If I was trying to gather material for an undue hardship case against Anubis, this would be the linchpin to the whole thing. Actually, I’m almost thankful for the chance to watch this again, as I can finally pinpoint exactly what I hate about this movie. I’m not going to go into much plot synopsis, there are many, many reviews written by people lovingly soaking up every inane moment. My eyes started to blur after about 15 minutes of re-watching this steaming load.

And that, friends, is the No. 1 reason to hate this movie: everyone in the whole fucking world is in love with it and thinks it’s some gritty, nasty breakthrough in shocking horror. Somehow, to the detriment of us all, the world – perhaps at the behest of an underground revisionist movement of Cary Elwes fans – praises this movie for its originality and bravery. And for what? Overtly ripping off Seven and Cube and buying its actors at K-Mart to try and make it feel like a grindhouse movie? Here’s your barebones plot synopsis: There are people who wake up imprisoned in a strange room (Cube) by a vengeful psycho crook with an obsession with morality (Seven), while an obsessed cop tries to crack the case before more innocent people have to die. Not a single drop of originality to be found here. How do the people who praise Saw’s originality completely forget about these movies?

If Saw was good, I could forgive this wholesale thievery, but after being lauded for its extreme violence and unpredictability, this movie is an epic disappointment. It’s slightly better than the PG-13 crap that was invading theaters at the time, but the plot is done better elsewhere, the acting is atrocious and the violence, while it does exist, is hugely disappointing. To illustrate, let us consider Exhibit A: the bear trap scene – the one where the woman has that huge metal trap put on her head and has to get it off before it obliterates her skull. If this trap would have actually gone off, it would have been a glorious, insane death for the ages. Yes, yes, I know the woman would return in the sequel for a pretty decent twist, but the trap was the star here, not the woman. If that was the plan all along, give the woman a different scenario and put the trap on the head of a disposable character – like any of them, or on as many people as you want, starting with the writers and director. On the ol’ grading scale, this movie gets an F, and not a good F either, but had that trap gone off on someone’s head, it would have instantly improved to something around a C-. But no, that would have been INTERESTING. I’m not even going to venture into the acting, but Cary Elwes in a starring dramatic role is just plain wrong. Let’s not do that again. If this guy isn’t playing the pompous, smug British guy, he should be kept in a soundproof booth at least 50 miles away from all camera equipment.

Saw is bad, bad, bad, but it’s true sinister nature lies in how it changed the horror genre for the worse. There are the putrid sequels – the fact that Saw 4 was announced before Saw 3 had been in theaters for ONE FUCKING WEEK is the sickest example of idiot-fueled capitalism to ever infest the once-proud (sort of) horror genre. It’s not quite as anger-inducing as celebrities and rich people admonishing the world for not driving hybrid cars when they’re far too expensive for the average person, or even really related to the Saw phenomenon now that I think of it, but it still really sucks. A dumb fuck and his money will be parted as quickly and as often as movie executives and car companies please. Then there are the rip-offs, like Hostel, for example. Each one will be praised for its daring, excessive violence and hardcore sadism, but it’s all tripe that would go all turtle-dick in the face of actual good sadistic horror like Last House on the Left, Make Them Die Slowly or even I Spit on Your Grave. Tragically, as of this writing, plot-induced horror has been replaced by mindless torture that quickly turns to wallpaper, not unlike so many aerobic crotch shots. Whom can we thank for that? Saw and every person who keeps paying to see it over and over again. And can we please stop with the double twist endings? When you’re expecting a twist, it doesn’t matter what it is – it’s not effective. The final twist, when the dead guy gets up at the end and turns out to be the killer, is decent, but the rest of the movie is so bad, it’s impossible to care. It’s hard to scare an audience that’s reading a magazine or screaming END! at the screen.

So, this brings us to the end of my 3-movie march through some of the worst cinema the world has ever known. It was certainly painful on my end, though I struggled to find movies to send to Nix, as I’ve reviewed pretty much everything I really, really hate and didn’t think it made sense to have him review them again. Looking back, if I really wanted to inflict pain on the man, I should have sent him all three Saw movies. But I’m pretty sure someone involved with the series would have made money off that, and I’d hate to my actions helped lead to the announcement of Saw 5 before Saw 4 is even done filming. If I were to find out I were the cause of that, I’d saw off my own hands, aping a shrill giggle all the while.