October 11 – The Saw Franchise (2004-2010)

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The Saw Franchise (2004-2010): Directed By James Wan (I), Darren Lynn Bousman (II-IV), David Hackl (V) and Kevin Greutert (VI-VII)

In One Sentence: A series of films in which a fucked up guy named Jigsaw dedicates himself to showing random people that life is not to be taken for granted (how nice) by forcing them to play games set up with torture devices.

Why You Should Watch: Mention the Saw films to anyone and you will hear one of three things, “Everything after the original was awful”, “These movies only focused on the gore,” or the occasional “Those aren’t even worth watching.” Well, there is a little bit of truth to all three of those, but don’t believe all the hype. There are some redeeming aspects to these movies.

Wanna play a game? I bet I can predict what you will think while watching these movies.

1) You’ll never see Saw I‘s ending coming. It’s a psychological mind boggler that few can deny shook up the whole horror genre. People then wanted more answers and a backstory. Well, let’s just say the writers really, really, REALLY wanted to make a backstory (Not to mention the fact that there were so many different people working on each script).

2) You will enjoy the next few films slightly less than the original. There are some cool traps and insane kill scenes in both, but you can feel the magic fleeting. This is mainly due to the three different plot points going on in each movie, as well as some movies having plots that are happening at the SAME time as other movies. But really the only way to comprehend all of it is to watch them all. Example, you won’t understand Saw III until you see Saw VI.

3) You will be totally confused by the incohesive plot of Saw IV. Is Jigsaw dead? He is not dead? How many of these movies do they plan on making? Why should I even care anymore?

4) If you hang with the series this far, you will be pleasantly surprised by Saw VI. Saw takes on the U.S. healthcare system and actually does a decent job exposing their true evil.

5) You might not make it through Saw VII. While retaining a semi intelligent plot throughout a majority of the subplots available, the final installment becomes more of a dumbed down slasher.  It ties up the loose ends. That’s pretty much it.

Favorite Line: If you’re good at anticipating the human mind, it leaves nothing to chance.