SAW III (unrated) and "torture porn."

[The Burgomaster]

About a week ago I picked up this DVD on a Best Buy "$9.99 sale."  I've been watching movies since the 1960s, and I've seen just about every type of movie out there.  Of course, I'm a big horror / gore /exploitation fan and have seen (and purchased) everything from DAWN OF THE DEAD (boxed set) to CANNIBAL FEROX to AUDITION to SNUFF to HOSTEL to THE EVIL DEAD to DEAD ALIVE and the list goes on and on.  And I always look for extended, unrated versions of everything.  I guess I am now one of those people the media says is "desensitized to violence" because I have been saturated with it on theater and TV screens since I was a kid in the late 1960s.

I'm not sure if it was the movie itself or the mood I was in when I watched it, but I found the unrated cut of SAW III to be possibly the most relentless, humorless, dreary, and incessantly gory and violent movie I have seen in years . . . maybe in my lifetime.  Again, this may be an overreaction . . . perhaps I was just in a strange frame of mind last night when I watched it. 

The recent descriptor that the media have attached to movies like this is "torture porn."  When I first heard this phrase, I thought, "Oh, boy.  Here comes another group of conservative psychologist 'wanna be' types who want to put the kibosh on gory movies."  My opinion has always been, "if you don't approve of sex and violence in movies, then don't watch those movies . . . but leave me the hell alone."

But, based on my viewing of SAW III (and, again, maybe I was just tired or in a bad mood or something), I think Lionsgate and director Darren Lynn Bousman have elevated torture porn to a new level.  This movie has absolutely no function other than to flash 113 minutes or humorless, depressing, relentless gore and human suffering in our faces.  I'm not sure if this movie has ANY true entertainment value, except possibly for serial killers.

Am I making too much of this?  Am I just getting old and soft?  Was I just not in the correct frame of mind to watch this last night?  I need your opinions here . . .

[Mr_Vindictive]

I think you might have been in the wrong mood Burgo.  Saw 3 actually wasn't too bad compared to tons of other films.  Sure, it's violent but no more so than it's predecessors or Hostel, etc.  I only vaguely remember parts of the film as I found it to be a bit forgettable.  I recall a portion with a woman freezing to death and a guy getting his arms twisted, but that's about it.

I say rewatch it Burgo and see how it sits the second time around.  It's certainly not the most violent and gory film of all time.  When was the last time you watched a film like this?  Might be that you haven't watched one in a while and it came as a shock.

[The Burgomaster]

Skaboi:

Did you see the unrated version?  When the guy gets his arms and legs twisted, they show the broken bones tearing through his skin.  There's another scene where a guy has steel rings connected to chains piercing his skin on various parts of his body and they show him trying to escape while each steel ring tears off a chunck of his flesh.  Both of these scenes go on and on for several minutes each, like the editor forgot to cut the film.  I watch these types of movies all the time . . . but this was more violent and dreary than the other SAW movies and HOSTEL.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Burgo,

I'm 99% sure the copy I have is the Unrated version.  I picked it up when the DVD first came out so I'm pretty sure it is.  I'll have to go back and rewatch it sometime as it's been a while since I saw it and my memory might be deceiving me.  I recall liking the film for the most part.

I've gotten to the point that most violence doesn't bother me.  I can't recall the last time I was sickened by violence in a film...possibly the curb stomp in American History X?  It's sad, but I've seen so many films that I've become desensitized to the violence. 

[The Burgomaster]

Skaboi:

I've been desensitized to violence, too.  But movies like AMERICAN HISTORY X had good plots, dialogue, acting, etc.  Even movies like HOSTEL had some plot set up, likeable characters, and humor.  What struck me about SAW III is that, from the first frame of film to the final frame, it is nothing but one dreary image after another of physical and emotional torture with nothing left to the viewer's imagination.  There is really nothing to it beyond the violence.  Nothing.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Warning - Possible Spoilers In The Post

True the film had no story but neither did the previous two films in the series.  As you said, at least Hostel let you get to know some of the characters a bit before delving head first into the violence. 

I do remember seriously disliking the main character of Saw 3.  There was a scene, possibly even the scene where he is kidnapped in which he is yelling at his daughter while mourning his dead son.  I didn't really care anything about what happened to the character from that point on, which is never a good thing for the film.  Granted, he was never the one in any danger.

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the point of the film to make the guy the new Jigsaw?  I remember his wife dying in the end due to his own actions and he killed Jigsaw as well.  It seemed the film was just an excuse to make him the killer in the next film which comes out next month. 

I'm not defending the film in any way though, keep that in mind.  I own each of the Saw films but only out of my own curiosity and need to subject myself to most any horror film that gets released.  It's a bit depressing after a point.

[indianasmith]

I really liked the first two SAW movies, but this one was a bit much at times.  Still, it brought the series to a satisfactory conclusion for me . . . I'm a little sad they're doing a sequel .  That being said, I will probably watch it.

[zombie no.one]

dreary

my opinion of the entire SAW franchise, in a nutshell.

[KYGOTC]

The entire Saw franchise is a bane to the horror genere, mostly because they arnt scary. Gore does NOT equal scary. What happened to scary movies? The things that come out nowadays like the ring, the grudge, and the entire saw mess are soooo dumb. When i watched the ring, it made every one around me laugh. It made me sleep. Neither are propper reactions to a horror flik. These saw movies, much like "Hostile", are just a string of the most GRUSOME exploitation of gore and torture with little to no story atatched. Dont get me wrong, I LOVE a good exploitation film, but the keyword there is GOOD.

It is indeed a dark age for the horror fan, but perhaps times will change.

[RCMerchant]

Extreme gore dos't bother me...in context. If a movie exists soley for torture or gore...it's boring or depressing. The extended rape scence in junk like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE was way to much. It seemed to go on and on. It was neither shocking nor helped the plot at all. Yeah...it was the reason why Camille Keaton went on her rampage of revenge-but it could have been handled differently. As it was-it was merely painful to watch.
On the other hand,the 1974 version of the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE had plenty of mental and physical torture...but the editing and techniques used by Tobe Hooper presented it in such a way to forward the film...and made it truely a terrifying experiance.
The SAW films....I saw (no pun intended) the first one....and it seemed to literally fast forward the non- toture sections...merely to get to the next act of pain. A lousy move on the part of the filmmakers....and did nothing to help the audiance empathize with the charecters. It was like watching slaughterhouse footage. Pretty ho-hum and dull,for me.
  Watch the original PSYCHO....a most suspensful film...yet only two people are actually shwn killed. Yet the suspense of 'who's next?'  carries the movie....of course-Hitchcock was a master manipulator of his audiance....modern filmmakers could take a lesson from him. Same for JAWS. One first veiwing-an intense experiance. When I first saw it in the theater in the '70's...I was jumpy as a flea! Ditto the EXORSIST.

[indianasmith]

When i watched the ring, it made every one around me laugh. It made me sleep

DO . . . NOT . . . SPEAK . . . . OF . . . THE RING . . .  LIKE . . . THAT!!!!!!!     

It was the best horror movie I'd seen in YEARS.

Trash talk the sequel all you want, however!

[Pilgermann]

Hey, I thought The Ring was really well made.  The Grudge is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, though.

As for the topic, I've seen parts of Saw III and it looked pretty lame.  I've only seen the first Saw film and I thought it was horrible, but at least it had some unintentionally hilarious moments.  And it really wasn't even gory.  It had a bit of blood here and there, but nothing major.  I really really don't see what people think is so great about this series.

[Jim H]

The entire Saw franchise is a bane to the horror genere, mostly because they arnt scary. Gore does NOT equal scary. What happened to scary movies? The things that come out nowadays like the ring, the grudge, and the entire saw mess are soooo dumb. When i watched the ring, it made every one around me laugh. It made me sleep. Neither are propper reactions to a horror flik. These saw movies, much like "Hostile", are just a string of the most GRUSOME exploitation of gore and torture with little to no story atatched. Dont get me wrong, I LOVE a good exploitation film, but the keyword there is GOOD.

It is indeed a dark age for the horror fan, but perhaps times will change.

It's mentioned before, but Saw isn't very gore.  There's what, a slit throat and a couple gun wounds seen on camera?  From what I gather, the two sequels are much worse.  I didn't like the first much, so I didn't watch the sequels. 

Hostel is gorier, but I was quite surprised by how little torture was in it - the way people talked about it, I thought there'd be a half dozen long scenes.  Instead there are essentially two, one of which was pretty awful to watch the other one which wasn't, niether of which are really that long.  I haven't seen the sequel though. 

Oh, and while I didn't think Hostel was a good movie, I will say some scenes are quite effective at what they try to do.  The ankle shot is one of the most gruesomely awful and painful moments I've seen in a movie.