Saw (the film/s not game) Spoilers!

I know it’s a shocker that this post isn’t going to be about a game but just bare with me.

First off, my favourite is the 3rd film. I might just explain why.

I recently watched the 3rd, 4th and 5th Saw films and I can see why some people might be getting angry at the series; they are starting to suck. I haven’t seen Saw 1 and 2 in a while but remembered them well enough to not feel the need to watch them back (people die in crazy ways, Tobin Bell shows us his ‘monstrous grandpa’ act and we all scream at the bucketfuls of blood that spread all over the floor, while admiring the story – a little). For those of us that are a little fuzzy = Saw 1 = Amanda with the jaw trap, Adam and Lawrence in the bathroom, not that much action in retrospect. Saw 2 = a group of people die, Amanda gets thrown into a pit of needles, crazy black guy with a number on the back of his neck? Meh, never mind. The basic gist is EVERYONE DIES!

So, I jump into Saw 3 ready to be uncharacteristicly squeamish about the violence (but secretly thinking it won’t make me hide half my face behind a dressing gown cos’ I’m tough … and stuff), dude, I was so wrong. A great thing about the Saw films are the fact that there isn’t really any time difference between the films – they flow continuously. Right at the beginning ERIC MATTHEWS – bathroom guy – breaks his foot with a toilet cistern lid and, I kid you not, I oh’d so loudly when I realised what he was going to do. By ‘oh’d’ I mean like “oh my God what are you doing?!?!?! … No! … No you put that toilet lid down! Dude! Seriously! Oh *&£$ he hit his foot!!!! He keeps doing it!!!” But that is the great thing! The film bashes you in the face with some violence which sobers you up and makes you wanting to know what the other traps will be, and boy, do they deliver! Like, express delivery, right to your doorstep… the same day. There is a double whammy of traps that really get the guts going and the ghost limb type feeling where something is so bad it feels like you’re hurting to. Like seeing a guy get kicked in the nether regions.

The first is this guy, TROY, who’s got chains IN his skin -  2 in his shoulders, 2 in lower arms, 2 in back,  in each ankle and the worst one, in his jaw – he has to PULL THEM OUT in order to escape the room from the bomb, but wait, it isn’t that simple; it doesn’t matter what the guy does, he won’t be able to escape because the door is welded shut (which means he could have saved himself a whole lotta pain by sitting nicely in his chair and waited to die. This isn’t Jigsaw’s method, I hear some of you whisper. No, it isn’t. That means it wasn’t Jigsaw who set up the trap… Well, it kinda was. He told Amanda to set it up but didn’t say to weld the door shut because, as we all know, Jigsaw wants people to fight for their life and choose whether to live or die, if they choose life, they go free and “rehabilitated”.

The second and more brutal trap, in my opinion, is tested by DETECTIVE KERRY. She is suspended in the air by a harness attached to her ribs. After the timer is depleted, the trap would spring back away from Kerry, along with her ribs. She is given a beaker of acid with the key to the lock of the mechanism inside but must act quick, as the acid corrodes the key. After 2 noble attempts at plunging her hand into the acid she retrieves the key, undoes the lock … but can’t get free. Not until the other police officer’s find her later on with no ribs. After awhile we meet a Doctor Lynn and Jeff, the first is basically depressed and SPOILER is having an affair behind her husband Jeff’s back and the latter is still grieving over the killing of his 8 year old son who was killed by a drunk driver  .

Over the course of the film we see Doctor Lynn forced to help Jigsaw who is close to death by attempting a procedure involving a mini circular saw and a power drill with an exploding collar on. The fact that if Jigsaw – or John’s – heart monitor stops, the doctor ladies face will be blown to smithereens, meaning if he dies, she dies, is a very clever technique in building tension when the lady is cutting open John’s head, as well as when he has his fits.

Usually in the Saw films we don’t really want people to die but that theory is tested when we see Jeff faced with 3 people who all had a hand in his son’s murder not getting the full treatment it should have, shall we say. The first is a strung up naked lady who was theonly witness to the drunk driver accident. Jeff has to choose whether or not to retrieve the key behind the freezing pipes and free her, or let her freeze to death by the ice cold water that she is sprayed with. Jeff is not the quickest guy on the block because by the time he decides to help her, she’s already frozen solid. Talk about bullet nip on… Anyway. The second guy Jeff meets is the judge that let the drunk driver go after only 6 months of prison. This trap is certainly not for the faint hearted, or any vegetarians. The judge is strapped to the bottom of a pit which is filled with LIQUEFIED PIG  CORPSES – pigs in blender. I was going to insert a picture but I thought it’s probably best not to. At the last second Jeff decides to incinerate his sons toys to get the key to free the judge. The last guy is probably in the most uncomfortable positions I’ve ever seen. This trap twists his

arms, legs and NECK around 360 degrees until they snap. To save him, Jeff must get the key attached to the trigger of a shotgun.

Thing is, the guy in the trap is the drunk driver. At this point I was like “ooooh! Jeff, mate, are you gonna let him die?? He did kill your son so I guess it’s kinda fair???”. With the tension building, Jeff tried to grab the key whilst not being shot in the face but time is running out for the drunk driver. Through shear accident – or luck – the shotgun goes off but doesn’t hit Jeff … it hits and kills thejudge. With key in hand Jeff goes to help the driver, but is too late  nevertheless Jeff moves on, finds his wife with a gun shot wound to her body after Amanda flips out and shoots her. Jeff busts into the room and shoots Amanda in the neck. This is when the audience finally understands how everything is connected. Until the next film when some more shit hits the fan.

Basically, SPOILER Jigsaw wasn’t really testing Jeff and the doctor lady, he was testing Amanda. His test was whether Amanda had the will to keep the doctor alive. Amanda then dies and Jigsaw has one last test: Jeff can either choose to kill Jigsaw or forgive him for the pain he has caused. The revenge-driven Jeff makes the dumbass choice why taking a circular saw to Jigsaw’s throat and in turn blowing his wife’s head to lots of tiny pieces. Of course, Jigsaw knew this and made Jeff a nice little tape recording saying he was the only person who knew where Jeff’s daughter was and the door of the room slams shut, leaving Jeff alone with the bodies.

… … Wow. I didn’t realise I would write so much so Imma summarize my thoughts on the next 2 films: 4 was ok but not as good as 3 – Lieutenant Rigg’s was kinda annoying (shoot her hair ya idiot rather than the machine! Jeez…) plus I don’t like Hoffman (he’s an evil looking asshole) and Peter Strahm is just … too cocky and masculine for my liking. I didn’t care if he died. The 5th film SUCKED ASS! I knew who the accomplice was the whole time and I don’t like him – Hoffman – and Strahm took his sweet time going through all the places where people had died rather than finding out who was in the process of being killed. I was just waiting for Strahm to hurry the £*&% up and nab Hoffman to save time. Although the end where SPOILER Strahm should have got in the box but instead pushed Hoffman in and so died was pretty good. But that was it!

The Saw films are known for their violence and that’s why I prefer the later films rather than the first 2. I know by now that there are going to be a few plot twists and I know loadsa people are gonna die so the intrigue isn’t quite there any more as it was with the first films but  I like them anyway. I tried watching the first film again; got 36 minutes in and stopped. Nobody had really been hurt.

Overall I like a lotta violence with some level of story behind it and a lot of Tobin Bell so the first films don’t really do it for me any more.

One question that has been bugging me though, and maybe some of  you can help me out with this, is

Do you want to play a game?