Screenhead

Well, this is it, kids.  Today the last week comes together in a magnificent culmination of lights, sound, screaming, and oh yes…there will be blood.

Today we’re talking Saw VI, most recent in the franchise, and ironically, by a large scale, BEST of the franchise.

With Jigsaw, Amanda, and Agent Strahm all pushing up daisies, the only one left to run Jigsaw’s grand games is none other than Detective Hoffman.  But is Hoffman nearly as alone as we think?  Someone else is waiting in the wings–someone else with a vested interest in executing Jigsaw’s final will.  Will Hoffman be able to run the games?  Or will Hoffman’s test leave him without a piece on the board?

I’ll be honest with you, I had big expectations for this one going in.  REALLY big.  One, Saw V was my personal favorite of the series thus far for the massive supergame it ran instead of branching off into smaller games or leaving one person mostly unscathed.  Two, it was directed by Kevin Greutert, whose short film Old Friends we reviewed here a while back.  Old Friends was an awesome piece of filmmaking that really left me on the edge of my computer chair (only place you could see it was YouTube), so hearing that he’d be running Saw VI left me pretty excited.

And sure enough, I enjoyed this one.  For those concerned that this would be a tired rehash of earlier events, no sir.  Saw has one great tendency to build up and kick off something that’ll need a whole new movie to resolve.  There’s more loose ends in here than a telephone switchboard, and it’s small wonder it looks to make nine before it finally ends.

Saw also has one truly ANNOYING tendency, too, and that’s to add details to its earlier canon as it sees fit, despite the fact that there’s no real indication that they ever should have happened.  For instance, when you find out who was with Cecil the night Jill lost her baby, you’ll probably wonder how the hell that actually could have happened, because nothing like that seemed to go on when we actually SAW it happening before.

But there will be something here for all the old fans–the traps we know and love are as awesome as ever–remember the automatic revolver in two?  They kind of did that here…only with a twelve-gauge.  There will be more blood than ever–this is probably why it’s rated like PORN in Spain.  Plus, they’ve kicked off one very important plot detail in the last three minutes of the movie that has me positively drooling over Saw VII.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, is patently blown away, but bothered by the series’ incredible propensity to cheat at every given opportunity.  It therefore hands over a full on eight out of ten for being probably the best Saw yet, both for what it does now and what it kicks off for the next.  We can only hope the remaining entries can live up to this kind of hype.

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There’s a scene in Dumb and Dumber that explains my entire outlook on Saw V.  I’ve included it below.

Basically, it’s Lloyd pulling up to Harry on a scooter that he explains he traded, straight up, for their old van.  Harry looks at Lloyd and says, “Just when I think you couldn’t be any dumber, you go and do something like this… AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!”

That’s exactly how I feel about Saw V.  Just when I thought they couldn’t make a movie any dumber, they went and did something like this, and totally redeemed themselves.

Saw V puts is back in that grand old world where Jigsaw is dead but his copycats continue.  With Detective Hoffman now clearly in charge and pretty much the only possible successor to Jigsaw’s twisted legacy, the games continue as Agent Strahm tries to get to the bottom of the whole mess.  And the mess carries on as a kind of super-game takes place for five interconnected people who all have something in common…and a whole lot to lose.

Yes, Saw V is so laden with flashbacks it almost makes no sense.  Trying to figure out how Detective Hoffman got the necessary amateur engineering skills to build his own Jigsaw traps is a little outlandish at best–skills like that don’t just show up overnight; they’re the result of years of study and practice.  But still, it’s downright entertaining to watch Hoffman’s evolution from detective to Jigsaw-lite.

The concept of the super-game is another winner–never before has Saw been so devoted to one single game.  Saw IV came close, but even that was a series of games within one game involving different people each time, not the same set of people.  And the twist ending is still well in evidence and came literally out of nowhere, but only in retrospect is it made clear.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands the best film in the series an eight out of ten, and hopes that future versions will be anywhere near as good.

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When I first heard that there was to be a Saw IV, I felt a kind of trembly panic deep in my gut.  I had enjoyed the Saw series, of course, but I had thought that the trilogy aspect of it was just fine.  Especially given the ending of Saw III, in which large chunks of the main cast had gone the way of the dodo, it was going to be a tricky proposition to get everybody back in the game.

How would they address this question?  How would they carry on?

I have no idea.  I don’t think THEY even knew.

Saw IV shows us, firsthand, that Jigsaw couldn’t be more dead.  So very dead, in fact, that he’s on an autopsy table.  But when they do the Y-cut, they discover, deep inside his stomach, a Play Me cassette sealed in candle wax.  Now, Sergeant Rigg is up to bat, working his way through (almost like the innocent bystander of the third installment) a series of games in which he is only peripherally involved in a bid to rescue a kidnapped Detective Hoffman and Detective Matthews from one of Jigsaw’s games.

But Jigsaw’s…dead…

You can see the problem here.  In order to counter it, they’re going to engage in a baffling series of flashbacks and other associated plot mechanics, to try and tell a story of how a serial killer can somehow live on through his copycats.

You could almost smell the desperation in this one.  They were trying, valiantly, to set something up here, and the problem is, it just plain old didn’t WORK.  The narrative was left confused, and trying to bring in Jigsaw’s menace without Jigsaw was a wasted effort.

The Screenhead Ten Scale scoffs at this pathetic installment and gives it an all too appropriate four out of ten.  It wasn’t unwatchable, but it was the worst installment in the entire series.

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Welcome back to the second part of our great Saw review series, leading up to the premiere of Saw VI this Friday.  Today, we’re tackling Saw II, and this is where it starts to get interesting.

Once again, we’re back with Jigsaw in the midst of his biggest game yet.  He’s got about a half dozen people, give or take, locked in an old house (where does he find all these abandoned properties he can quietly fix up to become gigantic murder pens?) that he’s slowing filling with gas.  The good news is that, in three hours time, the lot of them will be set free as the doors are all opened automatically.  The bad news is that the gas slowing permeating their lungs will kill them in roughly TWO hours.  But Jigsaw’s left little vials of antidote all over the house–the only problem is that getting them is going to really, REALLY suck.  Meanwhile, the cops finally descend on Jigsaw, and discover that one of the participants in Jigsaw’s newest game is none other than one of the detectives investigating Jigsaw’s son.

I actually liked this one just slightly more than the first one because I have a personal soft spot for amateur mechanical engineering, and there is an ungodly LOT of that in this movie.  The first time I saw the automatic key-driven revolver my jaw just dropped.

Oh, sure, it’s hardly perfect.  Frankly, a good chunk of the dialogue is so wildly overblown that it almost hurts to listen to, especially pretty much any time Shawnee Smith opens her mouth.  I really don’t like Shawnee Smith much, as if it weren’t for Saw, she would have virtually NO horror cred whatsoever, but somehow everyone’s calling her a scream queen.  That’s a steaming pantload, as far as I’m concerned, and this chick is not fit to carry an ACTUAL scream queen’s tiara.  Chick spent like three seasons on a doctor show with Ted Danson, for crying out loud.

Anyway, back to the movie.  The big draw of this movie isn’t Shawnee Smith’s godawful acting, it’s the menace Tobin Bell projects.  it’s the incredible array of traps and ghoulish devices.  This is horror for geeks, ladies and gentlemen, plain and simple.

The Screenhead Ten Scale admits that this rating will sound a smidge hypocritical, but it awards Saw II a seven out of ten.  I know we just gave the first one a seven too, and said this one is slightly better than the original.  And yes, it is–that’s why the seven is slightly darker.

Popularity: unranked [?]

As a special treat for you all this week, I’m going to be tackling every film in the Saw franchise, including TWO installments on Thursday leading up to the big premiere of Saw VI this Friday, so strap yourselves in, because this is a long, strange journey with lots of odd bumps.

Saw brings us face to face with the Jigsaw Killer, a man who’s convinced that large portions of humanity don’t deserve to live.  But rather than take their lives out from under them directly, he’s going to play a game.  And in the process, he’s going to either force people to prove their worth to his satisfaction, or they’ll die, in which case, no great loss.  This time, we meet several of Jigsaw’s game players, and watch as they follow each of their games to its inevitable end.

The first thing you have to remember here is that, amazingly, this movie is FIVE YEARS OLD.  Yes, it’s almost ready for kindergarten by now, and frankly, it’s starting to show.  I’d always thought of 2004 as a real canker sore of a year, and the movies released therein weren’t much better.  Saw was, admittedly, one of the high points of 2004, but it’s true that moviemaking in general and specifically the Saw franchise has come a long way in terms of looks.

This is, however, the one that started it all, and thus it holds something of a special place.  When it was first released, it represented a novel idea and thus captured the imagination of most of the country.  Admittedly, the wheels have started to come off since, and Saw is showing its age, but it still packs in plenty of good quality twists and scares, especially if you haven’t seen this one yet.

The Screenhead Ten Scale looks at this venerable old title that’s starting to show its age and gives some respect to this creepy, ominous tale that started a movement by handing over a seven out of ten.  There’s plenty to like here, and there’ll be plenty to like in the events to follow.

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Saw VI arrives in the movie theaters on October 23, 2009.  Here is a featurette with Tobin Bell talking about how scaring the movie is going to be.

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The Chiller Eyegore Awards, part of the Halloween Horror Nights festival (we just finished a couple weeks ago covering all the various short films that will be involved in the proceedings) just announced a couple of its special guest appearances.

If you ever wanted the chance to see the embodiment of a franchise and a complete disaster in filmmaking in the flesh, you’ll get your chance at the Chiller Eyegore Awards as both Tobin Bell and Rob Zombie will be making appearances.

The contrast is impressive, of course–with the representative of a major flagship title that’s only starting to look a bit long in the tooth (let’s face it, after six installments ANYTHING starts to look a BIT frayed around the edges.  Don’t get me wrong–I enjoyed Saw V plenty, but the point remains) standing alongside a guy whose career never really produced much but fake blood and bombast.

Still, it should be an interesting show, no matter how it ends up.

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Want to scare your friends and family shitless? Then head on over to this site where you can send messages courtesy of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) to anyone via phone or email.

It’s one of the many different advertising campaigns Lionsgate is using to promote the coming fifth installment in the series. Saw 5 opens in theaters October 24.

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Meagan Good has been casted in the next Saw installment. According to Wikipedia, which might be accurate, the plot details have not yet been revealed, although in an interview with Patrick Melton revealed that Saw V will explain what happened to Corbett, the daughter of Lynn Denlon and Jeff Reinhart, following the conclusion that left her in danger.

In an interview with, per Wikipedia, Tobin Bell teased that he would not be surprised if the character of Cecil made reappearance, and that the pieces of flesh taken from the victims in the form of a jigsaw puzzle might be explained.

So, the beautiful Meagan Good is in a scary movie. Yikes.

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