Ah, Mr Jigsaw, what wicked music you have made these past couple of
years. Is there another franchise which blurs the line between visceral and vicious with such gleeful brutality? If so, I think we need to be told. Assuming there’s not, the advent of the final episode in the Saw trilogy is cause for celebration for gorehounds and ingenious twist fans alike. ‘Cos if there’s one thing that typifies this highly influential horror series – apart from the gratuitous and disturbingly inventive claret-splashing antics – it’s the impressively mind-bending final act that makes you want to hold back the vomitus and watch the whole damn thing again.
So what does screenwriter Leigh Whannell have up his sleeve for Jigsaw’s final outing? Horror is an interesting genre in that the law of diminishing returns need not apply with enough invention. Admittedly all the Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street sequels were dire but only because they were so lazy. Saw II showed an impressive level of inventiveness both in terms of plot and the gruesome demises doled out to its players, and like its forebear packed a gut-punch of a twist to keep your head spinning as you left the cinema. Feeling slightly nauseous. So, high standards to live up to, especially since Saw can be partly credited with kick-starting the new wave of brutal body horror films which Hollywood went ga-ga for this year, while Takashi Miike presumably rolled his eyes and muttered “amateurs” under his breath.
Once again the format has been shaken up, necessity to avoid stagnation being the mother of invention, with emphasis falling on Jigsaw’s apprentice Amanda (Smith, indecently sexy for a stone-cold psycho) as she steps up to the nasty-plate. Jigsaw is on his way out so a (suspiciously attractive) doctor is forced to keep him alive while one last game is played out. Unsurprisingly this involves a series of Crystal Maze-esque challenges packing a lethal twist, played by Jeff (MacFadyen – probably the best thing he’s done since Catherine Zeta Jones), a grieving father being forced to come to terms with his past.
Interestingly, the emphasis this time is not so much on punishment of the lazy or undeserving, but on forgiveness. You have to admire Whannell’s balls for daring to play fast and loose with audience expectation; there seems to be a surprising intention to carve a true legacy for the Saw series, a refusal to allow it to follow the aforementioned 80’s slashers into derivative, derisory (dark, scary) alleyways of movie history. The film is clearly signalled as the final chapter, another brave move given what a cash-cow the series has proven, especially given its killer (sorry) premise.
That said, the film still has director Bousman’s epilepsy-unfriendly eye for shock to fall back on for its cash-swallowing kicks. I don’t want to say too much about the various demises for fear of ruining much of the fun, but you won’t be disappointed – vegetarians are advised to steer clear, however. What is slightly disappointing is the denouement. The film has fallen into the Shyamalan Trap – everything still feels like it’s leading to a twist ending, despite all efforts at reinvention and misdirection, and it’s not up to the standard set in this series. Horror fans only demand imagination in the field of corpse creation, but Saw raised the bar and now it can’t quite jump that high. As such, there’s a slight air of disappointment to be found at the end of 5 hours of surprisingly cerebral savagery. This slight dip in form throws into relief the standard of modern horror’s most effective franchise (Final Destination be damned), and as such Saw III actually makes you want to revisit scenes you swore you’d never be able to sit through again. Jigsaw remains an enigmatic icon, and will be missed. But not by the vegetarians.