SAW 3D

Written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton

Directed by Kevin Greutert

Starring Sean Patrick Flannery, Costas Mandylor, Tobin Bell and Cary Elwes

Gibson: How many bodies?

Rogers: I got enough pieces for four.

SAW 3D gets the saws themselves out first thing. Right in the middle of Toronto’s entertainment district, one of the now infamous Jigsaw’s puzzling traps is set. Encased in a glass cube, two hunky gentlemen awake to find themselves bound to an electric saw table, each with a saw pointing directly at their chests. That creepy clown doll rolls out on a tricycle and informs the boys that the girl who lies above them with her own saw pointed directly at her stomach has been playing them both for suckers. The young men must make a choice – continue to be fooled by love and save the girl by pulling her saw towards them, ultimately killing themselves or stick love with a blade right through its guts. And so returns the psychotic killer who is really just championing for good, moral responsibility and appreciation of life.

In all honesty, the only real reason SAW is back at all is because it is in 3D. The consistent success of the series came to a pretty screeching halt last year but 3D being all the rage these days, especially in the torture porn genre, Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) replacement killer, Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) couldn’t resist cashing in on those 3D dollars. In what is supposed to be the final chapter, Hoffman is playing with everybody and anybody. His primary trap is set to snare an author (Sean Patrick Flannery) who has written a successful tome about his time in Jigsaw’s trap, who isn’t everything he appears. If he were sincere, of course, Jigsaw wouldn’t have any need for him. This is the finale though so Hoffman is thinking much bigger than that and bringing back the characters you’ve come to know over the years. (I use the words, “characters” and “know” loosely there.) The question becomes whether anyone is able to think even bigger than he is and bring an end to his horrifying games.

I have to come clean, if only to avoid waking up and finding myself dangling from a ceiling by hooks dug deep into my pectoral muscles. I have not seen a SAW movie since the first installment. I did find the film to be inventive, twisted and down right impressive considering its modest means. I figured that every other SAW that followed though would just get busy outdoing the traps of the SAW that came before. Having now seen SAW 3D, I can confirm my suspicions but, under the guidance of director, Kevin Greutert, a man who has been with the franchise since the beginning (he edited the first five and directed the last two), the series ender has got plenty of vomit inducing brutality to satisfy anyone looking for that (and the blood and guts fly right at your face in 3D!!). It doesn’t have anything else but that’s not why you go to see SAW.