I’m reliably informed that, in the UK, we do our best not to allow people with psychopathic tendencies into the armed forces. In the US, on the other hand, they let them all in. And they also let them make movies like this.

Saw III is the point at which the franchise finally tips over into the justly reviled “torture porn” category. That’s not to say it’s solely focused on its gruesome deaths — as with the previous two films, there’s a thriller-ish plot to work through as well — but Jigsaw’s traps this time round are shown in excruciating detail. Perhaps the filmmakers are deliberately trying to shock their audience, increasingly desensitised by Saw wannabes, or perhaps they’ve just let their increased budget run rampant. Whatever the reason, it’s not welcome.

Along with it, the gore feels less justified. The traps have an element of invention about them, but the punishment doesn’t fit the crime in the same way it did in the first two films. There is arguably an explanation for this (to share it would be to spoil some of the plot), but that seems a thin excuse for a lack of intelligence on the part of the writers. In fact, one of the most gratuitously gory scenes is a brain surgery sequence that’s almost entirely unrelated to anyone’s test. It’s shown in unrelenting, unnecessary detail, coming across as the makers using some kind of “but it’s a medical procedure” excuse for showing more grisly detail than they might otherwise be allowed.

The story that links the monstrous set pieces together is a bit of a mixed bag, continuing dangling threads from the previous films while producing a few of its own that seem unconnected. It lacks the focus and straightforward drive of the first two instalments, but leaves the viewer longing for such a thing. The main test, once it gets underway, is quite a good idea, and different again to its predecessors. Here we have one man facing those he holds responsible for the death of his son, and it’s up to him whether they survive their traps. The traps may not be as clever as before, but the storyline is different enough to engage the audience’s interest.

But before the worthwhile bit can begin, we have a section that just feels like housekeeping — where Detective Matthews has got to, what happened next to Detective Kerry, what Amanda is up to now. Worse, woven around the main test is another story thread — one that finds Jigsaw on his deathbed (perhaps) and deems it necessary to fill us in on Amanda’s backstory. Unfortunately, this latter part is incredibly dull. That the film’s final moments reveal it was more relevant than previously expected does invite a re-watch, but the prospect of sitting through the sadistic mutilation — and nonetheless boring expository scenes — for a second time is just as off-putting.

Not only is the Jigsaw subplot dull, it’s also too revealing. One of the many things that marks Saw out from its horror stablemates is that Jigsaw is a real man, not a supernaturally-powered being, but he still works best as an enigmatic figure, menacing characters in occasional scenes that offer no more than a handful of tidbits about his past. Here, he’s both over-central and over-revealed. The more we learn the more his mystery is removed, he becomes less interesting and, worse, less threatening. Tobin Bell’s performance is as good as ever, but the character works better in fewer, more condensed doses.

As well as endless backstory, the screenplay also offers another final array of twists. The closing revelations were some of the best bits of the last two films, so are naturally loaded with expectation here. Personally, I didn’t find them to be much of a surprise, most of it guessable from too far in advance. Rather, the final round of frame-long flashbacks are desperate to make the viewer think it’s more of a twist than it is, kind of like the filmmakers explaining why something’s so clever in spite of it being a bit obvious. To be fair, these ‘twists’ aren’t stupid — in fact, they’re quite good — but I wasn’t surprised by them. As if Bousman and co were trying to redeem themselves, the scene that follows is quite tense, and one very final twist — just when you thought they were all twisted out — does manage to surprise. And it’s a cliffhanger to boot.

Indeed, despite a certain finality at the end, Saw III is ready-made for at least one further sequel (of course, as we now know, it’s got four and counting). There are all kinds of little bits that go unexplained here, from characters to blink-and-you’ll-miss-them plot-points-in-waiting, not to mention that it ends on that fairly substantial cliffhanger-twist. That it’s so brazen in its lack of comprehensive answers will irritate some, while others will delight in the knowledge there are still more mysteries to ponder.

Visually, Saw III is overcooked. The cinematography is too stylised, heavily filtered to offer a single-colour-saturated look for each location. Such a technique can be beneficial in certain contexts — Traffic, for example, lucratively uses an even more extreme example — but here feels like someone was let loose in the grading toolbox. Equally, the trickery with scene transitions — where different locations have been built on the same set so as to move between them without any editing or digital effects* — may have looked clever in 1940, but now seems needless. Worse, it confuses the storytelling and the audience’s sense of geography. It’s one thing tricking your viewer with plot twists, another entirely to needlessly mislead their understanding of filmic space. These wannabe-flashy transitions are inspired by similar ones in the preceding films, but there they were neatly subtle and surprisingly effective, while here they don’t look as cool as someone clearly thinks, as well as initiating moments of befuddlement.

Despite my ever-growing catalogue of complaints, there is a bright side for Saw III. What could have been just another rehash of the same basic plot conceit ramped up a bit more — from two people trapped in a room, to half a dozen trapped in a house, this could’ve just been a dozen trapped in an office block — instead chooses to come up with a new narrative structure. Yes, it’s still based around defeating a series of traps/tests, but in a genre where some franchise entries are merely distinguished by the different modes of death — if that — it’s tantamount to a revelatory change of style. It also holds the distinction of being the only Saw film so far I want to rewatch to better consider events (and, from a filmmaking standpoint, its narrative structure and balance), even if other elements put me off.

Though it’s Jigsaw’s story that merits this feeling, I’d still rather have less of him and more of the test he’s got on the go. Sadly, I think the franchise is headed in the exact opposite direction.

* This technique was definitely used in Saw IV (according to IMDb), but I don’t know if it was also applied here or if it just looks like it was.

The games-playing slaughterfest returns in what I’m told is many fans’ favourite entry in the series. Maybe they’ve never seen Cube…

Saw II is a horror sequel, which means it can’t help but take the same basic premise as its originator: serial killer Jigsaw locks a number of people in a room with a series of games/traps, which they can escape only if they can work out the clues to defeat them; and if not, they’ll be brutally murdered and/or disfigured. Where Saw II comes into its own is that it dares to do something a bit different with this premise, usually the hallmark of a worthwhile sequel.

Instead of two victims locked in a dingy bathroom we have too many to reasonably count locked in a whole house. Instead of the killer being largely unseen he’s a constant presence, in conversation with a police detective while events in the house unfold on monitors nearby. The film’s raison d’être is the same — people get injured/killed in nastily inventive ways — but someone (co-writer/director Bousman, in fact) actually bothered to come up with a story that’s more than superficially different.

Despite the terror and gore — and there’s a healthy (a word I use very, very loosely) dose of each — Saw II is arguably even more like a thriller than its predecessor. The police are more heavily involved this time, actually catching up with Jigsaw, and as much time is devoted to Detective Matthews’ negotiation/chat as it is to the predicament of the victims. Here we get a chance to see what a great villain Tobin Bell makes — subtly so, not the typically OTT psychopath killer designed to show off an actor’s ‘skill’. He’s not quite Spacey’s John Doe, but his quiet, determined, reasoned killer is a cut above the average. That he’s afforded a moderately reasonable motive and some character development is certainly more in line with thrillers than horror movies.

Meanwhile, in the house, Bousman seems to be going for a Cube-like atmosphere: a disparate group of people wake up together and must find a way out of a strange, booby-trapped location. This starts out well enough, unravelling both questions and answers at a pleasing speed, but unfortunately is unable to sustain it convincingly. Few of the victims achieve the level of distinct characterisation that Cube managed, suggesting there are more people locked in the house than the writers could comfortably handle or the story could really support.

Indeed, even the primary selling point is abandoned surprisingly quickly — it seems the writers don’t have enough ways to kill people. At least one just drops dead from the virus-that’s-there-from-the-start, which feels unsatisfactory, while another happens to wander into a trap when it’s time to dispatch someone else. Considering the amount of planning we know Jigsaw gives to his games, we should at least see that there are enough ways to kill everyone, even if some are then subverted through escape or avoidance.

There’s some redemption to be found at the climax, which produces a final round of twists that are almost equal to the first film’s triumphant reveal. Again I won’t give it away, but I’m sure some have called the biggest twist a cheat, on a par with “and they woke up and it was all a dream”. If they have, they’re wrong: it’s entirely in keeping with both the games Jigsaw might play and the flashback-driven style of the first film, not to mention that — as the insistent concluding recap shows — there are clues seeded all the way along. If it’s not as audaciously memorable as the twist in Saw, that’s through no fault of it’s own.

Saw II doesn’t just rehash the original, which is something to be thankful for in a horror sequel. There’s something close to character development, a nice opening setup, and an enjoyably twist-stacked ending. Unfortunately it can’t quite connect that opening to that ending, in spite of its brief running time, which means it fails to equal its predecessor’s overall quality. Fair effort though.

Saw III premieres on Channel 4 tomorrow. Saw VI is in cinemas from Friday.

With Saw VI about to subject cinema screens and captured audiences to another round of gruesome brutalisation, Channel 4 have seen fit to treat viewers to a similar experience in their own home, screening the first three films in the now-annual cinematic occurrence this week. Except I’ve had the original Saw sat in my DVD collection for years, so I watched that instead.

Despite being credited with birthing the entirely risible ‘gorno’ genre (for those blissfully unaware, ‘gorno’ is an amalgamation of “gore” and “porno”; its other common name, “torture porn”, is a thoroughly descriptive moniker), Saw isn’t really a good example of it. There are nasty, vicious murders — or, technically, deaths — but there’s no serious sexual element and it’s all underpinned by a half-decent plot.

In fact, I’ve heard it called “a thriller with sadism” rather than a horror movie. There’s a point to that, and the Guardian’s comparison with Se7en (as misquoted on the DVD cover) isn’t misplaced (in certain surface elements anyway). The killer has a motive that’s not supernatural, there’s an intricate array of flashbacks as well as the unfolding events, with a gradual unravelling of the truth via investigation, complete with a thriller-sized collection of twists.

But just because it’s not a slasher movie doesn’t mean it’s not horror. The sheer vileness of the killings — their tortuous methods, graphic results, and tense build-ups — put paid to any notion that this is just a nasty-minded thriller. The setup is more thriller-like, with Dr Gordon’s recollection of a police investigation, but once underway it’s all played as a horror movie — the sequence leading up to Adam’s capture, for instance, where he stalks his darkened apartment with only a camera’s flash for illumination, is pure horror — and the overriding impression is of a movie primarily attempting to scare you, not engage your mind with a mystery-fuelled plot.

Not that the story should be ignored, because it’s this that raises Saw above its gorno compatriots and makes it a worthwhile film. Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell juggle flashbacks and multiple timelines with consummate ease, using them to uncover backstory that advances the tale they’re telling rather than provide padding to an otherwise slight conceit. It’s not as intricate as, say, The Prestige, but is complex enough that in lesser hands they could’ve been the film’s undoing. Wan and Whannell never lose sight of what purpose every scene serves, where they occur in the film’s chronology, and where the story’s going. Consequently it all flows seamlessly.

It all contributes to a final twist that is truly wonderful. Even if you know it’s coming (as I unfortunately did), it’s so beautifully executed in every respect that it’s awesome to behold. It wouldn’t be enough to overcome the horrors of the film that precede it for those of a squeamish nature, but it’s certainly the best bit. I wouldn’t dream of giving it away here (though have probably oversold it).

It isn’t perfect. The dialogue is frequently awkward, the acting occasionally variable, but those things are hardly the point in this genre and here are never so bad as to interrupt proceedings (unless you’re looking to pick holes, in which case they’re ripe for it). The low budget occasionally shows through too, but that’s not necessarily a barrier to success — do we need to see a car chase on roads when a black backdrop and smoke can convey the same information adequately for the story? I think not. (Unless you happen to have Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace pop into your head at the time…)

The annual sequels apparently conform to the law of diminishing returns, but it’s plain to see what sparked the craze in the first place. Sickly inventive, well constructed and rarely less than gripping — and with a killer sting in its tale — if you haven’t already, and think you can stomach it, you really ought to see Saw.

(Sorry.)

There seem to be three versions of Saw doing the rounds, though the difference between the longest and shortest is little more than 30 seconds, apparently due to the odd extended shot and different opening logos. If anyone cares, the version I watched ran 1:38:31 (PAL).

Saw II is on Channel 4 and 4HD tonight, while Saw III premieres there on Thursday. Saw VI is in cinemas from Friday.