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Saw is fucking stupid. And I’m just going to assume that all of the sequels are equally fucking stupid. (Probably not as stupid as the Saw roller coaster, though.) Personally, I have not seen them. I recognize that it’s a dangerous and foolish critical position to claim knowledge of something you don’t have knowledge of, so I’m not doing that. Not exactly. But I am putting my faith in the logic that a franchise that’s well known to be a lazy cash-grabber has put all of its “best” eggs into the first basket, which I have seen, I saw those eggs, and the rest of the baskets are filled with lesser eggs, and that even if I don’t see those eggs, I can still smell them, and they smell awful. And its “best” eggs were also terrible. (Hold on, my phone is ringing. Oh look, it’s Metaphor University, asking me to be the DEAN.) After watching the first Saw, I said to myself “well that is enough of that garbage,” and if I hadn’t had to return the DVD to Netflix, I would have broken it over my knee, David Edelstein-style. Because fuck that noise. I don’t need those images in my head, and I certainly don’t need those images in my head when they’re in service to an intellectually bankrupt premise. Again, I can’t speak to the sequels, but the original movie certainly prided itself on having a philosophical backdrop on which to structure its horror puzzles (a psychopath with a violent hatred for those who take life for granted, teaching them a lesson about this precious gift).
I’m not saying that you can’t like torture porn. You can like torture porn. Go ahead. What do I care? As far as I’m concerned, you should marry torture porn, and have miserable little nightmare babies. But the idea that there’s anything going on here besides watching people get mutilated and massacred (and why DO you like to watch people get mutilated and massacred?) is a lie. And I don’t like lies!
This clip from the upcoming Saw VI (Saw VI!) basically encapsulates everything that is wrong with the entire franchise:
UGH. They’re all “evil” health insurance policy account managers? BEAR TRAPPED FROM THE HEADLINES.
“I think health care decisions should be made by doctors.”
–Jigsaw’s Tombstone
This doesn’t even make any sense! It’s not teaching someone about the value of life by murdering them. And it’s also not teaching someone about the value of life by making them arbitrarily choose who should die via a game of Nightmare Mouse Trap. If you want to murder them, just murder them, stop WASTING MY TIME. And it is a cruel and nihilistic trick to try and give the audience a moral out by suggesting that everyone on this carousel (a carousel, COME ON, I am an ADULT) basically deserves to die because they were part of a broken bureaucratic health care system. There should be no moral out for the audience. People dying is people dying, and getting a visceral thrill out of watching people die is getting a visceral thrill out of watching people die. This is the same type of weak moral argument that a certain vampire bully has tried to use to make Inglourious Basterds somehow not just be three hours of watching people smash other people in the head with baseball bats. Nazis were cruel and sadistic and evil as a general rule, yes, and the Holocaust was a human horror on the scale of which our brains do not even have the potato-computer capacity to comprehend, but none of that has anything to do with a movie starring Eli Roth. And if it doesn’t work with Nazis, it certainly is not going to work with middle managers. Yuck.
Oh, these things make me so mad!
And what is with the budget on this thing? Don’t the Saw movies take in an obscene amount of money? How about giving something back to your fans. This thing has lower production values than Lindsay Lohan’s Labor Pains. This thing has lower production values than Leprechuan 4: In Space.
Oh, there will be ugh.
Have fun at dinner, the Saw franchise.
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You give a good synopsis of Saw Gabe, but we really need professor of Sawology Lindsay Roberson’s take on all this.(She got her PHD after her marathon Double Dog)
I don’t even wanna watch. I see “Saw” and “carousel,” and I’m out.
My dad and I were talking about these kinds of movies last night (re: Inglouriouse Bazstardseses), and he summed it up best: “Your sister loves these movies. No wonder she has all those fucked-up nightmares.”
Check and mate, dad.
Yeah, but I don’t think you understand a carousel. It’s full of nostalgia. Nostalgia – it’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.
Ohhhh wow. I like you.
the scene in Leprechaun 4 where the leprechaun makes his first appearance by bursting out of the mook marine’s penis is high art, man.
His disease is spreading…via juggalos, ninjas.
Jigsaw is a fucking birther. Who knew?
Just kill them all.
Ugh x1Million. Woof times infinity. I could seriously write a whole Doctoral thesis on this shit, torture porn, and especially that they’re made in America (even though James Wan is Aussie of Malaysian descent, I know) primarily for American consumption. It absolutely is pornographic in that it is merely violence for violence’s sake, and not just violence but torture violence, when this shit is actually happening around the world, but I won’t, I’ll just say I’m glad Lindsay had to do this double dog and not me because I would have immediately checked my eyes and brain into a hospital to be replaced. Because that is something you can do. And it also reminds me of my very first visit here to Vgum, that suddenly I was not alone in my very, very isolated spot in society of fucking hating Tarantino, and why I still come back to read. A trip down memory lane, everyone!
http://videogum.com/archives/trailer/quentin-tarantino-to-executive_010936.html
For that matter, I always wondered about the “ethics” of that Double Dog Dare.
I don’t get how anyone can find anyone can find any of the Saw movies suspenseful or interesting. Warning: I am about to spoil the entire series for those who haven’t seen (!!) a Saw (!!!!):
Everyone dies.
Yeah.
That’s about… it.
For 5 entire movies.
Oh and I love how, because obvi I’m never going to watch any of them, some idiots are all, ‘oh but it’s about appreciating life, you’d have to see it to understand.’ No! I do not have to see it, because you know why? Appreciating life means LIVING it, and appreciating it, instead of watching fake people get fake tortured and GOING BACK FOR MORE, so I WIN at appreciating life already! I gotta get outta this thread, I’m gettin all worked up. TTYL!
Saw III was the only one that could capture the spirit of the books.
That space room looks pretty fun.
I will not see saw six
“I have my own informed opinions about the complicated social issues that plague our country, and can be whatever I want to be when I grow up.”
- Jigsaw
Monday is going to be an awkward day at work for those three.
Jigsaw is clearly scraping the bottom of the victim barrel at this point. Next up: weathermen who says its going to be sunny…THEN IT RAINS! Put them in the lighting death machine!
There hasn’t been a decent horror movie to come out in ages. They’re ALL just money-grabbing bloody porn fests. I remember seeing that new Jason movie with some friends (half of them were borderline drunk, I didn’t put up my defenses) and it only assured me that the horror genre is dead. That movie was LITERALLY softcore porn with some stupid people getting murdered along the way. It has as much plot as an actually porno.
28 Days Later
Let the Right One In
Prom Night
Drag Me To Hell
Drag Me to Hell times infinity
The Orphanage
Go to Europe. “Inside” was awesome. But I’m hesitant to call “Let the Right One In” a horror movie, still great though.
The Lake House.
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Whoa my god dude. 1. It’s just ‘pornographic,’ not ‘pornographical.’ 2. Ichi the Killer is an entirely different movie that explores the psychology of violence. 3. It is called pornographic not in the sexual sense, but in that the violence of Saw is just that, for no other reason, not to further anything, but just so the audience can see torture (instead of sex), for no other purpose but just to watch violence and torture. 5. Blood Feast could easily be called pornographic in its violence. 6. There is a whole giant spectrum of the depiction of sex and/or violence in cinema, and Saw is at the very very far end of that spectrum in that it has no other purpose but to show people (actors) getting tortured. 7.Enjoy it all you want, Monster.
Sorry, English isn’t my first language, but I try anyway. I did come off as kind of a dick in that comment, but I don’t think the term “torture porn” has any meaning at all. It just makes no sense to me.
You probably don’t even get it because you’re so caught up in the patriarchal paradigm. I’m kidding! I’m kidding. Well, you’re doing an excellent job in a second language, much better than my futile attempts in the three I’ve studied (sad). But if you still think that the term ‘torture porn’ is somehow innacurate, then I think you should just stick to the ‘English isn’t my first language’ reasoning, or delve into the etymology of pornography, because that is exactly what those movies are. They have zero merit but to elicit some sort of reaction based purely on showing something (sex/torture/blood) without having really any reason to or necessity to (plot, investment in characters, tell a story or allegory – as with mythology or children’s fables), other than, as Gabe said, to give the audience a moral ‘out’ by saying these people somehow deserve it. It’s still just watching torture for torture’s sake. But, again, enjoy it all you want, I guess. Just don’t torture people! Because that is bad and it makes you sick and mean! I’ll be in the latest cute as balls thread now.
Saw gets topical? Jesus Christ.
“Before you are the heads of corporations who violate carbon-emission laws by not following Federal Guideline 753G (paragraph 7). The EPA has strong evidence that such emissions of nitrites combine with carbon dioxide to deplete the ozone layer, resulting in gradual climate change. Studies show that even a small rise in temperatures could adversely affect the polar ice caps, as well as the natural enviornments for many wildlife. So pick three and pluck out their eyeballs and eat them, because life is precious.”
“These men ran for the position of mayor of your local town. Unfortunately, the previous mayor was impeached for taking money under the table. They should have known that they were entering a flawed race, and also I’m going to take chainsaws to their crotches.”
…and God and the Bible.
My girlfriend and I were at Blockbuster looking for something to watch and make fun of. We decided on Saw IV. When we went to the counter to rent the movie the employee explained to us that Saw IV was in the Used movie section and it was actually cheaper to just buy it. Yeah, we own it.
Who downvotes someone because they watched a shitty movie? You people are monsters.
They wanted this to be called “Saw IV: The Wheel,” but Don Draper turned them around:
(Gabe, don’t watch this if you haven’t finished Season 2.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus
I think it’s time to play the sequel captions game! I’ll start:
Saw IV: The Carousel
Saw IV: Your Bad, America
Saw IV: Why?
Thank god someone else noticed this. I kept waiting for Gabe to go Draper. No dice. Also, Season 1, methinks.
Season 1, right you are. Aren’t you the same guy(?) who joined me in the campaign to make Gabe watch The Forgotten? We might be videogum comment soulmates. If only the religious right would allow annonymous commenter marriages in America! Stupid Bible.
HOLY SHIT! I just realized this is not “Saw IV” at all. It’s Saw VI! (I bet the Romans made mistakes like this all the time.) There have been FIVE OF THESE?! I think I knew that at one point but repressed it. Now I have to kill myself. I don’t want to live on this planet with these people anymore.
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Yes.
I see them every year on opening weekend. I know they are garbage. The story constantly gets written into corners. The films are ridiculous and nasty and have no redeeming moral quality… but they are fun. Mindless, yes, and probably in poor taste, but fun. See you in the theatres! Downvotes awayyy.
No, this is fine. The Videogum Moms Society needs to relax and realize that there’s nothing morally wrong with watching fake things happen to actors in a make-believe movie, no matter how gross it is. I don’t agree with you watching Saw, but I’ll defend to the death your right to do it, because America. Or something.
Really?
“Saw is fucking stupid” is probably the most efficient thesis statement I have ever read.
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MEGA-AMEN to this post, Gabe. You have put into the perfect words what the sane human community thinks about torture porn and its degenerate fans. For serious.
P.S. “There will be ugh” = LOL
This Saw movie is the left’s response to all of the Republican “I don’t want bureaucrats standing between me and my doctor.” statements.
“I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.”
The Sixth Movie will easily be the best, most character-based one — but fans will be too angry about the lack of the action-packed finale from the book and the removal of Jigsaw’s funeral to realize this.
It’s rants like these that make me fall in love with Gabe a little bit more each time he posts them. Because of how people can fall in love with someone via the internet, because that is a thing that happens.
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clap clap clap
Leprechaun 4 has the Supreme Dalek?
AMEN TO ALL OF THIS
I think an argument can be made that this type of horror inherently has a far greater respect for violence than ninety-nine percent of action films. I’m not saying it’s intentional, but these films by their nature force the audience to confront horrific violence with an unblinking eye, and the drama is supposed to rise from that confrontation.
These films are awful and I’m sure the creative forces are blithering idiots, but how on earth is this worse than a PG-13 action movie where countless people are shot in a sterile, inconsequential, bloodless aesthetic? I think it’s far more damaging to paint violence in pastel colors than to base the whole visceral experience of your film around the disgusting reality of this level of violence.
It’s sure as hell lazy filmmaking, but let’s paint, exercise, and try not to get offended by the fucking Saw franchise.
Lazy filmmaking is right. The Saw franchise has nothing on the Mondo Cane genre in terms of pure visceral violence, and therefore has no real justification for its existence. Like, why bother continuing to aggressively suck if other films which have existed for like 30 years already did it way better?
Some depressing numbers for you:
Saw – $103,096,345
Saw II – $147,739,965
Saw III – $164,874,275
Saw IV – $139,352,633
Saw V – $113,857,533
Those are worldwide grosses, and also irrefutable, numerical proof that there is no hope for the future.
Throw in the fact that there’s no budget whatsoever for this shit, and you have a pretty good grasp on why we’ll be making fun of red band clips from Saw XXVIII on Hologramgum.com when we’re ninety-five years-old and every band sounds like Brokencyde.
But that leads into the whole… Why do people enjoy realistic violence so much? I’m not hating, and I think people are totally free to do what they want, but I just don’t understand what’s fun about seeing people killed.
So, if in a PG-13 movie, a person is shot, but the emotional impact in made known to the audience, then I would say it’s done better than the Saw films.
I thank the Saw franchise for giving me one less option when I’m planning my Halloween night.
Saw should somehow get this contestant to go on his show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QezIBLK5WHg
I love the description of the clip: Some idiot cheats while playing Flip Flop, and Bob awards him the prize anyway. It made me giggle.
Did Gabe already say the Saw is your franchise? Because Saw is your franchise.
Thanks, Gabe. But you should have written, “Do not watch high”, that clip scared the shit out of me.
I saw the first Saw on a pirate copy my friend lent me (i know, i know as the ads in Britain tell me, I’m funding terrorism. Scaremonger much) and i swear the only bit where i was remotely creeped out was when someone in the theatre stood up to go to the toilet. I thought it was some surreal quirk like in the Exorcist until i realised it wasn’t the film.
Sorry about that – first image post:
does anyone remember the tagline for the first saw movie on the posters?
DARE YOU SEE SAW.
making childrens playgrounds terrifying
Though I’ve never seen any Saw movies (I can’t handle stuff like this), I just feel like calling people “monsters” for enjoying this is kind of…presumptuous? If you really believe that, then it’s not a huge leap to turn to people who play gory, violent video games and call them the same. They’re both forms of entertainment, and a main feature in most popular games is just new ways to kill people, not plot points. You could even say that games are worse because they’re “interactive”.
Think it’s best to step away from any psychological conclusions in these matters. Excess is excess, and sometimes people want just that: an over-the-top Tarantino action movie with little plot offering.
http://www.ocweekly.com/2007-09-06/film/why-torture-porn-isn-t/1