Saw

I finally watched Saw V, the most recent installation of the Saw franchise that began only back in 2004, and has released one movie per year ever since. They've overtaken the Friday the 13th franchise which managed one movie per year for the first three (80, 81, and 82), but missed 83 before releasing the "Final Chapter" in 84.

The first Saw movie is, in a nutshell, one of the best psychological thrillers I've ever seen, and if you can stomach the graphic nature of the torture scenes, it's incredible to watch. As we've moved through the sequels, it turns into a mixed bag of sorts. The movies have a storyline that not only runs through them all right up to this fifth one, but it criss-crosses them and flashbacks to during and before the previous films. This fifth film had flashbacks to events prior to the opening scenes of the first movie.

And therein, in my opinion, is where the strength of this franchise lies (along with its priceless and legendary twists). It's a story that builds and builds through its sequels more fully defining the characters we've already met, their lives, and the events surrounding the films we thought we knew. The first movie opens up with two men in a room and moves through a series of flashbacks building to that event. Each film has added to that first event filling out more and more what head to it, and how certain things were put into place. Items that seemed of no importance or of strange placement suddenly fall into the limelight and light is shed onto them. This applies not only to obvious things, but other things that seem trivial.

And then there are the twists (and revelations in some cases). I will say that the twist in five was not as dramatic as the other four, but it wasn't bad. I won't describe them because it would take too long to realize the significance. But I didn't see the first four coming at all. The first one hooked me completely. I mean, the movie was brutal to watch -- beyond cringeworthy, but that final twist was out of nowhere and completely sensible (not to mention the two that came just before it). The second film zinged us with three little surprises all at once, and again, I was floored. The second film had a whole plot that was dubious at best, but it played into the final twist, no doubt.

Three was more of an inevitability followed by a surprise. Four zinged us yet again with two rather big surprises. Five played fair and yet played right into our bad guy's hands perfectly. I only saw through one plot point, but a larger piece brewed in the background and was well done also.

What most people remember about Saw, however, are also the hardest parts to stomach: those fabulous traps. These traps are only in part torture devices because an ideal Jigsaw trap provides its victim a chance of escape and ties into a weakness of that person's character. A person will only fail a trap if they cannot overcome their fear or weakness and play Jigsaw's game. They will also fail if they panic. Failure equals death in every case, and success often leaves a scar, but Jigsaw believes that scar is their rehabilitation and that they will remember that lesson for the rest of their lives. However, in the franchise, the traps have only yielded two (possibly four) legitimate survivors. The rest were unable to play their games, and they died.

You do have to have a strong stomach at times to watch the series because it gets very, very graphic in regards to the brutality of some of the traps, and the moviemakers do an exceptional job at making those physical effects very realistic. But if you can make it through that part, the horror is only in the brutality as it plays out as more of a sinister crime drama than any kind of horror flick.

The fifth film provided yet more info into the backstory of everything else and also served to move the series forward by changing the characters even more, bringing in fresh meat, and giving us a few unanswered questions that will plague us for the sixth film scheduled to come out, again, in October. Will that be the end, or can it continue indefinitely? Only time will tell (and whether Saw 6 effectively ends the story or not).