Let me preface this review by saying that every time I tell people that I watch the Saw movies, they always ask the same question…why? I hope to answer this question in this review in addition to giving a review of the movie itself.
Saw movies have become a staple in American society, but I always wonder how they have become so. Every year for the past 7 years, they have released a new Saw movie around Halloween time, but whenever I show excitement, my friends show disgust towards me, asking why and how I could like a movie that, and i’ll be completely honest here, makes its fame off of the incredibly gory and sadistic ways that people are killed.
Just to clear the waters, this fact is not the reason that I enjoy watching these movies, now back to my review!
The reason that I initially got interested in the Saw movies was, just like everyone else, the suspense factor; how these two people trapped in a room could get out, and whether they had the “will to appreciate life”. But unlike many others who watched the films in this series, my devotion towards figuring out the entangling story lines and pseudo complex characters never wavered. I knew that although I may have to muscle my way through a gory scene or two, that would be made up by the oddly interesting sense of suspense that the movies gave off. If I could make it through a few scenes where people get brutally dismembered, I would in turn be rewarded with the end-of-the-movie twist, that Saw movies have always been good at. I say good in the fact that most of these twists come out of left field, something that the viewer never suspects, but makes them wanting to come back for more.
Just like the others in the series, Saw VI captures this suspense and tension in its traditionally, blood-filled way. Instead of having the tension of a cop investigating the areas where jigsaw was, this one captured tension by taking the viewers knowledge of who the new Jigsaw Killer was, and placing him right in the area where he can do the most damage, the center of the police agency of this nameless town. The tension culminates in a scene where the department is unscrambling one of the tapes from jigsaw, as the one who recorded that message stands in the room with the two police chiefs in charge of the jigsaw case. Lets just say that once they finish decoding the message, and find out who it is, things don’t go too well for the chiefs…
But now that I have given the reasons why I like saw, I have to inform you, my loyal viewers, that from a cinematography point of view, this movie is pretty bad. Besides Tobin Bell, most of the acting is pretty dry and for a large part of the movie just consists of people screaming as they realize they have woken up in a Jigsaw trap. For example, Agent Hoffman after the title card is listening to one of the tapes of the “tests” (the one that is shown at the very beginning of the movie), and after they become cognizant, the audio he is listening to is nothing more than two people screaming as they have to “sacrifice” the most amount of flesh. Unsurprisingly, there are no really big name actors in this film, and as hard as it is to admit it as a Saw fan, I can see why.
My recommendation? If you haven’t seen the others, start with Saw 1, and see if its the type of movie that you would enjoy. Around Saw 3 or so, the traps start getting more and more sadistic, so if you can stomach your way through the first 5, and enjoy them, I think that Saw VI is a good rental, but other than that, I would skip this one.
Saw VI: 2 out of 5
The Northwest Screen Guy 