Horror Nerd Cinema Bonus: "Saw VI"

I will give "Saw VI" this much credit - the opening scene is dynamite, and is perhaps the best of the "Movie-Opening Trap" sequences that the "Saw" series is noted for. Really awesome, grotesque stuff.

First things first - a warning. This review is going to be pretty scatterbrained, because, well, this is a pretty scatterbrained motion picture. From the ungodly opening scene, we immediately go into the next round of "Saw" intrigue, as Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is attempting to fully take on the reins of Jigsaw. The character of Hoffman itself ranks, to me, as the single biggest letdown in this series for reasons that I'll get into later, and in this film he's just as vanilla. The key element in any horror picture, I believe, is a good villain; Tobin Bell's John Kramer was a GREAT villain, but alas, Hoffman is not, and the latter trilogy of "Saw" flicks hurts mightily for it.

While these movies are police procedurals at some level with hapless cops attempting to catch up to the current Jigsaw killer, all of the movies focus on one main redemptory game - and this time, it is more of an intimate game in the style of "Saw III" and "IV." It's here where "Saw VI" begins to lose a lot of steam; the character needing redemption this time is William Easton (Peter Outerbridge), an insurance company executive who gives Tobin Bell (in this movie's Jigsaw flashback tie-in scene) an opportunity to go on a didactic monologue about the insurance industry that sounds incredibly out of place for a movie of this nature. Keenan Ivory Wayans says MESSAGE!

Much like Jeff from "Saw III," I didn't much care for William. And while I won't get into the logistics of Jigsaw's games throughout these movies (seriously, how does one go about putting together all of these massive contraptions without anyone noticing?), I thought the torture/morality control devices in this flick were a disappointment. Well, with the exception of the merry-go-round trap. I don't know if they were aiming for humor with it, but when one of the females waiting to be saved screamed out "I'm pregnant!" followed by a guy IMMEDIATELY going "the bitch is lying!", I don't know, I laughed. Maybe I'm just sadistic.

But those who are reading this probably already have their mind made up about "Saw"; it seems people either can't get enough of it, or desperately want the thing to end. Color me into the later camp. The "Saw" series has really said everything that it needed to say, and then some. And look, people - I'm not out just to diss the franchise, as I found the first two movies to be excellent. My stance in recent years is that "Saw" could have made a kickass trilogy if they had ended the third film with a true redemption for the main victim character, left Kramer dead and buried, and called it a day. Unfortunately, they've kept cranking these things out, unable to admit that the creative well has run dry.

And lo and behold we've got a 3D installment coming up next year. I'm eagerly awaiting "Saw in Space."