More disgusting than involving

Rating: 6/10 (28 March 2007)

A whimpering middle-aged man pulls against the chain around his leg that keeps him tied to the wall. Using his shoe, he desperately struggles to reach a torch inches out of his reach to shed some light on his situation. He reels it in, and we find ourselves looking at the remains of previous instalments of this horror trilogy; the hacksaw, a dead body, and of course, a severed ankle. Our whimpering middle-aged man looks at the ankle, at his chains, at his own ankle, and then his eyes rest upon the saw and I remember thinking "No. Not again. Not again." Not again indeed. He spies a concrete slab on the ground. After a period of consideration (which is clearly not long enough), he proceeds to crush his ankle, before twisting it out of the manacle with his bare hands. And to think I was relieved.
Saw III throws you in the deep end. After a few more woefully graphic set-pieces (including a rather nasty ribcage removing machine), it calms down a bit to reveal a plot. Amanda (Shawnee Smith) kidnaps a nurse (Bahar Soomekh) in an attempt to prolong Jigsaw's (Tobin Bell) life, while simultaneously putting vengeful father Jeff (Angus Macfayden) through a series of grim trials, and while these plot lines are fairly detailed, you're given the impression that the plot and the actors only exist as an excuse for the writers to show the grotesque scenes that characterise the Saw trilogy.
These moments crop up very often and are done very effectively. The quick cuts and close-ups reduce the audience to hiding behind their hands or wincing in a state of perpetual nervous discomfort, but they are thankfully well spaced out, allowing you some recovery time in between the film's more painful moments.
However, they're more shocking than scary, and that's where this film falls flat. While the first film had the ability to shock and surprise you, the third appears to have given up on scares and just focuses on the repulsive. While Saw III is certainly good at what it does, in light of its predecessors what it does doesn't seem to be enough.