RECENT WATCHES: Saw III (2006)

Gregg Hoffman was one of the major producers behind the original “Saw,” scraping together the one million dollar budget and founding Twisted Pictures alongside Oren Koules. He was also one of the voices pushing for a sequel to be made. While “Saw II” was in production, Hoffman was admitted to a hospital with some neck pain. Despite only being 42 years old, he unexpectedly died shortly afterwards. James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Darren Lynn Bousman initially figured they would pass on further sequels. That they didn't want to push their luck. However, while at a dinner to remember Hoffman, the trio realized that “Saw III” was going to happen regardless. If that was the case, they wanted to make sure it was a fitting ode to their late friend. When you consider “Saw III” is another super gory horror movie full of maiming, torture, and brutal executions, it feels like kind of a weird tribute to a dead friend... I guess that's how it goes sometimes though. If loss and grief were on Bousman and Whannell's minds, it would certainly explain how the third film, grim even by the standards of this series, turned out the way it did though. 

Detective Kerry investigates the grisly aftermath of another one of the Jigsaw Killer's fatal games. She notices that the exit to the trap was welded shut, meaning the victim had no chance at all to survive. Shortly afterwards, Kerry is captured by the villain and falls prey to a similarly impossible to escape trap. At the same time, Dr. Lynn Denton – whose son was recently killed in a traffic accident, leaving her husband Jeff heartbroken – is kidnapped by Amanda, John Kramer's apprentice. Kramer is nearly at the end of his life, succumbing to his inoperable brain tumor. Denton is forced to operate on him, an explosive collar around her neck that will go off if Kramer dies or she tries to leave. Meanwhile, Jeff is undergoing his own trial. Jigsaw has captured the man who drove the car that killed the Denton's son, the witness who fled the scene, and the judge who let the culprit go. Jeff now has a choice: To either find it in himself to forgive those he blame for the death of his son or watch them die in Jigsaw's elaborate traps. However, more is going on than either know, John Kramer and Amanda playing their own game.

As only Darren Lynn Bousman's second feature film, it's tempting to say his style has gotten stronger, straying further from the obnoxious music video techniques so noticeable in "Saw II." I guess this is true. Aside from an overly dark opening scene and a scuffle that's hard to follow, I suppose "Saw III" looks more stable than the proceeding film. However, the sequel in no way leaves behind the ugly, annoying visuals tics that were already a series trademark. David A. Armstrong once again lights the movie in toxic waste green and Walmart-at-2 A.M. florescent beige. An additional touch of shit stain brown is added to emphasize the extra groddiness of the slaughter house setting. Kevin Greutert throws in perhaps more flashy edits than last time, with lots of white flashes, close-ups on photos and text, and the expected rocket-sled paced montages of people freaking out. If there was an occasional goofy charm to it last time, this style has now worn out its welcome for me. 

Maybe the always-ugly visuals grate on the nerves this time because "Saw III" is, so far, the most mean-spirited and nihilistic entry in an already extra-grim franchise. A lot of this has to do with our apparent protagonists this time around, introduced twenty whole minutes into the story. Lynn Denton is in a deeply depressed funk, becoming numb to pain and any other feeling. Bahar Soomekh plays her as often half-asleep. As depressing as Lynn is to be around, Jeff is much worse. This is a man so frozen in grief, so consumed by revenge, that he confronts everything interaction with screaming anger or whispered scorn. Being depressed or bereaved can feel like that but it's hard to take "Saw III" as a serious mediation on grief. The film employs hoary clichés like the dead son riding a tricycle or happier flashbacks to better times. Angus Macfadyen's petulant, gassy performance as Jeff is an exaggerated take that leaves little room for sympathy. 

Being able to sympathize with Jeff, to feel his tormented state of mind, would have helped the sequel a lot. Jigsaw's tests place Jeff into the role of observer, forced to sit back and watch the people he blames for his son's death as they suffer through elaborate tortures. He debates and angsts about what he should do before, always too late, deciding to help. What this means is that "Saw III" sticks us with an utterly ineffectual protagonist who is miserable to be around. The movie has nothing to say about overcoming grief or depression because Jeff doesn't do any growing or healing. Jigsaw's trial reduces him to either a dispassionate watcher or a hapless rescuer, forcing his hand or causing him to embrace his worst tendencies. You are left wondering what Jigsaw is trying to prove with these trial. I thought his whole modus operandi was forcing people to stop wasting their lives by making them fight for survival? How does making Jeff either embrace his need for vengeance or activate his basic human empathy achieve any of that? Moreover, why does Amanda drag Lynn in to perform surgery on John Kramer, when we already know that his condition is critical? She's giving him a few extra hours of life at most. 

The answer to many of the questions that "Saw III's" half-assed narrative presents are easy to find. The script is nothing more than a sketchy justification for more deadly games, to place more shrieking meat bags into industrial torture devices that rip them apart or force them to mutilate themselves. The violence in "Saw III" is notably wetter than in previous films. The opening trap involves Bousman's old buddy J. LaRose tearing metal rings from his body, his flesh stretching and blood spurting. The frantic montage that ensues during the second trial scene includes a lingering close-up on oozing intestines. Limbs are twisted around until bones burst though the skin and, in an especially vile touch, mulcified pig guts are used to drown someone. When someone does survive one of Jigsaw's traps, a random gun blast is introduced to kill them anyway. A female victim is left nude, adding an extra layer of uncomfortable sexualization to the violence that follows. And you can't introduce an explosive collar in the first act without the expectation that it will go off in the third. 

That's the sense all throughout "Saw III," that the movie wants us to anticipate the violent undoings. The question is never whether someone will survive but, rather, in what way will they die. So who gives a shit about what happens? The result is a horror film with an especially nihilistic tone, leading towards a hopeless ending filled with death and blood. How can we care about any of these people when they only exist to die in hideous ways? The sequel is so desperate to top previous installments, to be nastier and bloodier and meaner, that it devotes a lengthy scene to depicting chop-shop brain surgery in lingering close-ups. Critics often denigrate the horror genre by saying it's nothing but gruel tossed around on-screen to titillate a sadistic audience. "Saw III" embraces that label, rather than fighting it. 

Leigh Whannell still has the sole writing credit on "Saw III" and you kind of get the impression that he had to crank this one out in a hurry. The sequel's structure is weird, devoting its first several scenes to wrapping up lingering plot threads from previous films before moving ahead with the new story. I also suspect he was starting to run out of ideas, as part three seems preoccupied with revisiting scenes from the earlier films. (Not to mention the gory executions are largely taken from medieval history books.) Looking back does provide the sole compelling element of the film though. We see more of John Kramer and Amanda's relationship. How does a person end up becoming a devoted student of the man who nearly killed them? We still learn little about Amanda's past, other than her being a recovering addict and cutter, but it's clear that she's a person who never had any direction or emotional support in her life. Jigsaw is clearly a fanatic, too invested in creative ways to mutilate people, but he still gave Amanda a meaningful purpose. He cared about what she did with her life. 

Both Whannell and Bousman have referred to "Saw III" as a "twisted love story" about these two's "father and daughter relationship" but it reads a lot differently to me. Shawnee Smith's performance veers towards ugly histrionics, playing Amanda as still a desperate addict but now hooked on Jigsaw's validation, instead of junk. Tobin Bell, meanwhile, increasingly turns Jigsaw into a diluted monk of a religious order only he understands. This relationship is not one of a father and a daughter. It's of a cult leader and his most devoted disciple, of an obviously vulnerable person being manipulated by the man who has power over them. Considering Kramer is a dying man whose hobby involves a lot of construction and welding, he probably needed people to help him carry out his plan. Who better than a woman with nothing else to live for? Yes, I am implying that Jigsaw "groomed" Amanda into being his sidekick. If "Saw III" explored this dynamic more, it would actually be an interesting film. 

I've enjoyed plenty of sick movies. I've gone to bat for films that aren't much more than glorified effects reels. I defended "Terrifier 3" and "Cannibal Holocaust," both grosser movies than this one. I don't necessarily think fiction asking us to embrace our inner psychopaths and enjoy some violence is a bad thing. But you've got to temper it with something else. Commentary on the human condition or society or just some fucked-up jokes or a sense of momentum or wit. There's an ugliness to "Saw III's" approach, an insistence that none of this matters and that life is only suffering and sorrow, that I find distasteful. Moreover, it's boring. If everyone in the film is only there to die, there's no suspense. Only the efforts of Bell and Smith to add some substance to the only interesting pair of characters in the film raises this from an utterly miserable experience to a movie with something to offer. However, "Saw III" made 150 million dollars more than its budget at the box office, so I guess the sequel did honor Gregg Hoffman's legacy. [4/10]