Buzzkill

So, as I write this review, it’s Halloween, and I’m waiting on kids to come by and take some of this damned candy out of the house. I bought three bags, consisting of Dots, Hershey’s bars and Snickers, so its pretty good stuff.

I moved to a new apartment complex, and I’m on the third floor of a partly inhabited building, so there’s no telling if anybody is coming. Apartment complexes are always a crapshoot when it comes to trick-or-treaters.

Aw man, I’m going to be left holding a lot of candy. That’s the last thing I need!

Oh yeah, Saw 3D is currently pissing all over screens at your local movie house, so I guess I should write a thing or two about that. The seventh installment in this seriously awful series is being touted as “the final chapter,” but since that isn’t in the movie’s title, don’t bank on it.

Actually, even if it were in the movie title, some dickwad somewhere would probably find a way to keep the Jigsaw legacy rolling and the lethargic Tobin Bell busy with stupid cameo appearances.

After a nod to the original Saw—more on that later—we see a trio of unfortunates on display in some sort of plaza, encased in a see-through glass room, mere minutes away from getting done in by a table saw. I estimate the budget of this particular murder machine at $2.3 million, with a massive labor force essential to completing the project.

Of course, since this particular torture trap is out in the middle of a city street, some law enforcement fellow surely would’ve come along while it was being constructed and said something along the lines of “Say, just what the heck is going on here?” and shut the whole thing down.

But, no, this is a Saw movie, and inexplicable stuff like this goes down all of the time. And now, for such is the trend, we get to watch the action in slapdash 3-D, a technology that’s not put to good use in the film. The movie was shot with 3-D technology and not converted to 3-D after filming, so I was hoping to see some decent splatter stuff. No such luck. The effects are cartoonish and bland, much like the acting of returning Saw star Cary Elwes.

Yes, Cary Elwes, who sawed off his leg in hilariously bad fashion for the original Saw, has an extended cameo, and it’s not a pretty sight. We first see him in a flashback to chapter one, as his character is dragging himself away from Jigsaw’s original puzzle, blood gushing from his leg stump. He has a couple of more scenes, and there is nothing—nothing—surprising about his actions.

Bell makes one of his now patented flashback Jigsaw appearances, this time at a book signing with a baseball cap turned backwards to make him look like an inconspicuous fan. He says a bunch of cryptic stuff to Bobby (Sean Patrick Flanery) a supposed Jigsaw survivor cashing in on the experience with a tell-all tome. Pretty much anybody listening to Bell drone on would realize that this must be the famed Jigsaw killer and tackle him for reward money, but he just says a bunch of dopey shit and wanders off.

As for franchise characters like evil detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and Jigsaw’s widow, Jill (Betsy Russell), they figure largely in the film’s sorry excuse for a plot. They both have to deal with those steel jaw contraptions on their head. (Estimated steel jaw budget for Jigsaw and his successors: $7.2 million. Where do these killers get the funding for their contraptions?)

So, do I really believe this will be the last time I have to write a Saw review? Hell no. And no kids showed up for candy, either. Halloween really sucked this year.