Hooptober... And Then There Were Nine

42nd Kill

Obviously I'm late to the party on the Saw franchise but to be honest, it's really not my kind of party. I like these films well enough, but despite enjoying their attitude of Grand Guignol extreme grotesquerie and getting a bit of a kick out of the appalling creativity of the traps, I just find the exteme melodrama of the performances and the grimness of the concept a little depressing, despite the inherent black comedy of it all.

I do think this is the best of the series so far, though. Although I liked the detective procedural aspect of the original film, it is somehow satisfying to see an entry which decides to go absolutely all-in on the most horrific potential of the concept. This movie is fucking mean, man, and it's as graphic and as ugly as humanly possible. You gotta give it credit for the strength of its conviction in that respect.

There's a lore to this world, but it feels a bit tongue-in-cheek, to me. All this bullshit about Jigsaw and Amanda and their relationship and his intricately diabolical manipulation of everyone and everything - it fills the narrative hole in between all the horror set pieces but it feels more like a storytelling device, something almost theoretical and devoid of any actual pretence to genuine characterisation. I'm fine with that, actually, but it means the film has all the narrative depth of a game of Super Mario Brothers. These films are more like games of some sort than any kind of traditional narrative. Although I suppose that's an inherent shortcoming compared to other films in general, I sort of admire the purity of that. It stands up much better than all that ridiculous plotting through the Halloween franchise, for instance.

Best Kill (may contain traces of spoiler)

Well. An embarrassment of riches, I must say. I honestly think the most disturbing scene is one in which no one dies, but it's the trap where the guy is strapped to the bottom of a skip in which the sludge from a series of half decomposed, shredded pigs' carcasses is sluiced, leaving him to drown in it (or he would have done if someone hadn't intervened).

But for sheer mean spiritedness, I don't think you can go past the final kill - and this really is a spoiler so bail now if you don't want it ruined - but it entails a multiple shotgun blast and it doesn't even happen on camera. All we see is the resulting wreckage and it's like the ultimate punctuation mark for this carnival of horror.