Great third entry in the Saw series.

Rating: 8/10 (13 June 2007)

Saw III starts as burned out Doctor Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh) is abducted by Amanda (Shawnee Smith) the assistant to the terminally ill Jigsaw killer John (Tobin Bell), Lynn is forced to operate on John in order to prolong his life with the penalty of having her head blown off with shotgun shells attached to a collar around her neck if she fails. Meanwhile Jigsaw has set up yet another complex game involving a guy named Jeff (Angus Macfadyen) whose son was killed in a road accident, Jeff is given the choice to save those he blames for his sons death from Jigsaw's killer traps & in turn save his own life...
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman I have to say I really rather liked Saw III even though I didn't like the original that much, I admit right here & now that I haven't seen Saw II (2005) but I don't think it particularly matters as I don't think Saw III directly follows on from it. First of all Saw III is another one of those films where there are a couple of versions floating around, a theatrical 'R' rated cut & the obligatory Unrated version which is the one I will be basing my comments on & is apparently a good 5 or 6 minutes longer. The script by Leigh Whannell who plays Adam in the film takes itself very seriously but moves along at a nice enough pace, there are a few neat twits & turns in there with the ending being particularly effective in my humble opinion & thankfully it doesn't shortchange us in the exploitation department either with some serious gore & torture scenes which some may find disturbing or sick although from a personal point of view I can't get enough of this stuff & the gorier & more sadistic the better. There are only a few character's in the film & their pretty well fleshed out, the dialogue is OK & as a whole the story is very satisfying with some memorable scenes like the part where Judge Halden is buried alive under a river of minced up rotten pigs intestine's & flesh, I don't know how similar this is to Saw II if at all because I haven't seen it but it's different enough from the original Saw (2004) to not feel that familiar & while overall it may not be a better film I thought it was more entertaining.
Returning from Saw II director Bousman does a fine job, this has some nice colour schemes & has it's fair share of stylish moments although some of them are a little MTV-ish for my liking. This has some nice horror scenes in it with good tension, there's a nice dark atmosphere running throughout the film & of course there's some top gore in the Unrated version. People have their heads shot off, their rib cages pulled apart, people's limbs are twisted & broken complete with fractured bones bursting out of the skin, someone has huge hooks driven into their skin so they resemble something out of Hellraiser (1987), feet are bashed in & torn off, there is plenty of blood splashed around the place, there's one of the best slit throats I can remember seeing as someone uses a band-saw to slice someone's throat open, someone is shot in the neck with much spurting of blood as a result & my favourite part when Lynn graphically performs DIY brain surgery on Jigsaw using a power drill & a band-saw in a scene pretty much as explicit as they come. Most of the special effects seemed like actual on-set physical make-up effects rather than CGI which is another reason it looks so good. Saw III definitely satisfies in the gore department & for that I salute it! Just make sure you see the Unrated version although I think that's the version most commonly available pretty much everywhere.
With a supposed budget of a modest sounding $10,000,000 Saw III wasn't going to able to compete with the mega budget Hollywood stuff but the filmmakers obviously used what they had well, it's well made throughout with impressive gore effects, sets & high production values. The acting is alright from a largely unknown cast (unknown to me anyway).
Saw III is an excellent film in my opinion, it has some great gore scenes, it has some nice twists & turns & as a whole it's pretty interesting & entertaining. One of the better horror films of recent times I'd say & definitely well worth a watch for those with the stomach. Again directed by Bousman Saw IV (2007) will apparently be released latter this year around Halloween time...