Where Do The "Saw" Movies Go From Here?

Rating: 2/10 (13 June 2007)

The new horror chiller "Saw III" wraps up the bone-grinding, blood-sodden, Grand Guignol torture trilogy with an unimaginative, convoluted ending that suggests mankind prefers to kill rather than forgive each other for their crimes. The original "Saw" (2004) qualified as a provocative but unsavory white-knuckled exercise in surprise, suspense, and sadism that established new standards for fright films. Its clever but lackluster sequel "Saw II" (2005) degenerated into a stylistic but repetitious drill in suspense and sadism with more sophisticated deathtraps minus the visceral quality of its brilliant predecessor. "Saw III" sinks far lower than "Saw II" in its pretentious commentary about mankind's murderous penchant for mayhem. The latest installment literally scrapes the bottom of the barrel in a slaughterhouse of stellar special effects that don't so much frighten as sicken. Mind you, if the sight of a man trapped at the bottom of a giant vat as the ground-up, liquidified remains of maggot-infested pigs nearly drowns him strikes you as amusing, then you'll crave this obnoxious, nihilistic, below-average sequel. Unhappily, those who demand interesting characters and/or victims, intriguing plot twists and turns, and an ending that delivers a slam-bang, up-beat send-off will condemn "Saw III" as both predictable and pedestrian. Worse, if you missed the first two "Saw" movies, a lot of the storyline—several flashbacks about the first two films—may strike you as incomprehensible.
Scenarists Leigh Whannell and James Wan, who co-scripted "Saw," have written an elaborate morality tale about the futility of revenge. Not only is the notorious Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) playing lethal games with a fresh batch of hapless victims but also he is testing his homicidal apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith of TV's "Becker") who wants to carry on his serial slaughtering ways. The plot whirls on where "Saw II" shut off. Ex-junkie Amanda dons a dead pig's head and kidnaps all the cops from the first sequel and sticks them in various bondage contraptions designed to kill them. Again, if you skipped the first two "Saw" sagas, most of these early scenes will baffle you. Of course, coherence and credibility aren't important where most horror movies are concerned. Horror movies are designed to make you scream, and the torture devices that Amanda claps these poor slobs into will make you shutter at her callous disregard for life. For example, the corrupt, evidence-planting "Saw II" cop finds himself shackled by the leg and left to die in the same grungy toilet from the first movie. Instead of cutting off his ankle with a rusty hacksaw, he smashes his foot so thoroughly that he can slip the mangled remains out of the shackle. Afterward, things get progressively worse or, depending on your repressed sadomasochistic tendencies, progressively better.
In "Saw II," the anti-heroic Jigsaw was in bad shape as a result of his inoperable cancer. In "Saw III," he spends the entire movie on his death bed and suffers from horrible headaches. He dispatches Amanda to kidnap an emergency room surgeon, Lynn (Bahar Soomekh of "Mission Impossible 3"), to relieve his headaches by boring holes into his skull. Mind you, it isn't important that anybody could survive this kind of surgery and still be as fiendishly clear-minded as Jigsaw is. Of course, poor Lynn finds herself in the unenviable position of performing surgery with a steel collar encircling her neck. Amanda has designed Lynn's noxious necklace of sorts and equipped it with firing mechanisms loaded with .12 gauge shotgun shells. If Lynn errs during her operation on Jigsaw, the killer's life-support systems will trigger those devices, blowing the surgeon's brains to bits. Meanwhile, Amanda has abducted another unfortunate character, Jeff (Angus Macfayden of "Braveheart"), who has been suffering ever since a motorist killed his son. Jeff has neither recovered from his grief over his son's accidental death nor his contempt for a legal system that let his son's killer off with a light sentence. None of the unredeemable characters in "Saw III" learn the lesson that it is better to forgive and forget rather than destroy.
The violence is "Saw III" surpasses anything from the earlier "Saw" movies. In fact, it makes "Hostel" look like child's play. Unlike "Hostel," however, nobody survives "Saw III." Sophomore director Darren Lynn Bousman, who helmed "Saw II," and Kevin Greutert, the editor on all three "Saw" films, display their technical mastery for staging brutal scenes and condensing details. Indeed, "Saw III" benefits from top-notch production values and superb visual blood and gore effects. Although it is a malevolent, raw-edged crime/ horror thriller with virtually no redeeming thematic value, the filmmakers have done a brilliant job of showing us some frankly far-fetched stuff. The scene where Lynn removes a chunk of Jigsaw's cranium with power tools stolen straight out of Bob Villa's home repair workshop is an assault on both the eyes and the ears.
Ironically, the people who wrote and directed this devastatingly mean-spirited melodrama appear to have carved themselves into a corner. Although they were able to create a sequel to the original film and its initial sequel, the chances of a sequel to "Saw III" look pretty remote. The "Saw" movies have never been about the supernatural thrills and chills, like either the "Friday the 13th" or "Halloween" flicks, so it will be interesting to see how they will contrive "Saw IV?"