So I'm "watching" Saw III right now. "Watching", as in, barely able to even pay attention to for longer than 5 seconds, so I look up at the screen every so often just waiting for it to end.I'd somehow forced myself to sit through the first two films - the first because there were certain people saying it was great (in retrospect, insane people, but people nonetheless), and the second because I was told by other people that it was way better than the first film (also, in retrospect, totally fucking insane people).
I just... these are the silliest, stupidest, worst-acted, least scary bunch of crapfests I've witnessed in some time. The first film... ooh boy, the first film. It made me want to never see Cary Elwes' face again for as long as I live, and that's coming from someone who once upon a time dreamt of being the Princess Buttercup to his Wesley. Oh Wesley. No, no more Wesley! Wesley is dead to me!
The second was, for whatever slight praise this is worth, a wee bit better than the first; at moments it managed to almost find the wicked sort of fun with its gruesome subject that the Final Destination films manage with ease. Like, sure, there is a sort of deeply-horrible dark humor in making an ex-junkie have to leap into a vat of syringes to dig out a key. And there were some nifty traps set in that house. But the movie was shot with the grace of a 9 year old who just got his first boner.
And now... yes, now, as I type this rambling screed out in order to avoid watching this complete and utter waste of my time playing on the television screen in front of me, but feel some sort of insane duty to see through until the end (but this is it, Saw franchise people! I know you expect to keep making these every year until our brains crawl out of our ears and fly away in disgust with us all)... well now I am just befuddled at the popularity of these flicks. Like, The Descent can hardly get a release, but Saws are on every screen in America and making enormous profits. Jesus Christ. Shame, people. SHAME.
I mean, there's just no point to these things. They're not fun. They're not well-shot or even compentently acted. They have brief spurts of sick imagination - which I can usually appreciate; I do so love the Final Destination movies - that they do nothing with and always end in some edited-to-hell series of shots that completely kill any sense of tension or horror. It's ugliness in an echo chamber. It's Babel with razor blades.
--- Grade: F
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3 comments:
teehee. My theory with horror film franchises such as this, is that unless they have a sense of fun to them, it's just silly. Like, the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies are silly and ridiculous but they're fun and less heavy and not just gruesomegrossmurders. Like, after a while it just gets too much and I don't want to keep watching. Like, if the Hostel movies are just the exact same every time...?
It sort of worries me that people are going to these movies every year. They don't provide scares, just people bleeding lots.
Like, I'm worried this morning that I was being a ninny. That I'm a wimp or something for finding these movies so offensive. But, it's not the gore that bothers me - hello, love some good gore - but it's the way it's used and the way they get these things across. Like you said, Glenn, there's no fun here, there's just ugliness on top of ugliness, with no point to it. There's no talent behind building these things up, there are no ideas that they're trying to work through (which you and I disagree about Hostel trying to do). There's just badly shot, badly executed snuff. Wham bam. Empty.
Friday last week I read in the paper a list of the top ten horror movies, in a poll of six thousand or so English folk. One thing that really pissed me off - the only horror movie on the list from the 00's was Saw.
Now, I do think that most horrors this decade are made by idiots with no love or respect for the genre and think it's just a money ticket that doesn't require any skill to make. That's not to say there haven't been some fantastic stuff lately, but the majority of it does suck IMO.
But Saw? Okay, the traps are cool. The creative gore is cool. But really, the traps are all it is, wrapped in your standard mind screw plot, with a supposed message to society for good measure. Not that the message has any depth or true insight, mind you. It's just there, and it's not even played out very well. But traps + mind screw? Oh, that has to be the best horror made this decade, of course.
And it's extra annoying, because the three others from this decade that I would have thought might have made it onto the list and been much more deserving are both British - 28 Days Later, Shaun Of The Dead, and The Descent, since it's supposed to be bigger over there than it is in the US. The guy who made Saw is actually from my city, too, which is only making me pissed off at us for unleashing him upon the world.
Also, I totally agree with Kamikaze Camel, really really horrible gore and torture should be done so it's almost horror comedy if not outright. A bucket of blood and guts isn't scary, it's just gross, so make it a fun kind of gross.
Sorry about such a gigantic rant, the overratedness of Saw really pisses me off, especially since now it's often the kind of thing people who abhor the genre without having seen much of it are thinking of when someone says "horror movie."
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