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Saw III

The original Saw sucked and there’s no way in hell you’re going to convince me otherwise. At best it had a vaguely interesting premise that was shamelessly or thinly veiled as Andrew Kevin Walker’s script for the nothing-short-of-truly-frightening Seven. It went for cheap grossness instead of lasting horror while under the sorely mistaken impression that it was psychological terror. And that twist—HOOWEE!!! I’ve gotten junk mail that left me more floored. If you own the DVD, you’re going to realize one day how truly shitty the movie is and find it surprisingly easy to part with when you can’t afford gas and start looking around the house for crap to sell.

All this aside, Saw somehow made a shitload of money considering it looked like its budget was financed through a lemonade stand. Maybe it had to do with its pre-Halloween release date or the need to alleviate some post-election depression of the time but the movie did well, thus necessitating a sequel/rehash/clone that would certainly try to replicate what little story the original had. If nothing else, the sequel proved that things can always get worse, as the series has plagued the end of every October since.

So what do the makers of the Saw movies do? Like the series is some kind of defective appliance, they smack the top if it a few times as if that’s going to get it to work. And we all know that never works. You know a movie, or more specifically a sequel, is bad when they’ve got to have pieces from the preceding installments worked into it. And there’s an excellent explanation for that.

I want you to picture some dingy, asbestos-ridden warehouse in Los Angeles somewhere. The feces of the homeless encrust its corners, a three-inch layer of soot covering everything (including the garbage can that someone rolled in from outside a week before), a family of rats has lived there for about 239 generations. In this hellhole, there are the makings for a crappy sequel with even more horrible foundations. What some producers will do to save the trouble of hiring a set designer.

There’s some college student who hasn’t slept for about 5 days editing feverishly on an outdated Mac in the corner. He has really bad coffee breath, reeks of BO and is shaking badly because he hasn’t ingested anything but Hot Pockets and caffeine for the better part of a week. Behind the camera we’ve got the producer’s cousin, who has some serious gambling debts and a bunch of grips who hope that the twiggy bitch in front of the camera finally gets her lines right because they’ve got to be at a porno shoot in less than 2 hours. I’m sure whoever’s in charge of the script has also been up for a few days as well while fighting off nosebleeds, edginess and erratic mood swings brought on by the Columbian marching powder that’s been the main staple of their diet since Friday night. And I’m guessing the director’s got his “assistant” directing after giving him the advice, “just watch the first two if you’re not sure what to do.” After all, the bath house calls.

When all’s said and done, Saw III is a letdown/assault on the senses matched only by the disappointment you feel when you finally get to see one of your favorite shows you’re never home for and it’s a repeat. Actually the repeat is better. You can recite it chapter and verse because you’ve seen it so many times, but at least you know you like it. Saw III is the kind of movie that should get a law passed – a law that will allow you beat the living shit out of someone that makes you see it because it’s that bad. If you still don’t know the kind of bad I’m talking about, see Dreamcatcher. It’s not too fair a comparison, because that was horrible. But it’s still better than Saw III.

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