Rating 3/10

Another Halloween means another “Saw” movie is upon us. Oh, the horror!

The fourth installment in the franchise keen on grotesque torture is not only the worst of the series thus far, but one of the worst films of the year.

Pushing the envelope for artistic measure is one thing, but pushing the envelope for the sake of doing so is what “Saw IV” does over and over. How could the franchise possibly top all of the disgusting and vile scenes that were in the three previous films? The answer is simple: A naked Jigsaw.

If wanting to throw up in a movie theater is your thing, see something with Brittany Murphy in it, not a middle-aged, pale serial killer with his puzzle pieces hanging out.

“Saw IV” is about people learning life lessons while getting tortured in inventive ways. Of course, there is the obligatory paper-thin plot that tries to add a touch of class to an already classless film.

Jigsaw is dead, but somehow he has millions of posthumous cassette tapes lying around to continue his work.

Two cops have been kidnapped and will die in 90 minutes unless another cop saves them. This should be simple enough, but blink-and-you’ll-miss-them characters and minor events play a vital role to reach the illegitimate conclusion.

There are many unneeded flashbacks of how Jigsaw actually became a murderous mastermind. The filmmakers try to humanize the villain by showing his relationship with his girlfriend and how she suffered a miscarriage. While these scenes should be important, they provoke no more than a shrug of the shoulders.

This horror franchise is beginning to sound like the back of a shampoo bottle: Wash, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat. The first “Saw” was a tense thriller that actually had suspense and interesting characters.

In terms of a fourth movie in a franchise, “Saw IV” is on the same wavelength as “Police Academy 4.” There’s only so many times you can watch Steve Guttenburg rehash the same jokes, just as there’s a limited amount of times you can be entertained by disgusting forms of torture. (Is there really a difference?)

“Saw IV” offers nothing new or substantial to this overdone torture/horror genre.