Saw VI

FILM REVIEW : Saw VI (2009)

I will admit this: I have never seen any of the Saw films. I have confess something else: after seeing Saw VI, I'm not sure if I'm interested in seeing any predecessors of this franchise.


I don't know where to begin with describing this film's story, quite frankly because it didn't seem to have one. Still, I'm going to attempt to give some sort of synopsis of the film: a new spree of killings are taking place, and they all revolve around correcting the ways of a corrupt health insurance agent. That's as much as I got out of it.

The writing seemed really skewed. There didn't seem to be a clear flow to the events in the story. I know that I haven't seen the other five films, but there could have been a better effort writing-wise to make an unfamiliar audience understand the events in the film. That's what was so great about Star Trek: it was obviously meant to gain a new mainstream fan base, but it still had enough nostalgia to retain the faithful fanboys.

Let me say something director Kevin Greutert. Although this is his directorial debut, he does have an extensive connection with the Saw series, in that he edited the first five. To be blunt, I don't think he's very good at directing or editing. I will Greutert some credit for trying to direct the film in a way that appeals to both fans and newcomers, but he isn't very effective in his approach. What is his oh-so-brilliant approach? Flashbacks. It's not that he uses flashbacks. He loads the film with them. I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of the film took place in flashbacks more so than in the time associated to the film itself. And he doesn't even give us any good flashback sequences! They're all very short and aren't very exclusive in the situations at hand.

Now for the acting. In a schlocky horror film franchise like this, you'd expect B-level acting. To my surprise, it actually wasn't bad. Quite the opposite. In fact, most of the actors are good and have potential to be great someday if they do films aside from this.

All in all, not a good film. But much better than Amelia

Not recommended (going off the basis of not having seen the others)

Rating: 1.5 out of 10 stars (1 out of 5 stars)


Photo Courtesy: Your Movie Stuff

Julian Stark (pen name)<br />
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Founder/Editor: Movies and Other Things<br />
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http://julianstark-moviesandotherthings.blogspot.com

Last updated: 2010-04-10 04:36:55 by user07

Booze Revooze: A Drinker’s Skewed View of SAW VI

Final Proof: 2½ Shots

You know how it is when you drink with circus geeks? The first time is always a blast because you’ve never seen anyone swallow the worm, break the bottle, then eat the glass. The first time you party with zoo animals is exciting and sweaty and you feel sticky like a university bar floor at closing time and dirty like your first porn film after the thrill wears off. But watching freaks stick spaghetti up their nose and pull it out their mouths wears on you after a while, no matter how new or disgusting their tricks are. You know what emotion to expect even if you haven’t seen the routine before. It’s like that with Saw VI.

i was a fan of the first Saw, thought it was groundbreaking and was impressed with how, on a limited budget and tiny set, they could make such an intriguing horror movie. The problem is, you can only be truly new once and so i gave up after Saw III — until this one. ‘Course it didn’t really matter that i didn’t see SIV or SV because there are so many flashbacks in VI that you feel like you’re watching reruns.

Those who like the series will certainly like this one. There are inventive ways to die and innovative methods of slinging gore across the screen. There’s an aftertaste of already seen, though, and even a couple of story scenes that get boring. i mean, c’mon, no one really gives a script about characterization or exposition when they see Saw.  We want blood and guts and if you have to stick something between those, let it be a nubile actress whose clothes are either wet or ripped.

To make matters worse, all the actors went to the CSI: Miami school of acting and deliver each line like a crouching Horatio removing his sunglasses.

Let me be honest here… As much as i’m ashamed to admit it, the thing that really got up my nose about this flick is i’m too philosophical for it. Babes, if i’m too philosophical for something then you know there’s a problem.

• How does Jigsaw choose his victims? Sure, i wouldn’t want the people he picks to take care of my plants when i’m on vacation, but are these the worst people he can freaking find? You got dictators trying to eliminate entire races of people from the face of the planet and he wants to slowly dismember some poor chick because she was a crack addict?
• Do people really want to live so badly that they’d be willing to eat their own foot, excrete it, snort the waste until they vomit and then swim around in a vat of other people’s foot crap snorted nose vomit [btw, this is not a spoiler]? Swear to god, if you, dear reader, ever find yourself in a Saw situation, i’m the guy you want to be competing against because i’ll give up right at the beginning.

Jigsaw: Let’s play a game. The first one to stick their fist down their throat, pull out their sexual organs from the inside and then cram them up their anus will continue to live. Sure, you’ll be so mentally, emotionally and physically scarred that you’ll spend your whole life cowering in a corner watching Highway To Heaven reruns, but you’ll live. The other one will get a bullet in the head and die in a matter of seconds.

You: AAAAUUUUGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAUUUUGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Al K Hall: Just hurry up and shoot me, you goofy ass masked mother.  i’ve got an afterlife to live.

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 1 Shot

We now return you to your regularly scheduled sex, already in progress.

It’s not that the girls aren’t hot, they are. Super hot. It’s just that you have to look up pictures of them on the ‘net to see it.

Let’s take Shawnee Smith (who plays Amanda):
Here are the Silken Butterflies: you know, those beautiful and talented girls who grace the screen with their splendor during their oh so fleeting appearances on film. Here’s to hoping we see lots more of them.

The lovely and talented Karen Cliche (Shelby):
Drink: 0 Shots

Jill sips from a glass of red wine. Once. That is all.

Rock & Roll: 4 Shots

There’s a lot of fault i can find with Saw VI, but none of it has to do with the soundtrack. Unless, of course, these songs aren’t actually in the movie. i mean, i get the feeling the producers  just found a lot of cool tunes and slapped them on a CD, because i honestly don’t remember hearing them in the flick. Maybe it’s just me; i did drink four beers and a double Zubrowka in the thirty minutes just  before the movie, after all. If there’s anyone out there who was more sober than me and who can confirm one way or the other that the songs are really and truly part of the movie, i’d appreciate it greatly.

Anyway, some of the songs  are included in the post, but here’s the rest of the lineup:

1. In Ashes They Shall Reap – Hatebreed
2. Last Goodbye – Lacuna Coil
3. Reckless Abandon – It Dies Today
4. Your Soul Is Mine – Mushroomhead
5. Warpath – Chimaira
6. Code of the Road – Danko Jones
7. Genocide/Saw IV [Remix] – Suicide Silence
8. Ghost in the Mirror – Memphis May Fire
9. Countdown Begins – Outbreak
10. Still I Rise/Saw VI Remix – Shadows Fall
11. Dead Again – Type O Negative
12. Dark Horse – Converge
13. Cut Throat – Kittie
14. Never Known – Nitzer Ebb
15. Roman Holiday – Every Time I Die
16. Sinatra – My My Misfire
17. Lethal Injection – Flood
18. More Than a Sin – James Brothers

Boring Technical Crap

Written by: Marcus Dunstan, Patrick Melton

Directed by: Kevin Greutert

Starring

Betsy Russell – Jill

Shawnee Smith – Amanda

Samantha Lemole – Pamela Jenkins

Karen Cliche – Shelby

Larissa Gomes – Emily

Tobin Bell – Jigsaw

Bottom Line

See it if, and only if, you liked Saw III, Saw IV, and Saw  V.

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Al K Hall<br />
Functional Alcoholic Slurperson<br />
(No, REALLY. Google &amp;quot;Slurperson&amp;quot; if you don't believe me.)

Last updated: 2010-04-04 16:03:33 by user08

Saw VI

Well now, will that be one pound of flesh or two? You have sixty seconds to decide…

One Word Movie Review: SAD

SAW VI takes one terminal cancer patient with a pre-existing condition, i.e. a psychopathic compulsion to murder anyone who has slighted him in the past, and invites these casual acquaintances to play games in dark, concrete bunkers full of gears, blades, televisions and of course, saws. The game designer requires an engineering degree, an elaborate metal fabrication shop, an ability to kidnap and incapacitate a busload of people and the dumbest cadre of law enforcement personnel on the planet. Mix and mangle, chop and eviscerate and you have the latest sequel to the SAW horror franchise which has become an annual Halloween box office treat.

It takes guts to make movies like SAW VI. Lots of guts exposed, trailing out of cavities and splattering artistically up and down the cold concrete walls. Of course, one or two brains would be nice but they would just get in the way of the plot and character development. All that noted, the actual games of gore are a cut above the usual slasher films which spend no time on the killer’s motivations or weave a narrative link between sequels to the extent one sees in the SAW chain of movies.

The SAW movies are now the highest grossing horror series in history. Jigsaw, the twisted terminal cancer serial killer has surpassed Freddy, Jason and Leatherface. So we are treated to # 6 and next year, #7 will be in 3D! Well, it makes you want to throw up in anticipation, if you weren’t chained to a table with the clock ticking and racing against time to chop off as many body parts as you can so you can live and some other poor bastard can die instead.

The Story

Yes, this is how SAW VI starts, with two loan officers competing to toss their own body parts onto a scale, the winner with the greatest weight loss earning the right to live. The girl wins by chopping off her arm (presumably the bone density made the difference as the fat guy tried carving off his belly fat which made him look heavy but not when sliced off and plopped on the scale). From there, Jigsaw manipulates people from the grave (as he actually died a few movies ago) to take revenge on the health insurance company that refused to pay for his radical cancer treatments.

The insurance manager is the latest target, plus all the people working with him, especially the six guys in the “dog pit” who review insurance applications to find loopholes they can use to deny the claims of sick people. They eventually spin around a carousel as a shotgun fires rounds when they stop. Only their boss can decide who lives and who dies, just like the poor people who live or die at the whim of these insurance administrators holding ultimate power of the purse.

So, these games are not random but designed to play out the theme of SAW movies, repeated endlessly, “who should live and who will live!” This is the story told in flashback to justify the selection of victims and in dark, gory scenes of bloody terror as the victims play the games to see who has the strongest will to live. I won’t give the ending away, unless you think most of the characters should survive, which is unrealistic in this type of movie. Why keep a character alive when you can kill them in sadistic, stomach-churning ways? One reason: they’re needed for SAW VII and beyond! Sequel or slaughter, these are the film fates of the characters.

The Genre

Horror films fill the large void in entertainment since the Roman coliseums closed up just before the dark ages. The Romans played games with people, tossing them to lions or hacking them up for the pleasure of paying audiences. One imagines the people of Rome queuing up around the agora for a chance to see SAW VI on opening night.

With Rome sacked and pillaged (a great backdrop for many a Hollywood movie), the horror film has filled our need to witness the bloody spectacle of people being torn to pieces, chased by demons and gratuitously slaughtered in front of our eyes. Oh, it’s not for everyone. But for fans, these movies are gross-out grand operas of the macabre and maniacal. In that context, SAW VI delivers to expectations.

The Overall Quality

SAW VI is a sad movie, not a bad one. It is technically clever in the design of the games and machinery used to create “moral” dilemmas for Jigsaw’s squirming victims . You watch the gore and wonder, how the heck did they do that? Those intestines look so real! The editing is the real star in this movie, cutting faster than the characters, from clock to cage to knife to acid vat to clock to chain to screaming face to knife to clock to cage again and on and on. The actors can all scream really well and act desperate. Once in a while, they are asked to play defiant, but these moments are fleeting so watch carefully for them.

The whole back story of Jigsaw and his cadre of helpers is quite complicated, after five movies.  There is plenty of mileage left in this franchise, with our terminal cancer killer too omnipresent to ever die off completely. Again, it is just sad we reward the same damn movie year after year instead of insisting for something more. One thing for sure, I wouldn’t want to be Jigsaw’s investment advisor because he’s got to be on the list after 2008’s crash.

Movie/Market Analysis

MarketBOB’s sentiment indicators, the GQS (Genre, Quality, Story) rate SAW VI a BEAR.  Even though there is a new admiration for killer heroes this year (Taken, for instance), Jigsaw is not a character to admire and his “games” are nothing more than slick settings for audience torture porn.

Last updated: 2010-03-28 11:59:55 by user08

Saw VI

If you don't know what the Saw movies are about, watch this first before you read the review.



Okay so straight up.. I love the Saw series. It's a new genre of psychological horror where the film has a whole lot deeper meaning than just watching torture porn. This isn't just another serial killer series like Friday the 13th where you know people are just gonna die in gruesome ways. Watching the Saw series really makes you think. Cause most of the characters who are being tortured really deserves to be, so one thing I love about Saw is that it examines how far your morality goes when faced with life and death.



That being said, the last few Saw series sucked. The lingering disturbing message is still there but the characters were the problem for me. Saw VI finally restored the series to the status the series once had.



Saw VI continues on the used to be ridiculous series tying up cliffhangers from the last films and centres it around the effed up American insurance industry. The main character is the head of an insurance company that has taken advantage of people what with the economy meltdown and such. He is put through a series of torturous traps in order to save his life and the life of seemingly random strangers, but are actually connected to him and why he is being tortured in some way.


Saw VI ups the gore and the perverse violence to an incredibly sick level this time and the build up to the gory scenes are intense. And it officially has my favourite Saw trap, the carousel trap. Watch it.. so messed up!



The film goes back to the formula of the first Saw at being incredibly unpredictable. Just when you think you know how something is going to play out, it comes back and cleverly makes fun at you for thinking the scene would end that way and subsequently end it with some really really terrible stuff.



Besides Tobin Bell (who has had more flashbacks than Lost) and the insurance guy (who looks exactly like Peter O'Toole) , the acting in Saw VI is horrible. But to be fair, most of the horrible actors were from the 3rd-5th Saw movies, so they are partly the reason why the series has gone down. I liked the whole idea of the insurance guy going through the traps. I really hated him at first but I couldn't help but symphatize for him at the end which was totally, brilliantly  uncalled for.



It's still not as good as the first Saw but it's definitely an improvement from the shitty sequels before it. But please if you can't stand to see gory scenes, don't watch this.

RATING: 6/10

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NicholasC

Last updated: 2010-02-20 02:09:56 by user01

Movie Review: Saw VI (2009)

After seeing how confused and convoluted the Saw franchise had gotten after the lacklustre effort that was Saw V, I didn’t think it was possible for them squeeze another one.  Clearly, I underestimated the writers, who not only managed to pump out another 91 minutes of torture porn and link it to the rest of the series, but also made it surprisingly good.  Well, relatively speaking anyway.

Saw VI picks up where the last one took off, and like most film franchises that have lasted this long, assume some level of prior knowledge.  There are some flashbacks, but for the most part you’re left to rely on your memory to recall what the heck happened in the last two or three films.  And if your memory is anything like mine, you’re likely going to be struggling to make the ‘jigsaw’ pieces fit.

Thankfully, Saw VI has a plot of its own, so it doesn’t really matter if the central storyline running through the franchise doesn’t click.  Needless to say, there’s the mysterious, torturous ‘game’ with a number of unwilling (albeit deserving) participants caught up in a series of moral dilemmas, ingenious but gruesome contraptions, the obligatory plot twist, and of course, copious amounts of blood and guts.

That said, while the whole affair was rather predictable, Saw VI somehow managed to stay afloat.  It would have been very easy for the film to have crashed and burned, but first-time director Kevin Greutert and regular Saw franchise writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan made the film much more intelligent and suspenseful than one would have expected.  However, that doesn’t change the fact that you still know what to expect, and that’s what ultimately prevents Saw VI from being anything more than an above average episode of a declining franchise.

So, where does that leave my review of the movie?  At the end of the day, Saw VI was more of the same old stuff we’ve been seeing since the very first one back in 2004.  If you’ve seen the others in the series, you’ll likely be numb by now and the film just won’t have the same impact.  On the other hand, if this is your first of the franchise, you won’t have a clue about the elaborate back story.  Either way, it’s neither particularly good nor particularly bad.

2.5 out of 5 stars!

PJM

Last updated: 2010-01-05 22:00:48 by user04