Saw 3D (Road to Halloween)

Jigsaw has now been dead for 3 movies but his sadistic games continue on in his now infamous name. A police officer named Hoffman adopted the ‘Jigsaw’ moniker at the end of the 5th movie and has been in charge ever since however the original grizzly yet apt use of traps has long since been abandoned.

Bobby Dagen is a survivor of a Jigsaw game in which he had to suspend himself on meat hooks through his pectoral muscles in order to reach the exit. After this ordeal he’s found a new lease on life and makes numerous TV appearances to promote his book about his ordeal and how he now values life. Jigsaw however isn’t a fan of Dagen’s new found fame and puts him into another game. Meanwhile Internal affairs are closing in on Hoffman while he continues to test people in increasingly horrific ways.

Once again the acting is not a great draw but as always Tobin Bell’s performance is a strong part of the movie; his ability to give an uneasy feeling simply by speaking in his deep gravelly voice stays strong and is made all the stronger in this movie when compared to the rest of the cast.

In the original Saw there were no innocent bystanders; all those who were part of a Jigsaw game were there because they had shown that they were wasting their lives. The eventual aim was to give those who had a strong enough will to survive, a second chance at life but now, 6 movies later elaborate traps are still being set but most of those in the games are not in control of their own fate. On two occasions in this movie, the fate of at least 3 people rested in the fate of a single person.

Jigsaw as a character has been in each movie, slowly being developed from humble beginnings as a disembodied voice to the full character he now is. It is an interesting situation that I find myself in; Jigsaw is a mass murderer who is responsible for the gruesome deaths of countless individuals but on the other hand you cannot say that he doesn’t hold life in the highest regard and has loved ones that he wished to protect. I find myself sympathising with jigsaw, not with what he does but in his reasons he feels people should strive to love their lives to the fullest.

Saw has long been about gore for the sake of gore and this movie is gorier than its predecessors. This movie is gore porn and it appears to not be ashamed of it.
In my opinion too much time is dedicated to close-ups on people screaming in the seconds prior to their deaths, it added nothing except for the first game where the camera flicks between the three people in the trap and the public outside of the trap (the trap was in a very public place) screaming. This had me in fits of laughter and completely detracted from the horror the movie was supposed to be.

This movie is available only in 3D however there are only a handful of moments where it is used and the remainder of the time it serves only to blur details other than what the camera is focused on.

Saw 3D is not the ending you would expect to a horror franchise that started out as well as it did.

Rating 1 out of 5

Watch it if you liked:
SAW VI
My Bloody Valentine 3D
Hostel 2

What does IMDB say?

Review by Kevin Brown