Rating with blood

Rating: Null/10 (24 January 2008)

This is a difficult film to rate considering its content versus its cinematography. Let's review the latter. The plot, scenario, jigsaw build-up, imagination, creativity and filming are really excellent. Sound and camera effects are mastered as well as scene lighting. For this I would give it an 8-9. How about rating the movie with its content? It is one thing to reflect on the deepest and sadistic side of human nature while dealing with an overall story concept. This was beautifully executed with The Silence of the Lambs. But in Saw III sadistic torture becomes the centerpiece. When further listening to comments by Leigh Whannell and director Daren Lynn Bousman, it shows that both enjoyed the subject and wanted to please the viewers. That is one thing which disturbed me. Then there is the subtle perversion to show the Jigsaw in a more understandable if not positive way: he is not a murderer, in opposition to Amanda, and the rules of his game always enable the victim to escape, at the expense of great pain of course. Finally, each civilization has its wave of torture, the most bloody examples going back to the Mayas, the Spanish Inquisition and more recently the Nazis. Do our present times miss torture to explain the appearance of the sagas of Saw and Hostel?