Saw III
Darren Lynn Bousman, 2006,
More than its predecessors, Saw III really leans into the torture porn classification, while at the same time somehow managing to be the first in the series to commit the cardinal sin of being boring. Does anyone really give a shit about drama between Jigsaw and his protégé? I genuinely thought they might start splicing in Real World-style confessionals. Also, I know the dude is on his deathbed, but I really wish Jigsaw would SPEAK UP. Meanwhile, in the soft-spoken serial killer’s latest torture dungeon, some poor schmuck is given the opportunity to forgive the people adjacent to his kid’s accidental death, as they’re frozen, drowned in pureed pig guts, twisted into pretzels, etc. These are some of the series’ grossest set pieces so far, but there’s a lot of daylight between the flaccid twist ending they precipitate and the breathlessness of its reveal. Along the way, they retcon some stuff from the first movie, and apparently those flashback scenes were shot on the set built for the Saw parody in Scary Movie 4, which seems appropriate.