Saw 3D

A better title for this movie would be "Saw VII," but they wanted to cash in on the 3D craze of the late oughties (which totally doesn't already look dated four years later). Hey, filmmakers, if your part 3 isn't going to be in 3D then ya missed the boat! This movie is, of course, terrible, but there are two good things going for it: 1) a torture device scene that happens in broad daylight in front of hundreds of witnesses, which gives the film a different palate than the normal "warehouse green" it seems to love, and B) a kinda unique plot in which a nonfiction author rose to fame by faking that he was a survivor of Jigsaw and now Jigsaw catches him and puts him through some traps or whatever. Now that I'm done with these movies I don't think I can recommend them to anybody per se, but I'm sure academics will write/have already written papers on the trend of 2000s horror focusing extreme pain, suffering, etc, when America as a country was committing acts of torture so publicly. Finally, look at the poster there - a gigantic robot Jigsaw killer would have been so much better than anything that happens in this movie but oh well!

RATING: 41%

Saw VI

These movies aren't even really horror movies - they're just thrillers with a whole lotta gore. I mean, a horror movie is supposed to about fear, and these are just badly structured police procedurals. No other horror movie spends so much time on cops trying to catch the killer (or secretly be the killer several times) as the Saw movies do, and the victims in these traps are basically props. Anyway, in this one an insurance executive must pay the price for his sins, since he invented insurance and whatever I guess,. but maybe the cop is actually the one being tested (he is)! Wait, am I repeating myself?

RATING: 28%