Sawn Again

Saw was an unexpected hit. Supremely tense, menacing, nasty and twisty – yet with an unusual moral centre – it defied its low budget to deliver some big, unexpected punches and leave audiences everywhere shuddering.

Then came the inevitable rushed sequel that, while still delivering that warped morality – the deadly games Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) sets his victims are based on ironic justice, where the punishment may exceed the crime but remains oddly fitting – decided to replace tension with gore. It was effective enough, but the holes were starting to show.

Now episode III – a second rushed sequel – appears. And it’s pretty much all hole. Well, once you’ve wiped away the nasty bits because Saw III out gores the others by a viscera-flecked mile. However, this time they seem to have forgotten all about tension and plot and characterisation and just gone straight for blood. And brains. And all sorts of other messy internal bits. It may be cruelly inventive with that fine, almost Jacobean sense of justice, but this still resembles an animated butcher’s dustbin.

The only interesting development is that this time, Jigsaw – finally bed-ridden and on his last legs – has his apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith) pulling the strings. They rope in – almost literally – a brain surgeon (Bahar Soomekh) to keep Jigsaw alive for as long as it takes their other victim Jeff (Angus MacFadyen) to complete his “game”. Assuming, of course, that having the choice of life over highly gruesome, creative death for the three people Jeff blames for the death of his son is a game.

The results are nauseating yet strangely compelling. However, once you’ve scraped away the effects, you’re left with nothing. The worse news though? Saw IV starts filming in a couple of months…