Redeemed #5: Saw
The Saw movies have always been at the very least conceptually interesting. The first entry in the series essentially just stuck two men in a room together in a dark room. While the plot took a turn for the stupid, it did manage to ratchet the tension through the roof. And unlike its successors, it relied more on implied horror rather than the explicit. Though, it was a horror film and as during its climax had Cary Elwes cut off his foot. But for all its implied violence, it played out in a fashion that at least felt believable. Saw part one had two people chained to a wall. Though the reverse bear-trap (that whatchamajiggy that Jigsaw puts on peoples' heads) was ludicrous, it seemed plausible that someone could make such a device. It even seemed within the realm of possibility. Jigsaw wasn't an unstoppable killing machine like Jason Voorhees. He was a man dying of cancer. We could relate to Jigsaw. For all of his madness, we could understand his motivations and even put ourselves in his position. It would be a sharp decline in quality for the Saw series thereafter with yearly installments of the horror franchise. Saw 2 was larger in scope, taking an entire group of people and placing them in an abandoned house packed with death traps and to escape they must all figure out how they're all connected so they can escape! But they'd better hurry up because Jigsaw has managed somehow to obtain nerve gas and it's slowly filling the house! It would be a template the rest of the Saw films would use for the rest of the series. Traps would become more elaborate and plots would twist in increasingly outlandish fashions with "twist" being the operative word here. Each film would feature one of M. Night Shyamalan proportions. The series would reach its nadir with Saw 5, a film so boring that even the promise of extreme violence could not distract from the now entirely incomprehensible story arc which at that time saw the overlap of over 50 individual storylines. Saw 6 & 7 would serve to wrap up the series. Though one could hardly call them "quality entertainment" they remained an appropriate send off. But if they only got worse, how can anyone possibly consider them redeeming in any fashion? Well unlike a lot of terrible film franchises, Saw at least had the good sense to call it a day even if that day was due years ago. And we can all rest easy in the knowledge that there will NEVER BE ANOTHER SAW MOVIE AGAIN. Ha ha ha:
what do you mean they're making another Saw movie?