Saw VI

Dir: Kevin Greutert

2009

**

With the franchise starting to look very tired at this point, Saw VI adds a few interesting developments but not nearly enough to evoke the excitement felt upon viewing the first film back in 2004. The story picks up exactly where the last film finished and builds one things we learned as well as as dispel a few things we thought were fact. The film is so convoluted that if you tried to work out whether it actually made any sense you'd probably be in more pain than Jigsaw's victims. If the franchises continuity is in fact solid then congratulations to it's makers, however, while spending so much time trying to be clever, you have clearly forgotten about what made the series so appealing in the first place. The shock, horror and terror has gone. All that's left is gore. The viewer now no longer cares who the victims are, if or how they die and indeed, who is now killing them. It now feels like a TV series and in many respects maybe making it into a TV series isn't such a bad idea, the format would be much more effective in hourly collections rather than what feels like a collection of simple short stories being dragged to the 90 minute mark.

Saw V
Dir: David Hackl
2008
**
Saw V sees the franchise rest on it's familiarity. Some unanswered questions from previous films are answered but I'm not sure any of them are adequate. It's a matter of same traps, different people but with added bonus of knowing who did it, how they did it and why they did it - all of the mystery that made the previous films so appealing. This horror/thriller has all the same horror that we've seen countless times before and none of the thrills. The conclusion left me cold and uninterested. 

Saw IV
Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman
2007
**
Saw IV sees a more in-depth analysis of the Jigsaw character, why he kills and why he kills who he does but its also a bit unnecessary in places and pushed the gore to the extreme. It's also unnecessarily complicated at this point to the point that you need to watch the previous films back to back to really understand what is going on. personally I hate it when films do that. The franchise is starting to wain somewhat which is a real shame, I think the one film a year work ethic is detrimental to the writing somewhat. The writing really does have to be something special from now on, given the fact that the film is left on quite a sizable cliff-hanger, indeed the franchise rests on whether it progresses with it's idea or rests with it's familiarity.

Saw III
Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman
2006
***
A franchise is saved! Saw 2 was horrible but this film really worked. It linked in with the first film brilliantly and explained a few unanswered questions and raised a few more. Not one for people who like their horror films to be on the mindless side, Saw III brings back all of the intrigue, mystery and thrills of the original. The direction is also darker than the previous film, shadows aren't used to hide a lack of content anymore but are there once again as a hiding place of the unknown. The use of colour in such a dark film also adds a visual finesse that's usually missing from horror films.

Saw II
Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman
2005
**
2004's Saw was probably the best horror/thriller of the decade. It's sequel, Saw II, was probably one of the worst. It looses all of its originality and gets sucked into haunted house cliche crapness. We still have lots of traps and gore but all of the intrigue, mystery and suspense has vanished. Now it's just, what has since begun to be called, 'torture porn'. Apart from not being particularly nice, it's actually quite dull. We care very little about the characters and care less whether they live or die and when that happens in horror films you know you've reached rock bottom. The visual style of the film remains the only redeeming feature.

Saw
Dir: James Wan
2004
****
James Wan's original 2004 film Saw truly was an original horror/thriller with a new bad guy who's up there with Freddy and Jason but is actually much scarier. It had been some time since a great film like this had come along and shaken up the genre and it remained unbeaten for quite a few years after. The inventiveness of the story is at the core of its success. It's a puzzle, a 'who done it', a murder mystery, a suspenseful thriller and a gory horror. It also had some depth to it, there is never a good reason for murder but our villain wasn't your typical indiscriminate knife welding monster, he had a plan and people were chosen for a reason. This makes the story even more chilling and delectably entertaining.