To think, it was 2004 when we first saw a fresh-face Jigsaw with a keen sense of play, on our screens for the first time.

It’s a franchise that just refuses to die, with this tenth instalment marking nearly twenty years of whizzing blades and sharp pointy instruments being used in ever more creative ways on those who take part, whether they want to or not.

John Kramer (Tobin Bell) is not a well man. He has a brain cancer that unfortunately means that he doesn’t have much time left.

One day he bumps into a guy from his meeting with fellow sufferers, who is looking in remarkably good shape. He tells John that he’s had ground-breaking treatment, that’s not approved by any medical board, and yet he’s now totally in remission.

Of course John is curious, and the man gives him a website to checkout. It leads him to Cecilia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund), a European scientist continuing the work of her father, who has unbelievable success rates with cancer patients. She tells John there’s an opening in a month, but he doesn’t have that kind of time. Taking pity on him, she tells him she can squeeze him into a program that starts next week, and he willingly agrees.

Soon John finds himself in Mexico, in a remote facility, waiting for his procedure. But his treatment isn’t what he was hoping for, which is bad news for all those concerned, as what they don’t know is that John has an alter ego going by the name of Jigsaw, and he’s keen to let the games begin.

Now as anyone who has seen a Saw film or seven, you know sort of what to expect, as it’s about as formulaic as it gets. In fact, we already have the premise for Saw XI: A group of individuals somehow find themselves in an industrial setting, in the middle of an intricate device; they are told by a fellow named Jigsaw, through a recording, that if they want to survive, they have to play the game, which due to their situation, they’re forced into, which means that most if not all of them won’t be that lucky. The End. Are we psychic? Probably not, more likely we ‘saw’ it all before – literally.

They try to add a bit more to the formula this time around, mostly by having Kramer/Jigsaw the monster, seen as the victim, before returning to being the monster again. It’s a little minor window dressing however, with the premise described above still very much evident.

This is the second time in the franchise behind the camera for US director Kevin Greutert, who helmed the gimmick-laden Saw 3D in 2010 (which was the seventh instalment). He does a good job here in giving audiences what they want, which is essentially copious amounts of gore, with some impressive ‘games’ at play, that are creatively pleasing.

And Bell gets a meatier role than most films in the series, as he’s very much in the open here, which allows him to give his particular monster some emotional depth, in much the same way that Frankenstein’s monster was allowed, although not on quite the same cerebral level.

It’s by no means a classic, but it’s fair to say it’s classic Saw, and that’s about as much as you can expect.