Saw 3 & Saw 5 (2006 & 2008 films)

 Category: Gore/torture horror

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Welcome to the Saw franchise…where the only thing more convoluted than the traps is the plot.

You don't really need to know too much plot-wise - the summary of the Saw series is as such: a man dying of a tumour plays all of God, freelance philosopher, father figure and back shed scientist in order to engineer contraptions/scenarios that test a person's will to live or how far they will go to save others, depending on their misdeeds.

The fun in these movies is watching people scrambling to save their lives (or at least their body parts) with the special effects teams showing off their skills, because in reality, the only difference between the various Saw instalments is how much of John Kramer's back story is revealed and which person is discovered to be his accomplice/student. Props to the storywriting department for keeping that dead horse going!

In Saw 3, a man named Jeff is forced through a series of deadly challenges involving people involved in the vehicular death of his young son, while a doctor is forced at gunpoint to keep John Kramer alive on his deathbed.

In Saw 5, five people who are unknowingly interconnected are forced through their own series of deadly challenges that test their ability to cooperate.

Much blood is shed, much screaming is heard, plot twists abound, rinse and repeat.

After watching these movies back to back, I have questions:

How easily fooled are the police and the FBI that their own can be complicit in kidnappings and murders and the only person who twigs is a regular old agent?

How does a man who says he abhors murder has no problem putting people in situations he knows will kill them (which still is legally murder, by the way)?

How does a man dying from a fucking tumour and with very little obvious cashflow happen to have his own warehouse, people kidnapped, and then have those kidnapped people rigged up to machines that work perfectly first time under operating conditions? Mark Rober worked for NASA - fucking NASA - and he spends months as well as thousands of dollars just to make a Nerf gun that can kill a mosquito!

 

STAR RATING: 3.25/5 - not the worst movies in existence. Decent if you like torture horror, but not exactly Oscar-bait either.