Effective As Torture Porn But The Series Is Running Out Of Ideas

Rating: 6/10 (7 August 2010)

The original SAW was a horror film that received wider acclaim because it not only appealed to fans of gore but had a very clever twist ending so much so that a couple o years after seeing it for the one and only time I can clearly remember the twist though not much else . I vaguely remember the sequel which might have had a not so clever twist ending but can remember the way several characters were killed off . Watching the third film in the franchise it's becoming clearer that the producers that the producers are less interested in cerebral plotting and more interested in taking " torture porn " to new limits along with its MTV style editing which quickly becomes annoying . Also I'm writing this in the Summer of 2010 there is a SAW 7 in the pipeline which means the impact of the ending where it looks like John Kramer and his understudy Amanda both die is negated knowing there's another 4 - at least - films to come
When you watch some of these video nasties that were banned in the early 1980s you might be shocked at how tame or cheesy they look compared to some mainstream horror films nowadays . Torture porn works down to both its conviction and cruelty . Pople plead , beg , cry and screech to be allowed to live but no one is listening or granting them mercy and its this callousness that disturbs the audience . SAW 3 does this very well , perhaps too well as people mutilate themselves vainly trying to escape the lair of the Jigsaw murderer . The problem is that it's the storyline only exists to shock the audience . People turn up in the lair which leads you to acknowledge how contrived the story is . They all tie in with Jeff and his wife whose son was killed in a hit and run . Surely they must have all been kidnapped on the same day ? I mean if someone is confined to " the rack " then they wouldn't have access to water and they'd die of thirst ? Likewise the victim in the freezer ? If Amanda is taking care of business in the ad hoc surgery then who is operating the water system . Surely the victim would have frozen to death before Jeff reached her ? You see how the time frame doesn't stand up to scrutiny ?
Of course you don't watch horror films expecting cerebral writing or profound subtext and in an exercise in shocking its audience SAW 3 does the job well with its gory death scenes . But after seeing it you wonder how far the franchise can go after this and even here there's a strong feeling that the rot is truly starting to set in