Kevin Greutert brings an editor's precision to horror and gives Tobin Bell room to be quietly frightening. We value the restraint, though Saw X shows that clear cutting cannot compensate for a film that runs too long.
Fi1m perspective
In Saw X (2023), a sick man shaves, counts pills and sits with other people who are dying. Kevin Greutert lets these routines occupy time that the series would usually spend on a trap. We were unsettled by Tobin Bell's quiet preparation for death, because Greutert leaves us watching a man get through his day without hurrying towards the machinery. This is where we find him most interesting as a director.
He came to directing through the cutting room, editing Saw (2004) and its first four sequels before making his feature debut with Saw VI (2009). Saw 3D (2010) followed, then work outside the series with Jessabelle (2014), Visions (2015) and Jackals (2017). We would still begin with his handling of Saw, where the connection between editing and directing is particularly clear. By Saw X, his third film as director in the series, he was also doing the cutting himself.
That experience helps when a face is placed against two glass tubes and a pump in the opening eye trap. Greutert makes the mechanism readable, establishes the rule and avoids the frantic whip-pans of the early sequels. The camera stays put long enough for us to understand what we are dreading. We rate this precision: confusion would offer a welcome distraction, and he declines to provide one.
Bell benefits most from Greutert's willingness to slow things down. His almost courtly stillness gives John Kramer the weariness of someone who has already considered his own death, and Greutert does not interrupt it. Yet the running time stretches revenge into a lecture, and the attention paid to Kramer stops earning its place. Our reservation is not about how long it takes to reach the first trap; it is about how little the extra time adds once the film has established its central character. Consider Saw X for Bell, but do not expect a brisk evening.
Biography
Kevin Greutert is an American film editor and director, best known for his extensive work on the Saw film series. He edited the first five entries, beginning with Saw (2004), as well as Jigsaw (2017), and directed Saw VI (2009), Saw 3D (2010) and Saw X (2023), on which he also served as editor.
Born in Pasadena, California, Greutert graduated from Polytechnic School and earned a B.A. in Cinema Production from the University of Southern California. He began his career in editorial on films including Titanic (1997) and Armageddon (1998). His other directorial credits include Jessabelle (2014), Visions (2015) and Jackals (2017). He is married to actress Elizabeth Rowin.
