Wednesday, November 21, 2007

One dull blade


Okay. Mafus and I went to see the illustrious SAW IV last night. Afterwards I said it should be renamed SAW ENUFF. Everything good that could’ve been done with the series already has been. The Nacho Ceruda autopsy opening (you even get to see Jigsaw's junk), stale acting (Agent Strong and his tough-guy-DeNiro-arms-out-throwing-tables-punching-the-wall-beside-your-head-schtick), contrived pseudo-victims (“My lips are stitched shut so I can’t talk until I kill you, Mr. Ears Stitched Shut, then I can rip my stitches out and scream.”), to the typical obsessed, “I gotta save everyone,” cop. The whole tying it into the third film "seamlessly" said to me, "Hey, we're out of ideas and need to add a few more minutes of screen time." Just bad, bad, bad. I found myself wishing this movie would end and I’ve watched MANOS twice. TWICE, good people, which means once wasn’t enough, yet this movie was barely viewable once. Ugh. Hopefully, this will be the last as they’ve delved into Bell’s characters “true” origin. Was also surprised to learn it was written by the guys who wrote FEAST, which I enjoyed a helluva lot more.

A few highlights from the film were a couple of “Dead” actors. The police photographer was the young lady who drove Dead Reckoning in LAND OF THE DEAD and the lawyer, Art Blank, was the husband of the nurse in the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake. Not that that helped the movie much, but it kept me looking for other actors I might recognize. No dice though.

That’s all I gots, peeps. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Eve.

6 comments:

Matt Wieringo said...

Well, there was Costas Mandylor, the dumb cop from PICKET FENCES.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I got sick of the SAW franchise after viewing SAWIII...
I cannot believe you would watch MANOS: Hands of Fate...AGAIN!
Wierd thing is that MANOS does mean hands of fate...I think...lil rusty...but then I know plenty of people who would watch that numerous times rather most of the stuff put out by "Industrial Hollywood"...

Christian D. Leaf said...

Correct. Manos means "hands," so the title was actually HANDS: The Hands of Fate. The wife and I were watching some show last week and the poor lady's name was Manos. I couldn't stop laughing.

Never saw PICKET FENCES. I know that may come as a shock, Mafus...

todd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
todd said...

i saw saws 1 and 2 and thought that so much of two was contrived that i held back on 3. and my life went on...
i haven't seen hostel (and i want to...) but i'm not really into the torture horror as much as great storytelling and really tight suspense-building. to get away with the torture stuff, you'd better have gotten me to the edge of my seat already with the suspense.
but that's just me...

renecarol said...

Even after that horrible review I still want to see Saw IV. Saw has sentimental meaning to me now.
I had to close my eyes a couple of places in both the hostel movies. And I rarely ever can't watch something in a horror movie. Cabin Fever actually made me sick - and no other horror movie has done that. I think it was something that I ate rather than the film itself but I couldn't bring myself to watch it a second time.