Reviewed by Daniel Rutledge
The Saw franchise is fascinating. Why is this franchise the most successful horror franchise ever?
Even its biggest fans probably wouldn’t say it’s the best ever. Bloody far from it, most horror fans would say.
Part of it has to do with when the first film came out. That was at a time when horror was pretty much dead. The '90s killed it with watered down rubbish like the Screams and I Know What You Dids and Urban Legends. But the genre came back bloodier than ever over the last decade and the original Saw was a huge part of that revival.
Since then, the series has become much crappier, and much less clever but somehow much more complicated at the same time, storyline-wise. But no matter how crap some of the Saws have been, they’ve respectably always had a remarkably grim, intense, nasty tone which is completely committed to itself, never letting in comic relief or even much hope of any kind. And, of course, the gore and sadism levels are right up there in every chapter, which pleases a lot of fans.
This seventh and final chapter, the first to be done in 3D, has a difficult task – to fill in all the plot-holes of all the previous movies and to have the most memorable violence of the entire series. Does it succeed? Not really.
It’s thankfully not as convoluted as some previous Saws, but it’s easily one of the silliest, filled with things that make little or no sense.
Gore-wise it delivers very well, with particularly gruesome deaths made with awesome special effects all looking brilliant in 3D.
The obligatory ‘shock twist’ at the end is one of the weakest of the series, concluding a pretty rubbish plot appropriately.
If all you want is great 3D gore, this is fine. Just don’t expect anything else to be good about it.
Two and a half stars.
3 News
Saw 3D
:: Director: Kevin Greutert
:: Starring: Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Sean Patrick Flanery, Tobin Bell, Cary Elwes
:: Running Time: 91 mins
:: Rating: R18 - Contains Torture & Sadistic Violence
:: Release Date: March 3, 2011
:: Trailer: Watch here
