Tuesday, October 28, 2014

SAW Is The Best Horror Franchise


I was watching a show where they asked what the best horror movie franchise was and they gave answers like Friday The 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare On Elm Street. Now while those films do have some good parts to them, for the most part they are ass. I'm not apologetic for this and have some respect for the characters seeing as how I have used all of them in my Doom Mates series.

But as I sat here and really gave it some thought I realized that my favorite horror franchise was Saw. There have been seven Saw films the last being Saw 3D. For people that have not seen these movies they think it is just about a killer that puts people into traps that are disgusting and kills them. While that does happen the main point of these films are righting wrong, revenge, and learning to appreciate life.


There was Saw 3 which took a huge step away from the previous films and gave the victims no chance to save themselves. No matter what they did they were gonna die and it was my least favorite of the movies. I'm getting way ahead of myself Let me attempt to explain who the killer is.

John Kramer aka Jigsaw aka The Jigsaw Killer is a guy that is dying from a brain tumor caused by colon cancer. One day he tries to kill himself but doesn't do it. Now with a new lease on life he decides that he is gonna take people who have fucked up in some moral way and put them through hell to make them appreciate life the way he now does. Sometimes they would just hurt themselves and other times hurt someone else to escape. If they didn't learn their lesson they'd end up in a sequel having to do shit all over again.


Kramer was a nice, normal guy until one day his wife was attacked while working at a clinic which caused their unborn child to die. Between his mood shift after that and his divorce he was now a totally different guy.


Billy The Puppet is the creepy ass doll that is shown in trailers and ads for the film. Billy does no actual killing and is really just a puppet. He shows up on his bike or on a TV screen and explains the rules of the game to people that are captured. Billy was created for his child that died. Not sure what kid would love a doll that looks like this. Damn thing would give any child nightmares.


I mentioned someone building traps that gave people no chance of survival because Kramer ends up dying. He eventually has the role taken over and/or up for grabs from different people who have to play the game by the rules. In each film the traps become more elaborate and some more public.


One of the scariest things to me in a horror movie is believability. Freddy didn't scare me because it was a dream character. I can't relate to that or be afraid. He was scarier to me as a child killer. Jason...I don't even know what he is. Monster? Zombie? Angry child? And Michael Myers is just a big kid with terrible anger issues. Jigsaw is like Buffalo Bill to me. This is someone that can exist therefore making them scary. 

Out of the seven films that have been done I can say that five of them have entertained me. One I hated and the other was just...okay. That is a pretty good average when it comes to horror. The way the last films, Saw 3D, ended was incredible. I remember the feeling that went through the audience when the reveal occurred. Its hard to duplicate that feeling.

2 comments:

KJ said...

I still think the first film is the best in the series. It hinges and focuses on the performances of just two guys who need to survive and reminds me of a theatrical play. I found the sequels just grotty gore fests.

Dante said...

The only one I feel that way about is the third movie where the lady took over for him. Though is a ton of gore I enjoyed the films. The way the last one tied everything together made me gasp. It was very clever and original. I like gory films like Bio Zombie and Braindead. Those are gory as shit. But I hate all of the Hostel and Human Centipede films.