‘Saw IV’ plot just doesn’t cut it

With Halloween on Wednesday, more horror movies are fresh to market, including the latest version in the “Saw” franchise, and several other older and newer titles just released on DVD.

In theaters

SAW IV, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, 95 minutes, rated R.

Time to cut the cord. With the release of “Saw IV,” the most convoluted and preposterous film yet in the burned-out “Saw” series, director Darren Lynn Bousman once again puts his audience’s necks on the chopping block and shows them no mercy.

The bloodletting begins at the start. Stretched out on a mortuary slab is Jigsaw himself (Tobin Bell), who is about to undergo an autopsy noteworthy for its surgical gutting and also, it has to be said, for how Bousman offers us unparalleled access to Tobin’s genitals, which are on full display here.

Lucky us? Not so much. This middling film then collapses into a series of flashbacks and flash forwards, the lot of which are so dizzying, you might want to bring your favorite Mensa member along to see if they can make sense of it. That is, of course, provided they stay awake. This soulless movie offers everything you expect, right down to the lack of quality and the idea that horror is only ever-extended sequences of torture and gore.

Bousman and his screenwriters work hard to manufacture a predictable wasteland of deadly traps, but they also toss in enough twists and turns to throw out your back, with the film dipping freely into all that came before it to explain away why Jigsaw is the way he is. Donnie Wahlberg, Angus Macfadyen, Costas Mandylor and Lyriq Bent return from previous films, so it’s good to know that they can cover next month’s mortgage.

As for the film’s denouement (the French language can make even the worst movie sound better), the audience at my screening rightfully was having none of it. Boos ensued. In the end, though, after all the pig masks, the literal hair pulling and the endless slaughtering the movie offers, the film’s advertising campaign turns out to be its greatest threat: “If it’s Halloween, it must be ‘Saw.'” If that’s the case and this franchise gets a fifth film, which it likely will, we all lose.

Grade: D

On DVD

ICE SPIDERS. As high-concept horror movies go, “Ice Spiders” takes the cocoon and rolls with it. In it, a group of Olympic hopeful skiers don’t just have moguls to worry about. When a government experiment goes awry, they also have to battle giant mutant spiders. Cue the ravenous arachnids. Cue the skiers getting picked off one by one. Cue Patrick Muldoon and Vanessa Williams shrieking and slumming in the snow. The movie is as awful as Rosemary’s baby’s pabulum, but just try looking away from it. It’s B-movie bad and, strictly taken as such, it’s a party film worth considering. Rated R. Grade: B

MISERY: COLLECTOR’S EDITION. One of the better film adaptations of a Stephen King novel, the film won Kathy Bates an Academy Award for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes, the psychotic nurse who loves too much. Here, Wilkes cares for her favorite author after she finds him near death from a car wreck. Trouble is, when she learns during his convalescence that he has killed off her favorite character in his latest novel, she decides she’s having none of it and starts to terrorize him. Director Rob Reiner creates an atmosphere of tense horror, and gets sterling performances from James Caan and Bates. Rated R. Grade: A

THE TWISTED TERROR COLLECTION. A rousing B-movie horror collection from Warner. Includes six films: John Carpenter’s 1978 television stalker movie “Someone’s Watching Me,” with Lauren Hutton in the lead; Oliver Stone’s 1981 horror film “The Hand,” in which Michael Caine loses a hand to an auto accident – and the hand just won’t die; 1986’s “Deadly Friend” from Wes Craven, which he’d likely sooner wish to forget; 1973’s “From Beyond the Grave,” with Peter Cushing as a shifty antiques dealer; and 1981’s “Eyes of a Stranger,” with Jennifer Jason Leigh protecting her deaf and blind sister from a serial rapist, and finally, 1992’s “Dr. Giggles,” which is about a mass murderer that stars nobody memorable, but which nevertheless features a title that gets to the heart of this holiday. Go and have a few laughs of your own. Grade: B+

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.