Videogum » Saw

The Makers Of Saw Are Professors Business Over Here

Gabe — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:18:10 +0000

Saw VI didn’t do that well at the box office this year for some reason*. But don’t worry, America, there are going to keep being Saw movies ))><(( for another two years (2012). Why wouldn't there be? From Reuters:

Indie Hollywood studio Lionsgate said on Thursday it was moving ahead with “Saw 7,” which will be in 3-D. [Ed. note: GREAT!]

“As long as we make money on it we’ll keep doing this,” Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns said at the Media and Money conference in New York, noting that such franchises tend to have a long shelf life across different platforms.

That makes sense. I mean, it is just smart business. Even if the movies are awful garbage, like literally garbage being placed on the curb of your eyes, we should just keep making them because who gives a faaaaaaaaaart. “What day do they come pick up the garbage from my eyes?” “Uh, I think that garbage is just going to stay there forever. You should at least move it to the back of your head.” “I can still smell it.” That’s a normal conversation. As the old saying goes, if it is broken and the worst but it makes money, why fix it?

Business is so neat!

An Open Letter To The People Who Would Actually Go To A Saw-Themed Haunted House

Gabe — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:36:58 +0000

Dear People Who Would Actually Go to a Saw-themed Haunted House,

So, I heard about your haunted house. It’s going to be at the Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas this October as part of a promotional tie-in with Saw VI (Saw VI!). The idea is that the haunted house would recreate some of the classic “games” that the movies’ victims “play.” Spooky! Producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Twisted Pictures described your haunted house this way: “Visitors from around the world will be able to experience the terror of Jigsaw first hand.”

Right. (Congratulations, world. The United Nations should organize an International High Five Council.)

But, Sawggalos, it would be much cheaper to just buy a bear trap and fasten it to your head with a timer switch so that it tears your face in half if you can’t get the key out of your best friend’s intestines fast enough.

Let’s do the numbers:

Oh Yes, There Will Be Another Goddamned Saw Movie

Gabe — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:27:22 +0000

A deal has already been struck for Saw VII, or as I like to call it, Saw ))<>((.

This Red Band Clip From Saw VI Is Everything That Is Wrong WIth The Saw Franchise

Gabe — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:33:07 +0000

Saw is fucking stupid. And I’m just going to assume that all of the sequels are equally fucking stupid. (Probably not as stupid as the Saw roller coaster, though.) Personally, I have not seen them. I recognize that it’s a dangerous and foolish critical position to claim knowledge of something you don’t have knowledge of, so I’m not doing that. Not exactly. But I am putting my faith in the logic that a franchise that’s well known to be a lazy cash-grabber has put all of its “best” eggs into the first basket, which I have seen, I saw those eggs, and the rest of the baskets are filled with lesser eggs, and that even if I don’t see those eggs, I can still smell them, and they smell awful. And its “best” eggs were also terrible. (Hold on, my phone is ringing. Oh look, it’s Metaphor University, asking me to be the DEAN.) After watching the first Saw, I said to myself “well that is enough of that garbage,” and if I hadn’t had to return the DVD to Netflix, I would have broken it over my knee, David Edelstein-style. Because fuck that noise. I don’t need those images in my head, and I certainly don’t need those images in my head when they’re in service to an intellectually bankrupt premise. Again, I can’t speak to the sequels, but the original movie certainly prided itself on having a philosophical backdrop on which to structure its horror puzzles (a psychopath with a violent hatred for those who take life for granted, teaching them a lesson about this precious gift).

I’m not saying that you can’t like torture porn. You can like torture porn. Go ahead. What do I care? As far as I’m concerned, you should marry torture porn, and have miserable little nightmare babies. But the idea that there’s anything going on here besides watching people get mutilated and massacred (and why DO you like to watch people get mutilated and massacred?) is a lie. And I don’t like lies!

This clip from the upcoming Saw VI (Saw VI!) basically encapsulates everything that is wrong with the entire franchise:

In Germany, The Lingerie Commercials Are Inspired By Saw

Lindsay Robertson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:59:47 +0000

Women be tearing each other to pieces over the last pink bra:

Hey, wait, what about that whole thing where in Europe sex on TV is fine but violence is bad, and in America it’s the opposite? Either this (certainly online only?) ad is truly transgressive, or there goes the only thing I knew about European TV tastes. Mythbusting! (Via Copyranter.)

Would You Like To Play A Videogame?

Gabe — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:56:08 +0000

Oh man. Saw videogame, you guys. Right on time.

“The game mechanics are just classic horror-survival.” That’s a sentence now. That is a thing that people say that other people understand.

On the one hand, it seems obvious that there is a Saw videogame, and if anything it’s surprising that it’s taken this long. The Saw roller coaster beat the Saw videogame by a year? Smart. On the other hand, isn’t a Saw videogame completely contrary to Saw‘s entire philosophy? CLARIFICATION: there is no such thing as Saw‘s entire philosophy, it is one of the most intellectually bankrupt movie franchises of all time. BUT, Saw pretends like it has a philosophy, which is to shake its viewers out of their complacency with the beautiful gift of life. Jigsaw’s horrible project is to show people just how far they will go to save the life they took for granted the day before. Right? And, you know, nothing says living life to the fullest and loving every second of it like SITTING IN YOUR PARENTS’ BASEMENT IN YOUR PAJAMAS PLAYING A “HORROR-SURVIVAL” VIDEOGAME BASED ON A 5 YEAR OLD MOVIE.

Carpe ughm.

Oh Yes, There Will Be Too Many Versions Of The Saw DVDs

Gabe — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:56:56 +0000

Rich FourFour has created a comprehensive catalog of every version of all four Saw movies that has been released over the past four years. If a DVD fell in the forest, and no one was there to see it because they felt that it was a gratuitous, intellectually bankrupt exercise, would it make a THAT IS SO MANY VERSIONS OF THE SAW DVDS!

Oh Yes, There Will Be A Saw-Themed Roller Coaster

Gabe — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:05:55 +0000

Um, take the longest string of LOLOLOLOLs that you’ve ever seen and add a few more LOLs.

UK’s Thorpe Park will be opening a SAW-themed roller coaster in Spring 2009. The coster will feature a ‘beyond vertical’ drop of 100º from a height of 100ft (a 4.5 G-force experience), making it the steepest freefall drop in the world. Riders will also endure three inversions that will add another dimension to a whole new experience of adrenaline-fuelled fun for thrill seekers. The ride lasts 1 minute and 40 seconds, 30% of which will be inside the station building. The track is 2363 feet in length. Merlin Entertainment has been working with Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate to ensure total accuracy of the key elements from the Saw films.

Total accuracy of the key elements from the Saw films. Total accuracy. Riders will endure having their heads locked inside steel bear traps and be forced to find keys buried in each other’s intestines using only their teeth at 4.5 G-force speeds. Experience the thrill of being faced with your own mortality for no reason whatsoever when this roller coaster literally toys with you before sending you to a grisly and intellectually bankrupt death. Total accuracy of the key elements of the Saw films, but, you know, in a FUCKING ROLLER COASTER.

After the jump, the world’s worst advertisement for the world’s worst roller coaster.

Tobin Bell Claims The Saw Movies Have Saved Over 235,000 Lives

Lindsay Robertson — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:07:36 +0000

This is one of the strangest, creepiest PSAs I’ve ever seen. Saw‘s Tobin Bell for the American Red Cross on how they “want your blood”:

I guess it’s not enough that the movies are “about” “teaching” people to “appreciate their lives.” Hey, if I were in any way involved in the making of the Saw franchise, I would want to somehow justify its 100% negative contribution to the world by linking it to a charity, too, but this is just odd. Especially at the end when he says “Remember, if it’s Halloween, it must be Saw,” which, aside from being awkward product promotion at the end of a PSA that’s supposedly about saving lives, implies that we have to live with the Saw movies forever. The takeaway here is that the American Red Cross must be absolutely desperate for blood, so make an appointment today. Please don’t tell them Saw sent you.

Saw V: Happy Killmore (Sorry)

Gabe — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:04:58 +0000

I hate “torture porn” in general, but I especially hate the Saw franchise. Wait, let me get this straight, people learn how to truly appreciate the gift of life by being tortured and then murdered? Lame. Jigsaw, if you are reading this, I would like you to know that I find your whole schtick to be philosophically disingenuous. That being said, the poster for Saw V was released today, and I have to say, this might be the scariest one yet.

The Saw V poster after the jump.