See As I See

My Netflix account has little trouble telling me that I don't like horror movies. Judging by how I rate scary movies, the video service can only recommend a couple of films from the genre. But I do like horror movies. I'm just a bit picky, I suppose. Generally speaking, I don't sacrifice my guidelines of quality just because a movie is of a certain genre. I except a horror film to meet the same standards as any other movie. It isn't my fault if most of them fall short. 

So, imagine my happiness when in 2004 "Saw" was released just in time for Halloween. A promising scary movie just in time for the holiday based on fear. And lucky for me, the movie had everything I could want. There was action, albeit of the stagnant kind. While Dr. Gordon and Adam were chained up, they still managed to show that they were active. They found clues about the room, found out more about each other and so on. The characters, while a little vanilla, were engaging enough to keep me interested. I mean, even if you didn't like Adam or Dr. Gordon, the film built up enough suspense for you to want to know more about them. 

The movie was intelligent. It posed moral questions regarding placing people in potentially deadly situations and asked why should people who are squandering their lives away be allowed to live. This film came out at a time where nearly everybody at my high school was emo, so that last question hit a personal chord back then. I got tired of their whining and general emo-ness, and seeing this movie was a means of venting. And if you want to dispute anything I've said about the film so far, fine, but the movie's visual style is definitely unique. The cool colors of the prison/bathroom, the lightning quick montages that signified a person pushing past their mental breaking point and the camera angles/lighting techniques used to create a feeling of tensity all gave this film a unique appearance. And as a result, this became one of my favorite horror movies.

Unlike the cynic that I am now, when it was announced that there would be a sequel, I was ecstatic. I had faith in the filmmakers to create a movie that would rival their first. Unfortunately, I was let down. The movie was ok, sure, but it didn't grab me at the same level the first did. The problem mainly came from the characters. Most of them I didn't care about, and some of them just weren't acted well. Franky G's line, "Let me see the back of your neck" became more of a punch line to me than anything else. It could have been a worse sequel, but it could have been better. When "Saw III" was announced I met it with cautious optimism more than sheer excitement. And it turns out that was for the best.

"Saw III" was the true beginning of the end of the series for me. The traps were getting boring, the characters served only as fodder for the traps (as opposed to creating an emotional bond with the audience) and it started focusing way too much on gore. As a tangent, if you watch horror movies only for gore, that's fine. Your choice. You probably loved this movie. However, I feel as though there is a weird sadistic/masochistic connection to enjoying gory films that feature people getting tortured to death. The sadistic part clearly comes from the audience member wanting to see the victim tormented. The masochistic part has to do with the viewer being disgusted by what they wanted to see, which inflicts an amount of mental harm to him or her. I understand that in horror films there is going to be gore. And I accept that. But, if you ask me, a movie focused solely on that is made by a lazy filmmaker. So, not surprisingly, "Saw III" was the last of the series that I saw in theatres. 

It was actually the last "Saw" movie I saw until a couple of days ago. With "Saw VI" upon us, I had to know how the series was faring. A quick check at Rottentomatoes showed that both "Saw IV" and "Saw V" were panned by virtually every critic in the country. That didn't instill me with much confidence, but I'm a trooper, so I gave them a shot anyway. 

The grievances I have with the movies are the same, so I might as well review them both at the same time. As far as action goes, sure there was plenty, but none of it was interesting. In the fourth, we followed around Riggs as he was forced to play into Jigsaw's games; in the fifth it was a similar idea but with the focus being Strahm this time. The action was centered on grisly death scenes and that can only carry a movie so far, like I said previously. 

The characters were...all the same. I mean, maybe it's just me, but every character in these two movies were identical. It's like the director just told everybody to be dark and brooding. Granted, it's a horror movie so having happy Willy Wonka type characters walk around would be weird, but the director could have at least tried to differentiate them. Hell, Hoffman and Strahm even look alike, which got pretty confusing in the fifth film.

The intelligence left the films after number two at the latest and quickly became about the mysterious, interweaving storyline the writers are trying to piece together. Now, maybe if "Saw VI" ties everything together into some psychological masterpiece, then it will be worth all the work. But right now the movies resemble a second grader trying to come up with a scary story. "Well, you know that guy who you thought was a good guy? Well, he was actually the bad guy! And, uh, the pizza man was in on it, too!"


And the visual style, well, that remains to a degree. They still do the rapid montages to express mental breakdowns, which I genuinely like. But there are so many shots that are just close up of gore. Every time there's a trap it goes to a close up of which ever extremity is producing the most blood. If gore is your thing, then I can see why you like it. But if you want something else from a horror movie (like a spooky ambiance), then you might as well look elsewhere.

"Saw VI" is the series' last hope. I think so, at least. Everything I've heard has made me believe there won't be a seventh. And I promise you that if there is, it will be straight to DVD. It will join the ranks of other decent horror movies that went on too long like "Hellraiser" or "Wishmaster." But then again the "Saw" movies have a nasty habit of making tons of cash, so maybe Hollywood will sell a bit more of their soul and we can watch "Saw VII" on the big screen in 2010.