It’s February, with Valentine’s Day right around the corner what better way to celebrate it then with the dropping of the newest trailer of everyone’s favourite love story, Saw.

I sit here with excitement, a bowl of beef and barley soup and cup of coffee at my side with Jigsaw (2018) playing on my tv (I wanted Saw 3D but this was the only one readily available on streaming services for some reason), at the thought of a new Saw movie being released. As the resident Saw fan of screen hub it only makes sense that I would be meeting this new trailer with a sense of enthusiasm and eagerness to see what’s next for this long and convoluted tale of what’s next become an iconic horror movie killer. What did the trailer have to offer? What can we expect for the new film? Well let’s find out!

Immediately it’s clear that this will not be your regular Saw film. With the name of the franchise now changing from Saw to Spiral, it seems this will be a spin off trying to revive the franchise rather than a continuation of the previous 8 films. Kind of a shame since I was curious to see how much more convoluted and ridiculous they could make this story but probably a wise choice to keep the series moving forward. This has been confirmed as taking place in the same universe as the previous films so this isn’t a completely new reboot of the series but rather another story within the same canon. This raises a few questions of course, are these new killings the cause of a copycat killer? One of John Kramer’s apprentices continuing his work? Seeing as Tobin Bell is not returning for his role as Jigsaw (which is a big loss seeing as he was the only thing holding the entire series together and was the most interesting part of it) this definitely seems to be the work of a new killer. Is the new killer continuing Jigsaw’s philosophy or has their own agenda? Questions I’m sure will be (or maybe not) answered by the film.

Oddly enough this film is produced and will be starring Chris Rock. Yes the comedian Chris Rock will be the lead in the new Saw film (apparently he’s a big fan of the franchise and wanted to see it stay alive , a true fan). To make it weirder Samuel L. jackson is also in the movie as his dad and will most likely be delivering a solid Mother Fucker line. I’m not sure if I’m crazy about this casting as a whole because I find it kind of distracting to see these two in a Saw film, especially Chris Rock who i will have a hard time taking seriously throughout, especially since he seems to be the main victim in the trap, appearing handcuffed to a pipe holding the iconic saw from the first film. The franchise isn’t a stranger to big names with the first movie having Cary Elwes and Danny Glover and Chester Bennington having a cameo in the 7th film, but that casting never felt distracting as this one does… but we don’t know until we see it. A safety net though is that Darren Lynn Bousman (who directed Saw 2 – 4) is back! So this could definitely be a saving grace of sorts!

Ok so what can we gather is the possible plot of the movie? So far we have Chris Rock as a cop who is investigating what looks like Jigsaw traps. This time around it seems that only cops are being targeted. This might lend itself to some political commentary throughout the film which seems topical with the current landscape in America. Although I don’t think political commentary belongs in a Saw film, the best Saw film (Saw 6) saw itself providing commentary on Health Insurance, which means this could go either way. Although it’s not surprising that Jigsaw would be targeting cops and I don’t know why they’re acting like it’s anything new since he’s been putting cops in traps since Saw 2 with every single cop who was a part of this investigation ending up dead by the end of the series. It’s clear Chris Rock will be targeted for some reason and I’ll be curious to see what his trial is going to be.

We only get very brief glimpses at possible traps, something involving a subway cart that the victim doesn’t survive, something in a car, a man attached to some device that looks like it’ll pull off his fingers and Chris Rock handcuffed to the pipe. Intriguing but doesn’t really give us much in terms of what to expect. Might be a good idea if they plan on surprising us with a ton of new traps. I just hope this isn’t all they have to offer. Saw fans mainly come to see the traps and after the disappointing lack of interesting traps in the eight installment, one can hope they’ll deliver on traps in this one.

As this is a new story in the universe of Saw and they are trying to do something new, it’s very possible we’ll get a lot of references to the original series. Iconic imagery such as the spirals appear everywhere in this trailer, certain familiar locations make blink and you’ll miss it appearances and there is even a part of the trailer where Chris Rock enters a church where a meeting of some sort is happening. I’m actually quite excited at the idea that he’s visiting a support group of saw victims where we might not only see familiar faces back to tell their story but we can see more insight into how victims have fared since which I feel is a logical next step to explore in terms of the Saw series. They touched on it briefly in six and seven but I would love to see them delve deeper into life after traps.

I’m not really sure yet how to feel overall about this new trailer as it was more of a teaser than anything. But will I be there in the theatre to watch it? You better believe it! The idea of a new Saw film, no matter how bad, is always an exciting time for any Saw fan and you know I’ll be running to see it once it comes out! I’m on the fence about how this one will be handled so far but at least there’s enough to have me remain optimistic that it could be a solid entry in this wild and ridiculous series!