Saw 3

I don't want to like the Saw trilogy. Really, I don't.

I avoided the original Saw like someone else's kid with the flu for months, before Mrs. Film Geek talked me into seeing it. She knows I despise torture porn, and that I keep my eyes closed during those kind of flicks more than I have them open.

Sure, I'm a wuss. But that has little to do with it. I have a personal theory that films like Hostel, for example, are made for a core audience whose personality traits are similar to the kind demonstrated by the fictional characters portrayed in that film.

Sick bastards that get off on seeing other humans tortured, in misery and pain, and then killed.

In agonizing, undignified and dramatic fashion.


"Saw's not like the other torture films,' she said, 'it's really more a psychological thriller than a torture movie." She can stand some gore if the movie is intricate and thrilling.

I trust her. So, I watched the original.

I liked it. It was smart, pretty unique and contained much less torture than I expected. (I only closed by eyes ten or twelve times, for brief seconds each.) Sure, Jigsaw was a psychopath, but one who thought he was doing his victims a favor. Helping them experience their lives more fully. And, I admit, the movie's Lost-like way of slowly exposing connections between the characters was appealing. So on the basis of that experience, I also watched Saw 2.


It was freakin' torture porn!

Even that deviant Mrs. Film Geek thought so.


I had poor expectations last evening, then, when I popped in Saw 3 for the rubber match. Round 1 was won by Saw, with Round 2 clearly going my way. This third and final round will determine the winner and World Champion!

(Sorry. I became lost in some type of sports cliche and couldn't get out.)

Saw 3 finds Jigsaw and his apprentice Amanda doing what they do, kidnapping people who have become bored with life or who live an emotionless existance. People who have shut down after experiencing a traumatic event, or who have caused tragedy in the lives of others and wish for redemption.

The characters are dramatic exaggerations of you and me, really. People who struggle--sometimes daily--to find meaning in their existence. Something that validates who we are as people, as family members, as members of society and as humans. People who haven't felt that spark-of-whatever-it-is-that-revives-us for far too long.

Saw 3 is loaded up with these sort of characters.

The movie is highly stylized, especially when compared to the first two. It has a darker theme than the others, with characters working through the tragic death of a young child and the marital troubles that were the result. The movie's color scheme has a darkness to it--lots of dull blues, and greys--that help reflect the feel it's going for. Jigsaw remains a psychopath, although one who continues to remain true to the rules of the games he creates. And that's not the case with his apprentice, Amanda.

A psychopathic killer can't get good help these days!


As intricate and well developed as Saw 3 is, it's violence and torture is much more graphic than in the original. And, some of it was just unnecessary to the plot.


Clever it was. But, clever torture porn. I win Round 3.