14 DAY TRIAL // This Halloween brought another – the seventh and presumably last – “Saw” movie in theaters around the world. Unlike the previous installments in the once very lucrative franchise, the final one comes in “eye-popping” 3D.
“Saw 3D” means to tie up all the loose ends of the franchise, just like its producers promised fans months before release. Because of it, a stranger to the series (or even someone who’s only seen 1 or 2 of the films) will be out in the dark for most of “Saw 3D.”
Luckily (or not – it’s all a matter of perception), there’s a lot of gore and flying body parts to compensate for that.
“Saw 3D” opens with a scene from the first film, where Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes), the first survivor ever of the heinous Jigsaw, chooses life by sawing off his foot. Dr. Gordon, the viewer finds out towards the end, is instrumental in the aforementioned tying of all loose ends.
The next scene is perhaps the smartest in the entire movie, even smarter than the death traps that writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan created, which, though terrifying, seem to be lacking originality, compensating for that in terms of the damage they can inflict.
As two men are chained to two buzzing saws, they must decide whether to kill each other or choose to set themselves free by murdering the cheating woman they’ve both been dating, who hangs above a third saw.
Unlike previous Jigsaw killings, this takes place not in some abandoned derelict building but in plain view, in some sort of glass cage in an open mall. In what is the series’ most bitter – and accurate – social commentary, terrified shoppers take out their camera phones to record the gruesome choice of the two guys trapped inside.
What follows next is based on this idea presented here: audiences in the theater are the shoppers at the mall. Their voyeuristic impulse will force them to look on the killings, averting their eyes only when intestines or pieces of flesh come flying towards them – in “eye-popping” 3D.
The lesson of the film is delivered through Bobby (Sean Patrick Flanery), a man who’s made a fortune with his book “S.U.R.V.I.V.E: My Story of Overcoming Jigsaw,” in which he tells the world how he had to accept he had to physically damage himself in order to be reborn.
He’s the only one from all Jigsaw survivors (now meeting regularly in a support group) to ever make a cent off his story, even though all are singing the same tune: “I’m better off from having to go through this ordeal.” And that’s only because he’s a fraud, he’s never been trapped and tested by Jigsaw.
But all that’s about to change and he’ll (predictably) be given the chance to test how far he’d go in terms of physically harming himself to save those closest to him, in what producers have promised fans would be the last “game” ever.
Loose cannon detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), the one follower Jigsaw would have wanted out of the picture from the start, is also back but, this time, he’s out to do some wrapping up of things for himself. In other words, he wants his revenge at Jigsaw’s widow, Jill (Betsy Russell).
The Jigsaw himself also makes a brief appearance, as John (Tobin Bell) goes to an autograph signing lesson and meets Bobby. As a side note, this few-minute cameo is more eerie and unsettling than the entire series of traps devised for Bobby’s “rebirth.”
“Saw 3D” has lost all touch of humanity the previous films in the series had, and of which viewers still got a glimpse in “Saw VI.” Moral lessons are now merely excuses to show torture and gory scenes, because, clearly, there’s not a single winning situation (for the trapped one) in the entire film.
In other words, “Saw 3D” has lost the very thing that made the “Saw” franchise stand apart from the rest of all horror films: the lesson. In return, though, it offers closure to the story of one of the most prolific (dead) serial killers ever – remember that Jigsaw died in “Saw III” but he’s still been very much present ever since.
The film also offers rather bad 3D, except for those scenes in which flesh flies out towards the not-so-unsuspecting viewer. “Saw 3D” plays out as a genuine gorefest, a film that redefines the concept of torture movie.
“Saw 3D” runs for 90 minutes, and is rated R for sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture, and language. It opened in the US on October 29, and will conclude its run in New Zeeland on March 3.
