Saw III movie review analysis - Saw 3 trumps Hostel for gore

Before I start, this movie is for “true’ horror fans only. It’s for people that like really freaky movies that make you cringe and want to look away at parts.

I just got home after watching the late night premiere of Saw III and although I’m usually absolutely bursting with things to say when I get finished with a film, this one left me disturbingly quiet. Wow, what a f**ked up horror movie and I mean that in a good way. I tried to check out the reviews before I went, but wasn’t able to because the movie wasn’t pre-screened for critics.

They definitely didn’t go soft in this finale, in fact it’s probably the goriest horror movie I’ve ever seen. The torture devices are more elaborate then ever with scenes that even surpass recent movies like Hostel; incidentally the frightening teaser trailer for Hostel 2 played in the previews for Saw III.

All three of the Saw movies exploit the following question - How far would you go to save your own life? To me this is really a great question to play with in a horror movie and allows for absolutely terrifying situations.

The Saw movies comment on the will to survive, despite any and I mean any circumstances. I personally enjoy the suspense play on mechanical terror, the deathtraps are cold and unrelenting, they can’t be reasoned with or attacked. You have to solve them or die. It’s a welcome change from an almost infinite string of “slasher wearing a scary mask” films like Halloween , Scream, and Fiday the 13th. Although SAW 3 even manages to throw a little bit of that into the mix with the victim kidnappings.

The plot in this Saw installment is surprising simple and a bit different then in earlier movies. Jigsaw is back with his accomplice. He is dying so the Amanda, his accomplish brings him this emergency doctor to keep him alive and “play a game”. While he’s clinging on to life, they watch a group of people inside one of Jigsaws master death houses similiar to the one in Saw 2, but a lot more elaborate. All the characters are “fighting to stay alive”. This time the Saw installment is mostly void of any detective or cop subplots, so there are no characters with an outside perspective. Everyone in the movie is directly in the game. You have the players, the doctor, jigsaw, his apprentice Amanda, and a whole bunch of flashbacks.

Saw III effectively brings your worst torture nightmares to life, making for a bunch of great “jump” and “turn away” scenes. It successfully manages to link the violent scenes together with an interesting enough story to not just become a “sick out movie” without a point.

While the previous two films spend most of their screen time in the trap or with the detectives, this one spends an amble amount of time directly with jigsaw to explains a lot of the back stories to his mechanical death traps. A series of “Lost” style flash backs give character information and develop subtitles with all the twists you can all be expecting.

Every Saw movie thus far has ended in a twist and this one doesn’t disappoint.
Although this time, the ending comes off as a bit forced. AThere are also more jumps between stories and characters and you spend less time in a single story to build up enough empathy to relate. This results in the feeling that you’re watching the characters through one of jigsaws cameras as opposed to the personal empathy you get by spending more time with a single set of characters like in Saw I. Although this may be the movies greatest downfall, it’s still interesting and brings new life to the Saw series. The only character that was written especially badly in this installament is Amanda, she makes absolutley no sense , and fails to be frightening or believably crazy. Luckily there is enough suspense and action that you don’t need to pay much attention to her character’s personal drama for the movie to work for you.

For whatever reasons, the majority of critics have given bad marks to the Saw movies. None of the three installments ever rated above 50 pecent on the Rottentomatoes (a webstie that compares critic ratings) fresh meter. Gernerally the more disturbing, and the more “scary” a horror movie is, the less the critics will like it. Rob Zombie for example makes very well made low budget horror movies (especially check out The Devils Rejects), but he’s always greeted with mixed or low reviews. Most of the critics that “hate” him still recognize his filmmaking talents, so I believe there just is a smaller portion of the populous who really enjoys being “scared” or “creeped out” by movies in the ’slasher’ or ‘gore’ style genre.

I believe the Saw movies deserve critical acclaim because of their effective use of mechanical torture to build suspense and frighten the audience. The highly stylized sets and theme (everything takes place in these warehouses with scary contraptions at all turns) with it’s relience on mechanical death devides is pretty unqiue for the slasher genere and this movie succeeds in producing an adrenaline. In a sea of “escapted lunitic mask wearing killer movies”, this series sets itself apart with a unique theme, unpredicatble endings, and some of goriest, most shocking horror scenes I’ve ever seen.

Movies that cause ongoing trends and change pop culture get ‘re-rated” in retrospection, even slasher films. Halloween 1 now has a perfect score on rotten tomatoes. YEAH perfect!!!! It was the orginal “lunitic in a white mask slasher film”. Upon it’s initial release it was greeted with both positive and negative reviews, but now on DVD 25 years later, all the reviews are perfect, why? Because it became the most successful independent horror movie every created spawning countless clones. It’s a film more imitated in pop culture than Starwars.

Although not quit in the same way as Halloween, I believe Saw had and will continue to influence the slasher genere. Just look at Saw I, a movie made with 1.2 million (shot in only 18 days) with a gross of over 40 million, making it one of the most successfull modern indie horror movies. I think the Saw series is just too gorey and intense for the critics right now, but later on will be “re-rated” in retrospection.

So go watch Saw III this year for Halloween and be prepared to look away from the screen several times.

Note: The offical name of the movie is “Saw” followed by three capital I’s (III), but most people search for it as “Saw 3″
Resources:

Wikipedia on Saw III (3)

Rotten Tomatoes on Saw III (3)

Official Movie Website

IMDb on Saw III (2006)

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