Summer Fest Supplemental: Counterpoint from a Saw Fan

 Welcome back to more virtual Summer Fest coverage. To close out day one, guest blogger Professor Murder answered my request for a Saw fan to explain to me what they found interesting in the films. While I gave Saw 3-D a shot, I didn't find it worthwhile, and the Professor has been kind enough to provide a counter view, based on points I made in the review. I'll hand it over to the Prof.

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If you are going into the “Saw” movies determined not to like them, to find them predictable or formulaic, they will never win you over; they are predictable and formulaic. I, and quite a few others that I know, actually enjoy them for exactly these reasons. They are dumb. They are the “Police Academy” of schlocky gore-fests. I will address several points from the blogorium review. I'm not trying to convince anyone to like them here, I will never be able to do that just as no one will never convince me that I don't enjoy them immensely. I also don't care what the filmmakers intentions were... the movies seem to take themselves very seriously, which is exactly why I don't feel the need to.

“...not only was it really, really easy to pick up on plot developments in the three-and-a-half films I skipped...”

Part of the fun of the later Saw sequels is the revisionist-history flashbacks where, in the later sequels, upwards of 10% of the movie will be flashbacks that have a ham-handed extra shot tacked on to the end showing that Hoffman apparently was there the whole time. It's dumb and funny. They are designed so a four year old (with really cool parents) could come in at any point in the series and know what's going on.

“Saw 3D makes the critical mistake of being more interested in the cat-and-mouse games between Hoffman and the police than the grand guignol murder set-pieces, so to justify the film's existence for gore obsessed fans and the extra five bucks for 3D glasses, Greutert and the writers shoehorn in some more mostly unrelated "games" with characters that have no bearing on the story itself.”

This is not new to the later Saw sequels. The dumb, poorly planned storyline has always been balanced with random people who barely BARELY fit in anywhere in the story. It almost gives the stories a made-for-TV feel which just adds to the schlock.

“I don't know whether to blame Greutert, Melton, Dunstan or the actors for the terrible dialogue...”

Anyone who knows me knows that I find “terrible dialogue” very enjoyable if the writers were sincerely trying to write something poignant. The Saw movies are so melodramatic you can't help but chuckle.

Fourth:

“... the film opens with a kill that has nothing to do with the story, but exists to keep the bored gorehounds that flock to see these films drunk with bloodlust so that writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (Feast, The Collector) can dither around with the plot until the next bloody set-piece.”

Exactly! What's the problem? Besides, I enjoy the “plot dithering.” It is exactly this poor planning and discontinuity in production staff that have lead to each movie revising the events of the previous movies... which I have already stated is one of my favorite things about the series. The things I like most about these movies are consequences of their shittiness and anything they did that was half baked only served to increse their appeal to me.

We could continue ad infinitum with this ping-pong game of point-counterpoint. It seems like everything the Cap'n dislikes about these movies, I like. The fact is that if you want to like the movies, you will; if you don't you won't. I'm not even trying to make a case that the movies are defensible. From the Cap'n's perspective, they are bad, and not enjoyable. From my perspective, they are bad and very enjoyable; I love terrible movies... I have always loved terrible movies. I can't really defend my enjoyment of the Saw movies, but I do enjoy them