Editorials
‘Saw X’ – 9 Things We Learned from the Blu-ray Commentary Track
At long last, Jigsaw returned in Saw X. Set between the events of Saw and Saw II, the tenth installment is a gruesome fan-pleaser led by a franchise-best performance from Tobin Bell as John Kramer.
Along with a six-part making-of documentary and more, the film’s home video release features an audio commentary by director-editor Kevin Greutert, cinematographer Nick Matthews, and production designer Anthony Stabley.
Here are nine things I learned from the Saw X commentary…
1. Kevin Greutert was unsure about the concept until he read the script.
Greutert — who edited six previous Saw films and directed Saw VI and Saw 3D — is one of the few Saw creatives to return for Saw X, but he wasn’t sold on the initial concept.
“I’d heard about it years before, what the concept of the movie was, and I was like, ‘I don’t know. Really? Cancer?’ I just wasn’t sold on the very basic one-sentence version I heard.”
In January of 2022, producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules sent him the script, written by Peter Goldfinger & Josh Stolberg (Jigsaw, Spiral: From the Book of Saw).
“Then I read the script, I was like, ‘Holy cow! This is really emotionally engaging and super smart in terms of how do we really tell the full John Kramer story and not resort to the same sort of flashback trickery that we had in the previous films.’ I was really taken by it.”
He also mentions that the original script took place in Europe rather than Mexico.
2. The crew strove to maintain Saw‘s visual language.
Since Saw X takes place between the series’ first two installments, the team strove to uphold the visual language of those films. Although X was shot digitally, they used vintage lenses, a standard 1.85:1 aspect ratio, lighting choices, and editing techniques that hark back to the early entries.
“It’s the visual language of Saw,” notes Greutert. “I think some of the more recent Saw movies were trying to get away with that and be, like, a normal movie. But we didn’t want to be a normal movie, we want to be Saw!”
“We wanted the language of the movie to fit into that world, so 1.85 [aspect ratio] was an important choice in terms of our framing,” explains Matthews. “Similarly, we wanted more vintage lenses and we wanted more grit in the image, and we wanted to do whatever it took to be able to arrive there.
“We’re shooting in a digital age, we’re not shooting with film, so we’re trying to find ways to take the tools that we have available now and tell a story that feels relevant to today but also reaches back to some of those aesthetic touchstones.”
3. An old camera trick was utilized for hazy visuals.
Vaseline smeared on a camera lens — an old Hollywood trick famously used to give aging actors a softer look — was employed to help achieve the hazy visuals while the drugged John is undergoing “surgery” when the budget didn’t allow for more than one tilt-shift lens.
“This was something Kevin had always brought up, an interest in using tilt-shift lenses. We ended up mixing in some Vaseline rubbed on filters and stuff like that to create this more subjective space, sort of in John’s head as we’re experiencing this moment,” says Matthews.
“Some of these [shots] are literally Vaseline on the lens, because we couldn’t afford two tilt-shift lenses, and almost everything we shot on this movie was two cameras at the same time,” Greutert adds. “It’s a pretty trippy effect.”
4. Saw X pays homage to giallo movies.
The Saw films are known for their drab, gritty aesthetic, so it may come as a surprise that Saw X drew inspiration from colorful Italian giallo movies. Stabley explains:
“It was a wonderful opportunity for us to create this palette of the US with the colder colors and the blues — and you can see that in the clothing, you can see that in the color selections — and then having that departure once we’re in Mexico with the warmer tones, the greens. And then of course we have the traditional red, the blood, and this love for giallo films that we all share.”
“No doubt,” Greutert concurs. “There’s some great homage to that Italian period of ’70s horror filmmaking.” The genre’s inspiration is brought up at different points throughout the commentary by all three participants.
5. Anthony Stabley appears in the film twice.
In addition to his production designer duties, Stabley appears in front of the camera twice. Most notably, he plays the host of the Surgeons of Tomorrow instructional DVD that Kramer finds, which was the first footage shot for the movie.
As Greutert reveals, “Anthony is also the teenage boy in the photo of Gabriela’s family that’s hanging in the foyer. You’re all over this movie!”
While Greutert doesn’t make a cameo, he proudly points out that he played the piano music heard on the radio in Cecilia’s house.
6. Traps were coated in resin for easier clean-up.
Saw X is among the goriest installments in the blood-splattered saga, and as much of it was accomplished with practical effects as possible. To maximize efficiency, prop traps were coated in resin so they could be reset easily between takes.
“There’s very little digital work in some of these scenes,” says Greutert. “Our VFX team did an absolutely incredible job making this movie work, but at the same time, most of the blood you see is practical. Most of the cutting into limbs that you see is real stuff.”
“The majority of this factory space had basically linoleum that was faux-finished as concrete so that we could clean it up quickly and do take two,” Stabley explains.
“In addition to that, the majority of the traps, if not all of the traps, were coated in resin so that we could have that clean finish to go onto the next time. I’m so pleased with all of that. It was a lot of work, and all of these different departments were working together to make this thing happen.”
7. The ending is an intentional inversion of the typical Saw conclusion.
The commentary track was recorded months before the film’s release, so Greutert was unsure how viewers would react to the ending. “Saw fans, you either love or hate the way we end this movie. From my perspective right now, I just don’t know.”
Inverting the typical Saw conclusion in which a door is slammed shut, X concludes with Kramer and the other survivors opening the door to daylight.
“To me, this is the send off of John Kramer,” Greutert clarifies. “He’s on his way to John Kramer Heaven, because we know he’s only gonna be alive for a couple more months at the most. Why do it with a door slam?”
8. Footage from the original Saw was recycled for the mid-credit scene.
The iconic bathroom set from the original Saw — which also appeared in parts II, III, V, VI, and 3D — was recreated by Stably and his team for X. But Greutert reveals that shots of the overhead lights turning on were recycled from Saw.
“Those shots of the lights are the footage from Saw 1. You made the ceiling. We could have done it!” he points out.
“It’s kind of mad that we did the whole build of the set for just this tiny scene,” he chuckles. “It’s tonally kind of wacky that we do this and we end on the Batman ’60s TV show spin into Michael Beach here.”
9. Greutert wants Cecilia to return in Saw 11.
Saw X introduces the duplicitous Cecilia Pederson, played by Synnøve Macody Lund, who narrowly survives the events the film. Greutert wants to her to return for the potential 11th installment.
“If there’s a Saw 11, I like to think that Cecilia will be back, but at this point we don’t know what that movie would be,” he says. “But she’s going to be pretty evil.” He also intends to bring Matthews and Stabley along with him for the next chapter.
As for fan-favorite Mark Hoffman, his overall fate in the franchise remains ambiguous following Saw 3D. “That’s what Saw 14 is for,” Greutert jokes. “Saw 14 picks up where Saw VII ends, and all will be revealed.”
Saw X is available now on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
On July 13th, 2026, the world lost one of its brightest stars.
Beloved New Zealand actor Sam Neill passed away from pneumonia after a long battle with stage 3 lymphoma. The multifaceted movie star will be remembered by mainstream audiences for his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 masterpiece Jurassic Park, as well as powerful turns in A Cry in the Dark (1988), The Piano (1993), and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), and prestige TV series The Tudors and Peaky Blinders. But horror fans know him as one of the genre’s most surprising Scream Kings.
Through a handful of memorable starring roles, Neill spent the 80s and 90s bringing life to a wide variety of characters and finding humanity in the most unusual leading roles, regardless of how heroic or villainous.
The Final Conflict (1981)
After a decade on the stage and screen in New Zealand and Australia, Neill made his international debut as Damien Thorn in Graham Baker’s The Final Conflict, the third installment of The Omen franchise. Now a 36-year-old businessman, Damien is fully aware of his devilish parentage and hell-bent on world domination. But rather than a hooved and horned monstrosity, Neill’s Antichrist is a suave businessman who leads his followers in an expensive suit and seeks to bring about the apocalypse through deceptive altruism rather than grand proclamation.
Despite his austere demeanor, the man’s true evil knows no bounds. When a prophecy foretells the second coming of Christ, known in the film as “the Nazarene,” Damien commands his followers to commit widespread infanticide, murdering all baby boys born on a specific date. He seduces a high-profile reporter while transforming her teenage son into a bloodthirsty disciple, then uses the child as a human shield. This tricky role allows Neill to demonstrate his trademark versatility, easily charming the outside world while dropping his suave mask of normalcy behind closed doors. Though certain aspects of The Final Conflict are admittedly dated, Neill’s performance feels eerily prescient. He’s mastered the heinous portrayal of a politician willing to sell his soul for power that will ultimately bring about the end of the world.
Possession (1981)
Though Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession is often remembered for Isabelle Adjani’s stunning depiction of a woman on the edge, Neill delivers an equally unhinged performance as Mark, a spy returning home from a lengthy assignment in divided Berlin. Upon discovering that his wife Anna (Adjani) wants a divorce, Mark desperately tries to hold his family together even at the expense of her sanity. Filmed the same year as The Final Conflict, Neill dives headfirst into this visceral role, managing to evoke sympathy for the distraught father who becomes ever more desperate to regain control. Inspired by his own divorce, Żuławski resists blaming either party for the separation, instead showing the chaos and heartache that comes in the wake of a family’s dissolution.
Once considered to replace Roger Moore as the next James Bond, Neill has fun with the international spy persona as Żuławski’s plot grows increasingly bizarre. But the skilled actor never lets us forget that Mark is a flawed human being struggling to keep his life from falling apart. A second character emerges in the film’s mesmerizing climax, allowing Neill to lean into full villainy with a glassy-eyed stare that chills to the bone. Now a cult classic, Adjani and Neill bounce off each other’s seething rage, creating one of the most effective cinematic duets in the history of horror.
Jurassic Park (1993)
When Steven Spielberg’s creature feature first hit theaters, Neill was by no means a household name and hardly a traditional leading man. Without the swashbuckling swagger of Harrison Ford, the mega-watt smile of Tom Cruise, or the chiselled jaw of Brad Pitt — all famous action stars of the era — Neill felt like an unconventional choice for this massive role. But he perfectly captures the essence of Grant, an aloof academic who prefers dig sites to fancy fundraisers and social events. Despite an aversion to children, the dinosaur expert finds himself tasked with saving the theme park’s youngest survivors who gradually break down his emotional walls. Grant’s transformation into a courageous caretaker is a landmark deconstruction of traditional gender norms wrapped in the guise of a rugged outdoorsman.
Neill proves to be the perfect action star, effortlessly navigating Spielberg’s stunning set pieces without losing the character’s relatable hook. But perhaps the film’s most touching moment is Neill’s childlike wonder at seeing a dinosaur for the first time. Stunned to speechlessness, he channels the audience’s wondrous joy when Grant first spies a real, live Brachiosaurus. But he seamlessly weaves this infectious awe into serious concerns about the creature’s existence, amplifying the story’s prophetic messaging. Jeff Goldblum may utter the film’s iconic warning, but the duality of Grant’s performance perfectly illustrates the scientific imperative, reminding us that just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
Neill would go on to lead Joe Johnston’s 2001 sequel Jurassic Park III, in which Grant is again tasked with saving a child. In 2022, he would appear in Colin Trevorrow’s legacy sequel Jurassic World Dominion, which merges the franchise’s two distinct eras while bringing the carnage onto mainland shores. Despite turning in strong performances, neither film is able to top the magic of Spielberg’s original or Neill’s captivating performance as the stoic leading man. But his nuanced depiction of Alan Grant inspired a generation of would-be paleontologists and quiet kids who could now see themselves as courageous academics capable of surprising strength.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
After catapulting to worldwide fame, Neill returned to horror proper to lead John Carpenter’s mind-bending In the Mouth of Madness. We first meet John Trent (Neill) as he’s dragged, kicking and screaming, into a padded cell. An unknown stretch of time later, he recounts an unbelievable story while covered in protective crosses scrawled into his skin — and the cell’s walls — with black crayon. A private investigator, Trent has been tasked with locating Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), a world-famous yet elusive genre author whose work has been driving his ravenous readers to disturbing acts of random violence.
A love letter to fans of horror fiction, we delight in watching Trent explore literary easter eggs that lead him down jarring rabbit holes. A late-night road trip takes Trent and Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), an editor for Cane’s publishing house, to a tiny New England hamlet teeming with darkness. While investigating an ominous cathedral on the outskirts of town, Trent realizes that he’s somehow been transported into the author’s interdimensional story and become its unwitting protagonist.
Neill serves as a skeptical everyman and the audience’s conduit through this bizarre tale of literary monsters that find a way to burst through the page. An often overlooked Carpenter film, In the Mouth of Madness spirals into insanity, but Neill keeps us grounded throughout each outlandish twist. A shocking conclusion leaves us gaping at our screens and contemplating our own relationship with horror fiction. After all, does free will truly exist? Or, like Trent, are we merely pawns in someone else’s monstrous creation?
Event Horizon (1997)
One of the scariest movies ever set in space, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon builds upon the heroic image Neill established for himself in Jurassic Park. Dr. William Weir (Neill) is a physicist temporarily joining the crew of the Lewis and Clark to assist in their latest rescue mission. Seven years after vanishing without a trace, a spaceship called the Event Horizon has suddenly reappeared near Neptune’s orbit. As the creator of a top-secret gravity drive designed to facilitate faster-than-light travel, Dr. Weir has been sent to explore the ship and find out what happened to its missing crew.
Still haunted by his late wife’s suicide, Dr. Weir is a sympathetic figure, particularly in comparison to the harsh Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) who commands the crew of the Lewis and Clark. But Weir’s desperation to return to the infamous ship hides a sinister secret that leads his fellow astronauts to the threshold of hell. Neill’s talent for playing the everyman pays off in spades as the formerly sympathetic widower transforms into a disciple of this frightening dimension. Resembling a long-lost cenobite, Weir claws out his own eyes and prepares to drag the crew into a world consumed with sadistic pain.
Daybreakers (2009)
Neill returns to his Omen roots in Michael and Peter Spierig’s action-packed film as a secretly sinister businessman. But rather than the Antichrist, Charles Bromley (Neill) is a proud vampire convinced of the species’ superiority. With human blood in short supply, Bromley Marks Corp. is working on a synthetic substitute to prevent the human race from impending extinction. While hematologists perfect the formula, Bromley oversees disturbing fields of humans chained to massive machines that systematically harvest their blood.
Neill chills in this sinister role with vampiric yellow eyes, a pale complexion, and subtle fangs. But more upsetting is the fact that he honestly doesn’t believe he’s wrong. Once diagnosed with cancer, Bromley was delighted to find that vampirism would totally reverse his illness and grant him the gift of eternal life. He begged his daughter Alison (Isabel Lucas) to turn alongside him, but she has rejected her father’s controversial choice and is now hunted by his bloodthirsty goons. In a heartbreaking moment of clarity, Bromley brings his daughter to the brink of death, then turns away in disgust when she will not embrace his undead lifestyle.
Daybreakers is a surprisingly thrilling exploration of survival and sustainability. Similar to a plot Damien Thorn would hatch, Bromley’s ultimate plan is to placate the vampire population with synthetic blood while allowing the human population to replenish itself. With a larger stock, he plans to sell authentic humans at a premium, hunting these poor souls to season the meat. Bromley rejects a cure that would reverse the vampiric disease, choosing to enrich himself over saving the world. The strangely captivating villain’s end is a cathartic nightmare and fitting punishment for a wealthy man who places himself above everyone else.
In the Mouth of Madness
While the world may remember Neill for his signature role as a gruff but compassionate paleontologist going head to head with a raging T-Rex, horror fans may picture the versatile actor maniacally rocking back and forth in a filthy Berlin apartment, commanding a boardroom of corporate vampires, disappearing into the darkness of a haunted spaceship, sermonizing to satanists, or giggling over popcorn in a deserted movie theater. Or perhaps you have another favorite role in the beloved actor’s stellar career. But whether he was playing a hero or villain, Neill brought undeniable humanity to every role, redefining our idea of masculinity and the very nature of goodness vs. evil. By bringing such disparate characters to life, Neill challenged audiences with a variety of complex roles, asking us to examine the humanity of each character no matter how flawed or virtuous.
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