Speaking to Empire in the new issue, Spiral director
Darren Lynn Bousman – who previously helmed
Saw II,
III, and
IV – says it isn’t just the previous movies in the series that Rock is drawing from, but also from one of the most acclaimed serial-killer thrillers of all time. “Chris came in with a thriller concept,” he says. “He pitched this very elaborate, dense idea. We wanted it to feel much more like
Seven. But it has so many ties to the mythos of Saw.” Since
David Fincher’s seven-deadly-sins film frequently veers from thriller territory into oh-god-what-is-that? horror, it’s easy to see how Rock’s film might push that boundary further through the Saw lens.
That’s not the only tonal shift for the new outing. With Rock’s background in comedy, Bousman hints that there will be a few killer laughs to leaven the nightmares – plus, the splatter is being turned down a little for this one. “I was a younger person,” the director says of his earlier Saw flicks. “Gore and violence was the gimmick, I think. Gore and violent is no longer a gimmick – it just serves the story. This is much more about character, tension and fear.”