Saw 3D: The (Bullshit) Chapter (2010)

Once upon a time, Saw (2004) was a movie. A movie on the forefront of a new wave in horror. A movie that knew how to build to terrible, fantastic scenarios with rewarding moral implications and a knock-you-down twist. A movie that challenged your heart and your mind, in addition to your stomach. Now… it’s a torture-porn piece of shit with the tact of a masochistic teenage boy and the skill of a dog chained to a typewriter.

There have been seven of these films. Seven. Seven films in seven years, and over that time the once pseudo-creative story has devolved into a series of grotesque puzzle sequences, the story itself eroding as it’s cycled and transferred from tape to tape to tape. In this SEVENTH and hopefully final installment, the folks over at Twisted Pictures tried to spruce things up with a 3D shine. But here’s the thing about 3D – it looks like crap. Even James Cameron can’t make this gimmick look like much more than a really vivid video game. So the dirt and scum and grime that establish the world of Saw now take on the visual quality of a Kurt Cobain coloring book.

But hey, at least now you can almost feel those guts slapping you in the face as you watch one after another after another boring cardboard victim get tortured, severed, and gutted in immersive, invasive cinema-gluttony . Sounds like fun, right? That’s what you came for? If so, congratulations! Saw 3D will totally reward your quest for needless gore. It’ll even throw in some cliché cop story seasoning (maybe even the same dead body trick?), with Tobin Bell’s secret vocal sauce. But here’s the real secret – you could have saved the $12+ and just watched the old flicks at home. You wouldn’t get to wear the 3D glasses, but at least you wouldn’t have to pay good money to see the same things you’ve already seen before. Isn’t it better to just have Netflix ship you the DVDs so you can satisfy your cravings at home, for (nearly) free?

If the people behind this movie had any creative instincts at all, they would have set it in a movie theater with tortured moviegoers who came to see other people get tortured in a movie called ChainSaw: The Jigsaw Chronicles. Now that would have been a real statement on society (and possible a Scream 2 ripoff, but we could just call that an homage).

I suggested this to a friend of mine the other night. “It’s not real, man” he replied. No, but the money we spend to watch it is. Thankfully, this iteration of Saw only (only) took $22.5 million of our dollars this past weekend, the 2nd worst weekend opening in the series of sequels, and a number even more worrisome when you consider the 3D-inflated pricing. Meanwhile Paranormal Activity 2 took in almost twice that, which is nice not only because it’s twice the movie (which isn’t saying much), but because it’s twice the fun, and hopefully a strong sign of things to come.

That's the thing - horror movies used to be fun. Being scared is fun. Watching the over-the-top glorification of mutilation really shouldn’t be. But now I’m preaching. And I enjoyed The A-Team, so who am I to talk?