Saw III

Or, as I called it for the first half hour: "A pure F." But..it got better. When I say that I like 'horror' movies, I think perhaps I leave the wrong impression. I like horror a la Poe and Lovecraft: Stuff that makes you stay awake all night just thinking about it and trying to instead think happy thoughts. I like horror like 'The Shining,' a film whose images are in my head permanently as nightmarish visions in an imaginary world. I like horror like 'The Sixth Sense,' a wonderful ghost story that scared me so much, it made me BELIEVE in ghosts, more than any other story or movie ever has. I like horror like 'The Fall of the House of Usher' because to this day, I can hear the scraping of Usher's sister's fingernails as she tried to claw herself out of her premature coffin. I like episodes of 'The X Files' that had that horror feel, when you sat there in the dark by yourself scrunched in your chair holding onto the cat for dear life because, whoa, Scully didn't yet know that monster was right behind her!

I liked the original 'Saw' film because it was very original, had a twist ending, and was genuinely stomach-churning without being overly gory. I refused to watch 'Saw II' because I had recently seen 'Hostel,' the most genuinely sick and disturbing film I have ever seen. I mean, the people who came up with that film should be the ones filling our jail cells. Sick ideas are sick ideas, fiction or not. I sincerely worry about those people. But anyway, since 'Saw II' was considered to be similar to 'Hostel,' I refused to watch. Bean thinks I took 'Hostel' entirely too seriously, as it was only a movie. But the makers got their wish: It bothered me.

So when Bean demanded that we see a scary movie for Halloween, I prayed she'd pick anything other than 'Saw III.' But, 'Saw III' it was. I literally covered my eyes for the first bit, because it was all gruesome torturous killings. I know it's all fake, but still, I don't need to see it. I have a 20+ year streak of No Nightmares, and I'd like to keep it that way. But, as the film went along, it got better.

Basically, the plot is: Jigsaw, a truly disturbed yet brilliant man, puts his victims through 'games' in which they have horrific options which will save their life, or, if they cannot follow through on the horrible tasks, they die a horrible death. All of these people have a chance to save themselves, and all of them are there because they did not 'enjoy and value' their life. So Jigsaw pondits that he never kills anyone; they kill themselves. In this latest film, we learned how the events of the first film happened, and that Jigsaw had an apprentice. And there's lots of jibber jabber about life and valuing it, and forgiving others.

Overall, it was better in the second half. But still, you've got to have a strong stomach to watch the first half, which was overdone and according to Bean, 'boring.' I think the blood and gore detracts from the real horror. That was my point in the beginning of this post: horror works for me when I have to imagine things, or when small things are the key to the scare, or when it's mostly all in my head. This film was well put-together, in the end, as it tied together all three films, and told a pretty intricate story. I just wish they'd keep the fake blood at a minumum.

Grade: C+
Original: A

In other news, 'It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' was on tonight. Ya gotta love C.B.!!

Have a great evening...