It's no use trying... (put on Phantasm or Witchfinder General instead).

Rating: 6/10 (28 October 2006)

An unrelenting assault on the viewer's senses for 90 minutes does rate as something horrific, yet one becomes numb and disinterested, especially in the lack of the tempo... all fast - no emotional modality... no connections to the outside world. The whole story is so insular that it neglects to connect with the audience and fails to set up an alternative world that the viewer is welcomed into and finds inviting. In short, what this movie lacks is imagination and a storyline. It hath no substance - the non-stop shock card is played all too often by those lacking of true talent. In contrast, setup of the true horror films such as the Italian giallo - Dario Argento, Lucio Fulcio, Mario Bava and the Modern American horror slasher (with back-story) represented by John Carpenter and Don Coscarelli evoke a more authentic response of terror - such as a simple scene from Phantasm when the Tall man says, "You play a good game BOY!!!" is far more menacing, terrifying and enigmatic than any line of dialog from any Saw movie (especially the latest installment)... In fact in Saw III, the psychological element of torture is merely a poorly worded treatise relying upon convention and boiled down philosophy. It lightly touches on the psychological but never the metaphysical. It is a self-absorbed exercise at best... so a 6/10 for doing torture for no rhyme or reason for 90 minutes straight. At best, the movie is a representation of worthlessness which brings to mind Sartre's much more profound philosophical novel, Nausea - which deals with the metaphysical problem of worthlessness in an erudite enlightening manner. To see a film that truly deals with sadism, torture and man's inhumanity to man I recommend Michael Reeves masterpiece: the Witchfinder General. Check it out. tho its not available on DVD in the USA, only videotape. I recommend the UK DVD.