I Saw Enough in "Saw"
I’m a big horror fan.
But I hate the Saw movies.
That sounds like a juxtaposition. But it isn’t. My feelings about the Saw films are based on reasonable thought and common sense. I have never seen any of the Saw films all the way through. I can say it with some pride. I’ll never will. Not even if you force-chain me to a chair with my eyes kept open Clockwork Orange style.
Never. Never ever.
It’s based on all this mountain of anger that I won’t be going to the Saw 3D movie anytime soon. A film by Twisted Studios and distributed by Lionsgate films. My small hopes is that the film is going to do so lousy that I’ll never have to hear word of it again. It is said that the seventh film in this franchise is going to be the last entry.
Good.
However, I’ve heard that one before. When was the last time you heard they were going to make the final “Friday the 13th” movie? And yet they keep coming out with it like it’s being cranked out celluloid hell.
If this is going to be the last one, I’m all for it. The sixth and previous film didn’t do very well in the box office and led the series into a wind-down with an ending. The seventh film, apparently, is doing well enough in the box office tickets (with a gross revnue of $42,507,466 so far) that there is still elbow room for the higher-ups to reverse their decision in not making another film. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to go with another one sooner or later.
I’ve seen bits and pieces of the first and third entries of the series. One was enough. More than one was getting sickening. It is a rehash of murdering/torturing spree often involving sharp needles and knives. What fun. The basic idea of the series is very interesting: the idea of a dying man who somehow managed to survive his cancer treatment and decides to teach others the lesson of life. That’s all good and fine. There’s a good premise in it. The idea of the man wearing a pig mask could have some interesting symbolism too as pigs often are killed in butcher shops. They could have made something good out of it.
However, it is how the film is executed in a manner of gloating gore running amok. They like to take their gleeful time in showing torture methods in slow and bloody detail. I don’t take delight in watching someone slowly dying in the most violent ways possible. And it is true I am a horror fan to no end, and I have seen my share of bloody movies, it’s just the manner of which the Saw movies are made which repulses me.
I’ll give you an example of a very good horror movie that has a lasting impact on me.
Whenever I’m alone at my place during a trail-blazing thunderstorm, cluttered with shattering lightening, the entire block could be knocked out of electricity. I’ll be engulfed in darkness in the apartment by myself with the bombardment of thunder tearing through the skies. I’m alone in my apartment. There is nothing I can see except the black abyss that speaks in silence to me.
It isn’t Saw that I’m thinking of in my head.
It is the film Exorcist.
Why? The film has frightened me since I was a child because of the atmosphere created in the film. It is what the inner imagination can cause you to think. It is the notion of darkness and what hides in the far corner which bothers me most. Throughout my entire life, I have a small fear of long winding staircases of old houses… the very same kind of old staircases from the film Exorcist where the girl bellows with a demon like wail at the top. It is those thoughts which fill my head when the lights go out.
There is a long staircase in my apartment.
The Exorcist leaves those tantalizing fears still lingering in my thoughts.
But never the film Saw because it rides on making you grossed out. It relies on making you sick. It wants to make you have a gut-wrenching feeling after you watch it.
However, the film like The Exorcist plays on the threads of darkness that circles around you… and the idea of something living inside each and every one of us, including a little girl named Regan MacNeil, makes for frightening stuff. The Exorcist is able to create a somber mood that is relentless in its horror and grow very terrifying in its willful atmosphere. There is something foreboding about darkness in this film even after so many years.
There are other movies that makes for close second most frightening movies for me because of the way the films are made: filled with creepy girls with strings of black hair moving like insects in the Asian horror films such as “Ringu” which began the next generation of chilling effects. It’s very creepy how the ghosts would movie here, very different to our own ghosts… they move fast as if they are on webs while you stand in a captivity of fear. Other great Asian horror films inlcudes those made by the Pang brothers such as “Recycle” and “The Eye.” In fact, I’ve tried watching “Recycle” on Halloween night and found myself stopping about halfway… because it became simply too creepy. I managed to watch the rest of it the following night.
Other excellent horror films relying on the inner spirit of horror would be “Psycho” in 1960 which explored what could make a son go mad should he have a domineering mother who abused him.
These films work on mood and atmosphere.
There are two different approaches to the horror film. Number one, there’s the gory kind such as Saw which fails to impress me at any length. It only succeeds in sickening me.
And there is the other kind which opens the door to greatest weaknesses and makes you naked with fear.
It makes you think about how much the horror film approach has been perfected by the Asian culture which centers itself on mood without being explicitly gory. The filmmakers of the Saw series could learn a lot from the likes of such Asian endeavors in the horror field.
But I won’t be seeing Saw 3D anytime. Call me scared. Call me foolish. Whatever. You’ll have to kidnap and drag me screaming and kicking like a crazy loon before tying me to the chair. Even then, I’ll still find a way not to watch it.
I know what Saw 3D is going to be about anyway.
It’s doing rather well right now in the box office and may even garner another sequel. That is my greatest fear of them all.
But I hate the Saw movies.
That sounds like a juxtaposition. But it isn’t. My feelings about the Saw films are based on reasonable thought and common sense. I have never seen any of the Saw films all the way through. I can say it with some pride. I’ll never will. Not even if you force-chain me to a chair with my eyes kept open Clockwork Orange style.
Never. Never ever.
It’s based on all this mountain of anger that I won’t be going to the Saw 3D movie anytime soon. A film by Twisted Studios and distributed by Lionsgate films. My small hopes is that the film is going to do so lousy that I’ll never have to hear word of it again. It is said that the seventh film in this franchise is going to be the last entry.
Good.
However, I’ve heard that one before. When was the last time you heard they were going to make the final “Friday the 13th” movie? And yet they keep coming out with it like it’s being cranked out celluloid hell.
If this is going to be the last one, I’m all for it. The sixth and previous film didn’t do very well in the box office and led the series into a wind-down with an ending. The seventh film, apparently, is doing well enough in the box office tickets (with a gross revnue of $42,507,466 so far) that there is still elbow room for the higher-ups to reverse their decision in not making another film. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to go with another one sooner or later.
I’ve seen bits and pieces of the first and third entries of the series. One was enough. More than one was getting sickening. It is a rehash of murdering/torturing spree often involving sharp needles and knives. What fun. The basic idea of the series is very interesting: the idea of a dying man who somehow managed to survive his cancer treatment and decides to teach others the lesson of life. That’s all good and fine. There’s a good premise in it. The idea of the man wearing a pig mask could have some interesting symbolism too as pigs often are killed in butcher shops. They could have made something good out of it.
However, it is how the film is executed in a manner of gloating gore running amok. They like to take their gleeful time in showing torture methods in slow and bloody detail. I don’t take delight in watching someone slowly dying in the most violent ways possible. And it is true I am a horror fan to no end, and I have seen my share of bloody movies, it’s just the manner of which the Saw movies are made which repulses me.
I’ll give you an example of a very good horror movie that has a lasting impact on me.
Whenever I’m alone at my place during a trail-blazing thunderstorm, cluttered with shattering lightening, the entire block could be knocked out of electricity. I’ll be engulfed in darkness in the apartment by myself with the bombardment of thunder tearing through the skies. I’m alone in my apartment. There is nothing I can see except the black abyss that speaks in silence to me.
It isn’t Saw that I’m thinking of in my head.
It is the film Exorcist.
Why? The film has frightened me since I was a child because of the atmosphere created in the film. It is what the inner imagination can cause you to think. It is the notion of darkness and what hides in the far corner which bothers me most. Throughout my entire life, I have a small fear of long winding staircases of old houses… the very same kind of old staircases from the film Exorcist where the girl bellows with a demon like wail at the top. It is those thoughts which fill my head when the lights go out.
There is a long staircase in my apartment.
The Exorcist leaves those tantalizing fears still lingering in my thoughts.
But never the film Saw because it rides on making you grossed out. It relies on making you sick. It wants to make you have a gut-wrenching feeling after you watch it.
However, the film like The Exorcist plays on the threads of darkness that circles around you… and the idea of something living inside each and every one of us, including a little girl named Regan MacNeil, makes for frightening stuff. The Exorcist is able to create a somber mood that is relentless in its horror and grow very terrifying in its willful atmosphere. There is something foreboding about darkness in this film even after so many years.
There are other movies that makes for close second most frightening movies for me because of the way the films are made: filled with creepy girls with strings of black hair moving like insects in the Asian horror films such as “Ringu” which began the next generation of chilling effects. It’s very creepy how the ghosts would movie here, very different to our own ghosts… they move fast as if they are on webs while you stand in a captivity of fear. Other great Asian horror films inlcudes those made by the Pang brothers such as “Recycle” and “The Eye.” In fact, I’ve tried watching “Recycle” on Halloween night and found myself stopping about halfway… because it became simply too creepy. I managed to watch the rest of it the following night.
Other excellent horror films relying on the inner spirit of horror would be “Psycho” in 1960 which explored what could make a son go mad should he have a domineering mother who abused him.
These films work on mood and atmosphere.
There are two different approaches to the horror film. Number one, there’s the gory kind such as Saw which fails to impress me at any length. It only succeeds in sickening me.
And there is the other kind which opens the door to greatest weaknesses and makes you naked with fear.
It makes you think about how much the horror film approach has been perfected by the Asian culture which centers itself on mood without being explicitly gory. The filmmakers of the Saw series could learn a lot from the likes of such Asian endeavors in the horror field.
But I won’t be seeing Saw 3D anytime. Call me scared. Call me foolish. Whatever. You’ll have to kidnap and drag me screaming and kicking like a crazy loon before tying me to the chair. Even then, I’ll still find a way not to watch it.
I know what Saw 3D is going to be about anyway.
It’s doing rather well right now in the box office and may even garner another sequel. That is my greatest fear of them all.
posted by K.M. Paters at 12:56 PM
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