Saw X Shattered The Franchise's Runtime Record, But It Could Have Been Even Longer

Youth of the '00s likely have nostalgia for the "Saw" film series, even if they didn't see them. Every Halloween from 2004 all the way through 2010, a "Saw" sequel would arrive in theaters like clockwork, becoming one of the steadiest and most reliable horror franchises in the genre's history. One can easily see the "Saw" movies' propensity toward torture and mutilation as a direct response to the United States' wars in the Middle East and the images of real-life torture that came from within; pictures of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib leaked to the public only six months before the release of the first "Saw."

After "Saw 3D," a.k.a. "Saw: The Final Chapter," the series took a seven-year hiatus before returning with "Jigsaw" in 2017 and then "Spiral" in 2021. "Saw X" is due in theaters on September 29, 2023. It seems that U.S. audiences still haven't gotten over their taste for torture. The new film will see returns from actors Tobin Bell, the series' central antagonist, as well as Shawnee Smith, playing one of his acolytes.

The "Saw" movies were convoluted, often bending over backward to create dramatic reasons for elaborate death traps. In the middle of an ocean of exposition, however, one could see a trim, efficient gore-delivery system at work, and the films never went too long without puncturing, slicing, or splattering some poor hapless dope. The longest film in the series to date, Darren Lynn Bouseman's "Saw III," only ran 107 minutes. Overall, the series averages about 95 minutes a film.

According to The Direct, however, "Saw X" will run 118 minutes. Speaking to that website, director Kevin Greutert ("Saw VI," "Saw 3D") explained why he needed the extra time for chapter 10.

The plot of "Saw X" is a flashback to a time when John Kramer (Bell), traveled to a clinic in Mexico to get a cancer operation. It seems that the doctors only staged a surgery and didn't treat Kramer at all. When Kramer learns of the subterfuge, he captures the people he feels are responsible and, as is his wont, locks them into an elaborate escape room that requires them to mutilate themselves in order to flee.

According to Greutert, the record length of 118 minutes is downright jaunty to what the original script detailed:

"[B]elieve it or not, the film was a lot longer at first. And this is very new for me because every film I've ever directed came in a lot shorter than I wanted it to. So, in the case of this one, we spent so much time writing it and shooting it ... the first cut of the film was super long ... This film came in longer than I had intended it to; we shot a lot on the set."

Despite the running time, Greutert wanted to assure audiences that "Saw X" wasn't overloaded, nor did it drag. Still, he wished he could have included more:

"There were a lot of script pages and just a lot that we wanted to capture. So, I had to trim the film down and take out some scenes and shorten some scenes more than I wanted. So, I'm hoping that even though the film is almost two hours long, it doesn't feel bloated or that it drags anywhere. You know, because this was sort of the cream of the footage that we shot."

No good movie is too long, no bad movie is short enough.

The Direct, very helpfully, also laid out the running times of the previous nine "Saw" movies. Gretuert's own "Saw VI" and "Saw 3D" are, perhaps to provide balance, the shortest in the series at only 91 minutes each. 91 minutes, many horror fans may agree, is a near-ideal length for a horror movie. 85 would be better, but we can't always split hairs.

Ebert's quotation from above, of course, observes that any film is going to be as long as it needs to be. A complaint of a film being "too long" has less to do with its actual running time and more to do with its pacing might be like. Those who prefer shorter horror movies may complain that 118 minutes it too long for a "Saw" sequel, but, having not yet seen the movie, we cannot yet know if 118 minutes is the perfect length or not.

Besides, there are many notable, beloved horror movies that run incredibly long. Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" is 137 minutes. Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" skips by at 146. Luca Guadangino's excellent remake of "Suspiria" is 153 minutes long and never lets go for a second. And who could forget Andy Muschietti's two "It" movies, which ran 135 minutes and 169 minutes, respectively? A little internet research led me to discover a 2008 Russian film called "Philosophy of a Knife," a 249-minute epic that recreates vicious medical experiments carried out during World War II.

A film like that sure makes the piddling tortures of "Saw X" seem brief and trifling.