Saw III (2006)

Yum Yum Yum!

Genre: Crime Horror Thriller

Starring: Tobin Bell (Saw; The Quick and the Dead), Shawnee Smith (The Blob)

Directed By: Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II)

Overview: In this third instalment of the Saw series, we're still up to the same old tricks and traps, all while our sickly Jigsaw tries to impart his wisdom upon his protégé.

Acting: Say what you will about the directors that guide Horror films... or let me say it for you. Yeah, they tend to leak deep into the melodramatic, but when you play a psycho stressed to the max, or a victim stressed even more, it's bound to happen. having said that, Tobin Bell is amazing. Honestly. As a sick and calm stoic man his character is consistent, and his performance is the one worth paying attention to. Supporting roles played by Angus Macfadyen and Shawnee Smith are also really well done. My God, it's like they had a budget!
Rating: 8

Cinematography: We open with traps, we have different traps throughout and the traps are these heavy industrial monstrosities of exquisite medieval engineering. Nice. The location is a grungy underground warehouse / slaughterhouse. Sweet. There's a scene where someone is tied down while rotting, maggot covered pigs are ground to a paste and splashed all over him. Beautiful. The piece de resistance? A fully graphic two-minute-long brain operation with the best soundwork you'll ever hear. Awesome.
Rating: 9

Script: Wait, is this actually well written? It's got to be full of plot holes and inhuman reactions to fantastical situations, right? I mean whenever people come up with awesome visuals in a horror setting, it's always terribly written. What do you mean this is different? There's funny moments on purpose? There's motivations explained and almost poetically so? Bulsh. They paid you to say that.
Rating: 8

Plot: There's two plots. One is the fun traps that our man below is subjected to, a test of forgiveness, Jigsaw's way of bringing forth healing waters to a man's tortured soul, isn't that nice? The other is Amanda by Jigsaw's death bed, holding a doctor hostage to keep the sick sicko alive long enough to see this last test to its end. You know, that's enough for me. Simply told, the only down side would have to be all the constant flashbacks to the original Saw. Great ending by the way.
Rating: 8

Mood: Shot in the typical highly stylized cold blue grainy way used in such films as The Machinist, Lucid, and Fight Club, they played it pretty safe in the looks department, using these proven techniques. However, barring Michael Jackson's Thriller, I like my music videos to be around four minutes long. Why editors thought that I couldn't sit still long enough to see a shot longer than 15 seconds, I don't know, but for all the opportunities there were to have beautifully paced moments of monologues full of wisdom and motive, being distracted by the MTV garbage they fed me killed it just a little too much. It hurt my eyes!
Rating: 8

You know what they say, cold hands warm heart!

Overall Rating: 82% (See-Saw!)

Aftertaste: The best film of the Saw series, this one seems like a final chapter. Of course when we're talking horror movies, who knows. I mean anyone can go be a copycat right? For once in my life, I'll say how glad I am that there's a sequel and I hope that the sequels keep coming. Now all you people out there who tell me that I'm too forgiving of the horror genre can go cram it with walnuts, get your own site. If you like up-close, long-lasting original gore, this has what you're looking for. It's cool, it's gross, and it's pretty artsy too even.