
This is, sadly, the entry in the Saw series that does not hold up to repeat viewings. Everything hinges so hard on the twist in the big game that knowing the ending spoils future viewings. The hunt for the apprentice holds up, but the game becomes redundant when you know the why and how of it all.
I imagine that, like Halloween, the producers of Saw quickly wound up in a no-win situation. The original Halloween concept was not a series of films about Michael Meyers, but a series of horror films set on Halloween. Season of the Witch has such a terrible reputation because it pulled so far away from what the previous two Halloween films were. It is not a bad film; it is just contextually inappropriate.
With Saw V, the creative team tries to pull away from the ultraviolent reputation of the series. They try to turn Jigsaw into a justified voice of morality, tackling corruption in real estate and local government through his methods. It doesn't fit so neatly because every other entry in the series to this point centered so heavily on the presence of the Jigsaw mystery. There is no mystery when we know who the apprentice is. There is no mystery when we know for sure that Jigsaw/John is dead the entire film. The only mystery is an interesting little thriller concept with the five victims that might as well have been called Pro Bono instead of Saw V for the level of connection it has to the rest of the series.
The entire Saw series received a beautiful Blu-ray release. Otherwise, Saw V can be rented from all the major digital platforms.