SAW V (2008/USA)
Running Time: 1 hour 39 minutes
Certificate: 16
Director: David Hackl
Starring: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson.
You just have to love the staying power of slasher films. Despite being critically lambasted most of the time, they continue to be churned out by movie studios. There is one simple reason for this: Money. Slasher films equal big profit margins for cash hungry movie studios. For the most part they are extremely cheap to make, no A-list actors will go anywhere near them and they are usually set in one claustrophobic location. They are pretty much the antithesis to the Bond movies. You can dismiss them as celluloid trash if you want but they won’t be leaving our cinema screens anytime soon. To date there have been seven sequels to Halloween, six to A Nightmare On Elm Street and nine to Friday The 13th. That list doesn’t include Freddy vs Jason and a remake of the first Halloween movie. Just checking you were paying attention. The Saw movies are just continuing already well established slasher film patterns. Basically to endlessly repeat themselves into oblivion with a slew of sequels and to come up with new and novel ways to dismember C-list cast members. These films do what they say on the tin. Watching a slasher film is like going to a fast food joint, whereas let’s say watching a Martin Scorsese movie is like going to a top-quality Italian restaurant. With that in mind, Saw V is not even a delicious cod and chips but a greasy burger that is sometimes hard to swallow. With the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell) well and truly pushing up the daisies after part IV, somebody else has taken over the mantle of putting morally corrupt citizens into torture contraptions from hell. Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and Special Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) are on hand to try and solve the gory puzzle once more. It seems Jigsaw had been receiving help over the years (and the sequels) and his henchman is flying the serial killer flag for him still. I knew he couldn’t have made all those complicated torture machines by himself! Five more people have been captured by Jigsaw’s sidekick for the horror version of Deal Or No Deal? Heads will roll, literally. Cue gut-wrenching special effects and sweat inducing countdowns. Hackl, to be fair to him, does a reasonable job of directing the movie. Tension is built up by cutting back and forth between the trapped victims and the frantic police search for the killer, but Hitchcock it ain’t. Sepia flashbacks fill us in on Jigsaw’s accomplice and the expected gore splatters the screen every few minutes. That’s pretty much it really. Although Saw V might not be the sharpest tool in the horror film shed, it does what it says on the………well you catch my drift. Saw VI is due in cinemas next year by the way.
Running Time: 1 hour 39 minutes
Certificate: 16
Director: David Hackl
Starring: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson.
You just have to love the staying power of slasher films. Despite being critically lambasted most of the time, they continue to be churned out by movie studios. There is one simple reason for this: Money. Slasher films equal big profit margins for cash hungry movie studios. For the most part they are extremely cheap to make, no A-list actors will go anywhere near them and they are usually set in one claustrophobic location. They are pretty much the antithesis to the Bond movies. You can dismiss them as celluloid trash if you want but they won’t be leaving our cinema screens anytime soon. To date there have been seven sequels to Halloween, six to A Nightmare On Elm Street and nine to Friday The 13th. That list doesn’t include Freddy vs Jason and a remake of the first Halloween movie. Just checking you were paying attention. The Saw movies are just continuing already well established slasher film patterns. Basically to endlessly repeat themselves into oblivion with a slew of sequels and to come up with new and novel ways to dismember C-list cast members. These films do what they say on the tin. Watching a slasher film is like going to a fast food joint, whereas let’s say watching a Martin Scorsese movie is like going to a top-quality Italian restaurant. With that in mind, Saw V is not even a delicious cod and chips but a greasy burger that is sometimes hard to swallow. With the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell) well and truly pushing up the daisies after part IV, somebody else has taken over the mantle of putting morally corrupt citizens into torture contraptions from hell. Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and Special Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) are on hand to try and solve the gory puzzle once more. It seems Jigsaw had been receiving help over the years (and the sequels) and his henchman is flying the serial killer flag for him still. I knew he couldn’t have made all those complicated torture machines by himself! Five more people have been captured by Jigsaw’s sidekick for the horror version of Deal Or No Deal? Heads will roll, literally. Cue gut-wrenching special effects and sweat inducing countdowns. Hackl, to be fair to him, does a reasonable job of directing the movie. Tension is built up by cutting back and forth between the trapped victims and the frantic police search for the killer, but Hitchcock it ain’t. Sepia flashbacks fill us in on Jigsaw’s accomplice and the expected gore splatters the screen every few minutes. That’s pretty much it really. Although Saw V might not be the sharpest tool in the horror film shed, it does what it says on the………well you catch my drift. Saw VI is due in cinemas next year by the way.
1 comment:
Excellent! I have to catch up on the Saw saga!
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