The Saw II “risk” paid out, for it struck while the iron was still scaldingly hot re: Saw, doing even more box office than its predecessor. With $152 million worldwide, it became clear to the Saw-smiths that they had a winning formula on their hands. I’m not just talking about the narrative formula guiding the movies, but the production formula. So once again they set about to create another Saw movie in under a year, to satisfy another October release date. “If it’s Halloween, it must be Saw,” the official tagline goes, and indeed a line in the sand had been drawn, a line which Saw has yet to cross to this day.
This regularized release schedule puts Saw in a special position as the only franchise of the ‘00s to function like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street in the ‘80s. That is, it is an annual franchise, with little critical love, offering up an iconic villain, ultra-violence, and consistent (some might say formulaic) elements. It’s the comfort food of the horror genre. In that sense, Saw interests me, for it follows an arguably outdated model successfully, in a world where its forebears have ceased to be prolific. For this, Saw movies, I salute you. For your mere existence.
And it’s avoided DTV in the era of DTV.
Like its disreputable ancestors, as the Saw franchise develops, the villain must inevitably become the protagonist. It’s the natural outcome of his decreased mystery, increased screen time, and the slow culling of interesting and consistent “good guys.” John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, has undergone a remarkably speedy turnaround in that sense, going from a guy seen really only in the twist ending of Saw, to a chatty Hannibal Lecter type in Saw II, to the emotional center in Saw III – of course, that’s only clear once you reach Saw III’s inevitable twist ending, a series convention which rather shackles the series. (The first 90% of all Saw movies seem to be fairly useless.)
How did we get to this state of affairs? It’s fairly unavoidable, really, as who is left on the side of law and order to carry a Saw narrative? Former lead, and consummate asshole Detective Eric Matthews (world-class vulgarian Donnie Wahlburg) is still shackled away in that filthy, filthy restroom this series cannot get enough of. Sure, he may escape his chains, without the nasty need to saw off his foot – no, Matthews takes the easy way out, and simply bashes his foot into mush with a toilet lid! Anyway, free or no, Matthews still ain’t going nowhere – at least, not until flashbacks (that other unfortunate narrative crutch) grow suddenly interested in him.
So, that simply leaves Detective Allison Kerry (Dina Meyer) as our moral through line – having been in every entry so far. She’s first seen in the standard process of investigating the latest Jigsaw-like killing. I say “like” because poor sop Troy never had a chance. Sure, maybe he could’ve freed himself of all those danged chains all throughout his body – he does manage to rend his hands, feet, tendons, abdomens, nipples, ding-dang-doodle, you name it, but his jaw remains intact – but the nearby bomb sends Troy’s viscera slopping all about anyway. (There is a notable uptick of gore in this entry, as befits Saw’s increasingly niche horror nature – though it occurs to me I watched the unrated version.) Anyway, even if Troy had completely dismantled himself, in an unabashed recreation of Hellraiser’s famous crucifixion scene, that bomb would’ve gotten him anyway. For the classroom he was trapped in (it also occurs that Jigsaw, or whomever, is wildly inconsiderate to this school’s custodial staff) was inescapable. That doesn’t seem very “Jigsaw” now, does it? Not unless his stupid sub-Joker mind games are even more ill-founded than previously assumed.
We get verification that something’s amiss soon enough, as Kerry herself is soon spirited away and placed in a visual metaphor for Christ’s death – it’s the unearned metaphoric constant of Saw III! Because unlike Troy, Kerry does satisfy the aims of this trap, scalding her hand in acid to retrieve her key. But the key doesn’t work anyway, and so our final remaining non-killer lead is swiftly dispatched. There’s something she had to get off her chest – her ribcage. (Reappear in enough horror sequels, and any non-killer’s survival rate drops to 0.)
In terms of style and surface content, Saw remains distinct from the tired slasher flicks I wish to connect it to. But this quick(ish) dispatching of all prior narrative strands (20 wasted minutes, with three gruesome tortures for the price of one!) is something you’d find in standard Jason Voorhees movie. So is the next necessary step, the introduction of never-before-seen victims, who shall be Jigsaw’s focus this time around. For while Jiggy is indeed the “hero,” he still needs sentient meat sacks to torment.
These walking future gore effects have names. One of them is Dr. Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh), who’s given the standard Saw get-it-out-of-the-way-fast ennui-riddled character introduction. This, and scant flashbacks, ostensibly ground Lynn once she’s in Jigsaw’s clutches. (As a reminder, Jigsaw = John Kramer.) Good thing too, for Lynn’s game has begun.
She awakes in Jigsaw’s latest lair, yet another abandoned warehouse at his disposal – Bond villains don’t have so much real estate! Because Saw II established Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) as Jigsaw’s apprentice (one cannot recap a Saw sequel without spoiling the prior film), she is here to torment Lynn, and also attach a “shotgun collar” around her neck. Presented with the prostrate, dying form of John Kramer (Tobin Bell), Amanda charges Lynn with keeping him alive. Indeed, should Kramer’s medical equipment flatline, those shotgun shells pointed at Lynn’s face shall proceed to tempt the MPAA. Lynn is granted a two-hour window, in which Kramer must oversee his life’s crowning test.
This test involves some schlub named Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), whom we’ve never seen before, and care not a whit for beyond basic humanity. Why is this jerk Jigsaw’s greatest test? Well, that’s where plot twists come around – Jeff’s trek is mostly just time padding.
And because the filmmakers – returning writer/producers James Wan and Leigh Whannell, and director Darren Lynn Bousmann – understand how out-of-control Saw II got with eight victims just wandering about all willy-nilly, Saw III’s central challenge is somewhat…streamlined. Jeff and Jeff alone is given a chronological path to follow, where he shall encounter three tests of such lethal nature. The first: the Path of God, only the penitent man shall pass…Wait, that’s The Last Crusade!
Rather, Jeff shall encounter in succession the three people most responsible for his son’s death by drunk driver. Jeff’s task is to either grant them life, or achieve his long-sought vengeance at their deaths. So, they’re dabbling in the realm of revenge and ethics here, but with Saw’s traditional amorality on healthy display, it’s hard to say what sort of conclusions we’re supposed to take from all this except “Dude, that sure was unpleasant and full of grue!” (There’s too much nihilism and pain in the Saws to make them pure splatter pleasantries, like the comic goodness – and gooiness – of the Evil Dead flicks.) Of course, one mustn’t form opinions of such scenarios until post-twist, so let’s just bide away the upcoming hour. Yeesh, this one long Saw!
First up is Danica Scott (Debra Lynne McCabe, and bless the Internet for possessing more info on this character – you know, like her name – than Saw III grants). She is the woman who fled the scene, weakening Jeff’s case in court. That’s a pretty damn minor offense, all things told, which makes Jeff’s hesitancy to free her from her nude freezing (Christ-like) torture all the harder to swallow. (Consider, no one in Saw handles tragedy well – Jeff is a vengeful sod, Kramer the arbiter of Dantean punishment, and Amanda…we’ll get to her.) At freaking last Jeff deigns to save this poor lady’s life, long after she’s already clearly dead – he freezes his own chubby cheek off for his trouble, to no avail. Oh well. Onward, Jeff!
We rejoin Kramer and Amanda (and Lynn), as the film slowly reveals its hand concerning the relationship between mass torturer and protégé. We relive (that is, flashback to) Kramer’s recruitment of Amanda, first seen in Saw II. This scene is the emotional underpinning around which all of Saw III ultimately revolves. Too bad it’s all a silent photoplay. Not that exposition would suffice, but actually devoting time to their agreement, and Amanda’s unclear mental torments, would really help things.
But no time for that now! Jeff’s just discovered Door # 2. (Man, it’s like a game show, but with torture – that is, a Japanese game show!) And contestant # 2 is Judge Halden (Barry Flatman – there’s a good summary of acting skills), that man who gave the drunken killer a light sentence. He’s bound in a pit, in the film’s least messianic set piece, while rotted pig carcasses are systematically liquefied above him. Drowning in pork goo – Jigsaw assures us it’s an ironic punishment, which I don’t quite see…Someone needs to revisit his “Divine Comedy.” And for as brazenly gross as pureed porcine pulp is, it comes across like an old Nickelodeon show – you know, the ones with Slime™ or Ooze™ or Goop™ or Sludge™ or Ism™ or whatever.
All Jeff has to do to save this guy is burn some of his son’s old bric-a-brac. It takes him an incredibly long time to do this, because Saw characters live in a heightened sense of angst, but in the end Jeff does save the Judge – because we’ve already had our pig gore, and drowning won’t add much to the film’s essential ick factor.
In fact, the ickiest scene yet doesn’t even involve a casualty. Rather, it is Lynn’s semi-anesthetized operation on Kramer’s brain. Oh yes. See, Kramer’s particular form of cancer necessitates surgery by means of grossness – that is, part of his skull must be removed! And with no proper surgical tools to speak of. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout! Off goes the scalp – ker-splttckksht! In goes the drill – bzzzzzspckkk! Buzz goes the circular saw – whuzzzzzlesquick! And for good measure, let’s remove a little brain film too – ker-thwuqckle! (All this is accomplished with long, loving close-ups, the one time a Saw movie abandons its precious ADD editing scheme – it is the height of torture pornography, in my mind.)
Kramer stabilizes, which is conveyed by – yup! – flashback. Take a shot. We get some vague sense of some former wife, which I’m sure won’t matter until a sequel. Kramer reaches out and says “I love you.” Amanda, whose mental and emotional equilibrium is as wonky as anyone’s, believes Kramer is addressing Lynn. Cue the envy, at a scale even Medea would envy – and I mean Euripedes, not Tyler Perry.
Amanda is in an emotional state, meaning – flashback! We see her aiding Kramer in restroom preparation – they just can’t leave that restroom alone, can they? This lengthy scene is meant to patch whatever plot holes remained in 2004’s Saw, whatever Saw II wasn’t able to resolve. Such nitpickery rather misses the forest for the trees. For when your series is self-perpetuating, isn’t it easier to let the fanboys discover your latest errors, then fix ‘em next year? Sure beats coherent storytelling the first time around!
Jeff has reached his final challenge, and oh yeah, that’s not Christ imagery! This is Timothy Young (Mpho Koaho) – another Young?! – the actual killer of Jeff’s son. Man, seeing the victims only in torture contexts sure dehumanizes, don’t it? Tim is on “the rack,” which twists his arms, one-by-one, then his feet, then his neck. I am now officially desensitized. The literal key to Tim’s salvation lies wired to a shotgun – it’s meant for Jeff to take a gunshot in its retrieval. Jeff manages to MacGuyver a way around this little detail – when he at last decides saving a human’s life might be “good” – only the ensuing shotgun blast misses Jeff entirely, and rather blows off the Judge’s face. Whoopsie! Oh, and Tim is also dead.
SPOILER!
SPOILER!
SPOILER!
Yes, we’ve reached that stage in the game, where important things start happening. Kramer announces the game is over, that Lynn may be freed. Amanda refuses to do this, so keen for her blood is she. The first, obvious twist – the one we were probably meant to work out – comes up, as Kramer outright accuses Amanda of making unwinnable traps. Seriously, how’d he know?! He’s been bedridden, with Amanda his only contact with the outside world! (Who cares, Saw IV will probably solve that one.)
Kramer runs through his standard “I don’t condone murder” routine – if I lay a landmine, it isn’t murder, apparently. This makes Amanda very emotional – flashback! Matthews is back, in a scene we really ought to have seen early on, but they were saving it for the twist. He stumbles through the tunnels, fights Amanda…It goes on for a while, but the gist is she tried to kill him. Kramer explains he “fixed things up” – an unseen “fix” that again I’m sure Saw IV will work out.
“This is your last chance, Amanda,” Kramer informs her. You see, this is Amanda’s test, to teach her what she didn’t learn by undergoing Kramer’s Saw I torture – meaning…his whole underlying principle is erroneous. Amanda is to learn that killing is “bad” – I can see why she’s confused. No matter, Amanda fails; she blows Lynn to kingdom come.
Here comes the next mini-twist (they dribble forth so steadily, they’re uncountable): Jeff was Lynn’s husband…not much of a surprise, if you have access to the cast list. He’s here now, and he shoots Amanda through the neck – because Jeff’s been slowly amassing a gun throughout his quest, I should mention. So now Amanda’s dead. “Game over.”
We ain’t over yet! Kramer feels like testing Jeff a little more, for the lulz. He explains that Jeff can save his wife’s life by sparing Kramer. Jeff doesn’t understand the shotgun collar situation, so he instead slits Kramer’s throat with a buzz saw. And Lynn explodes.
Kramer plays one final tape – he buys these things in bulk. It explains how Jeff failed. As punishment, he won’t learn where his daughter is shackled – oh right, Jeff has a daughter too, whom Kramer is now murdering as part of his “no murdering” crusade. And Jeff is sealed off automatically, because every Saw must end with a guy getting sealed in a tomb. It’s the sort of dangling plot thread Wan loves!
Right, so what the hell was all that about?! An incredibly roundabout way of testing Amanda’s desire to kill – why she wants to kill remains kinda unclear. And somehow, the bedridden Kramer was able to set up his most complicated game ever all on his own (I mean, the rack) without Amanda knowing. (Yeah, yeah, Saw IV ‘ll fit it…) I agree with some other reviewers, that for Saw III to have any lasting emotional resonance, the whole Kramer/Amanda thing needs more than the final 8 minutes to play out. Instead, the Almighty Plot Twist keeps this series shackled to formula – even while it dutifully strives to escape the formula of other horror franchises. Such is the sad fact of franchising in general.
Saw (the series) gets credit for having greater narrative ambition than nearly any other modern horror franchise (especially Friday the 13th). It ultimately doesn’t achieve its aims – a hyper-complex mythology of relative morality and ethics built around extreme savagery – but it’s trying. Saw III even has all the earmarks of a worthwhile Part Three. Left as it is, dangling plot holes and all, Saw III feels like a resolution to much of what’s been set up – indeed, viewing Amanda and Kramer as our leads, this horror series has an actual arc. Indeed, it’s a trilogy!
Naturally, more Saws somewhat invalidate that trilogy label, but still, this is a committed horror narrative. It killed its villain, tied up its themes (a horror franchise with themes?!), and suggested a closure that most sequel-obsessed franchises never dabble in. This does not threaten the possibility of follow-ups (as we in the future are all too aware), but that is a monetary decision more than anything. Saw III does pretty much exactly what it needed to do, works on the level staked out by this franchise, and even makes the mistakes that are thus unavoidable. Like the Saw films or no – and my problems have to do with their construction more than the decorative question of violence – but they do occupy a necessary niche in the horror realm.
Related posts:
• No. 1 Saw (2004)
• No. 2 Saw II (2005)
• No. 4 Saw IV (2007)
• No. 5 Saw V (2008)
• No. 6 Saw VI (2009)
• No. 7 Saw 3D (2010)
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