Saw IV

Now, this may appear even more confusing than the previous part, but really it gives you so many answers and - if you are patient - you will figure it out in the end.

As I so often do, I will now give you one big spoiler off the bat: whatever happens after the beginning credits happens more or less at the same time as the entirety of part III. Before the credits you see what happens after Jigsaw died. This may not make much sense on paper, but it does once you give yourself over to the notion that this is not linear storytelling.

The players this time are the law enforcement officers. A local police officer is still looking for Eric Matthews from all the way back in part II. He has been missing for 6 months now but his former colleague is sent on a scavenger hunt to his location. The FBI meanwhile is hunting the hunter, who they believe to be helping Jigsaw (because he himself is too sick to arrange all the elaborate machinery and Amanda is too small to do all of the heavy lifting the preparation has required).

Unfortunately, the FBI agents have to deal with some of the dumbest and one dimensional dialogue in (probably) horror film history. Also, the two actors are terribly wooden (and, yes, well, one dimensional).

Eric Matthews is the one I felt most sorry for. While everyone is off trying to beat the clock and find whoever it is that is now working for Jigsaw, he is stood on a block of ice while at the same time has a noose around his neck. The idea is that he will hang himself once the ice is melted enough while at the same time lowering a see saw contraption that on the other side will put another police guy into water that will then have an unpleasant union with electricity.

The really rough part, however, that no matter if he survives long enough to be presumably saved by his former colleague, as soon as said colleague opens the door to the room, the contraption is rigged to smash his head with two more blocks of ice. (And it does.)

In the end the surviving FBI agent encounters - and shoots - Jeff, who is still stumbling through the building, now looking for his daughter. Also, we now know who Jigsaw's successor is.

At this point I am very much looking forward to the next part(s) and hoping for better dialogue.

6/10

Saw III

Yesterday was Friday the 13th. There was also a full moon. If this does not scream for a horror film night, I don't know what does.

In my continuous quest to see the entire Saw series a friend and I moved on to part III (and, as you will see, part IV right after).

Our favorite psychopath, Jigsaw aka John, is on his deathbed. To finalize the initiation of his very eager pupil Amanda, he has one more elaborate game that she orchestrated on his behalf. A female doctor was kidnapped and is forced to keep John alive for as long as it takes another player, Jeff, to complete a very special series of tests. She is also outfitted with a nifty collar that will explode upon John's death.

Jeff is a sad sack, that has lost his son in a car accident and has been neglecting his wife and daughter ever since. What made things even worse for him is that the driver got off with a mere 6 months sentence. What he is being tested for is whether or not he is able to forgive the people involved in his son's death - the only witness, the judge and the driver himself.

At the same time, Amanda is being tested by John. Apparently, she has not been doing as well as he expected, as she has been mingling with the players (killing, maiming) even after they won their particular games. 

In the end, the doctor wins but Amanda fails and kills her (which was basically her failure). Jeff makes it through the tests without any of the three board pieces surviving. But then we learn that the doctor is his wife and she falls into his arms after she was shot. While she is fighting for her life, Jeff kills both Amanda and John, signing his wife's death sentence. The last he learns from John is that the couple's daughter has been kidnapped and, well, too bad, now John cannot help Jeff find her. Tough luck.

Whereas the story is not as straight forward as parts I and II, what makes this interesting is the flashbacks and parallels that first confuse you but really only gives you the strings tying it all together.

7/10

Saw II

Jigsaw's games are getting more elaborate in part 2. Previously, he usually involved one, sometimes two, people in his little schemes. In Saw II he has a whole house full of players fighting for survival. One of them is a survivor from part 1 of the series, Amanda.

Of course, Amanda turns out to be so much more than this. And anyway, the on-goings in the house are not the actual story. This is much more about Jigsaw wanting Eric Matthews to listen to him. That is the most important rule for this part of the game: listen.

But poor Eric is consumed by his anger and fear because his son is one of the people in the room. In his desperation of wanting to help the boy now! he cannot sit still to abide by the rules. This turns out to be his own downfall. But Jigsaw lets the boy live, which is a nice gesture. Unfortunately, his daddy will never know.

The house holds medication that all the players need to survive the poison gas they have been breathing in since they woke up. The traps holding the syringes with the vital substance or the key (sometimes an actual key) to open the hiding place are evil, of course. There are two I especially love/hate.

A syringe is kept in a box and is visible to the unfortunate woman trying to get to it. There are two openings on the bottom of the box to get your hand through and reach the substance. The problem...once you push your hands in, it is no longer possible to get them back out again, or at least not with help from someone else, because any down movement will make you cut yourself very badly.

My very, very favorite and the most disgusting trap is the pit full of used needles and syringes that was meant for Xavier. But Xavier talks a big game and muscles others into doing the really gross stuff. He throws Amanda into the pit.

As I said in my previous entry, the room from part 1 gets a re-visit and is once again a central part to the story. This is where Eric ends up - right place but wrong time. And jigsaw has found himself an eager student in Amanda.

8/10