Saw VII (Saw 3D, 2010)

Saw VII (I refuse to acknowledge this 3D nonsense) is (allegedly!) the last in the Saw series.

I’ve been following Saw since those tantalizing previews of Saw hit the Interwebz, showing Amanda in the reverse bear trap (RBT) mask. So, seven years have passed, the story has spanned six previous films and this, the seventh, promises to wrap it all up. We’ll see…

Jigsaw (John) is long gone, he died a couple of movies ago, but his legacy has lived on in former (?) cop, Hoffman. But Jigsaw’s wife (Jill) knows more than she’s letting on and Hoffman needs to be rid of her. In Saw VII, Hoffman is out to take Jill out. But this is the last Saw movie, so what will happen to Hoffman? This is a spoiler free review, so you’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

There are more traps in Saw VII than in any other Saw film, more gore too if I’m not mistaken. One particular (car) trap springs to mind. A man is glued (literally!) to the drivers seat, the car is up on jacks and under the rear wheel is a womans head, she’s strapped to the floor. Behind the car is a second man, he’s all strapped up too. And, last but not least, in front of the car is another man. I shant tell you the outcome, but oh, there will be gore.

If, like me, you’ve been a slave to the Saw story then you’ll know what the expected outcome of Saw VII will be, considering that Dr. Gordon makes a rare appearance. No, he’s not been behind it all! I’d hoped they’d pull a rabbit out of the hat and have a more unexpected ending, but at least it confirms/denies much of the speculation that’s been ongoing now for several years, but it’s good to bring it all to an end.

There was a lot of blood, plenty of scenes to make you winch, and a ton of gore, so I’d say it’s gone out with a bang.

So… when’s that prequel getting made?

I’m kidding, I’m kidding!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Cool pumpkins bro.

The original Night of the Demons (review here by yours truly) is a cult classic from the good old 80′s that is often grabbed by horror fans in October when they are in need of some Demon possession fun.  While it is dated, and many of the gags that back in the day must have been quite cool fall flat or just look silly in 2010, it is still an atmosphere laden gem that has that unmistakable intangible that modern day horror movies seem to lack…fun.  Enter the inevitable remake which. despite a cast of either no names or B-list talent, and a release that seemed to have come from nowhere, does a great job of encapsulating the spirit of the 80′s classic and even manages to provide some legitimate tension, jolt-scares, and prosthetic gore.  It isn’t perfect a perfect translation (but then again, the original wasn’t perfect either), but after wading through the slog of Hollywood horror remakes for the better part of the last decade, I found NOTD 09′ to be a refreshing blast of sleazy, raunchy, gooey fun that has just enough tricks up its sleeve to ascend into a rare upper echelon of not only downright groovy horror remakes, but just plain fun and radical horror movies in general.

That is totally the kind of house where slutty, boozing, pot smoking 20 somethings bite the dust. Oops, spoilers.

Since NOTD 09′ (that’s my cool little shorthand name for it, deal with it) is the kind of movie that doesn’t beg for any real type of analysis or even that much explanation, I’ll keep this fairly brief.  Some entirely-too-good-looking-to-be-anyone-who-exists-in-the-real-world 20 somethings are invited by the resident creepy goth chick, Angela, to a house with a long history of bloodletting and gruesome happenings dating back 150 years.  Of course, this party is taking place on Halloween night, because if you’re going to tempt fate, go big right?  After dancing, and obligatory party shots of chicks making out and girls wearing “clothing” that is so tight and revealing you wonder if they painted them on, the party eventually gets busted up by those ASSHOLE COPS who are only around when they can kill your buzz but always seem to run off once you’re inundated with the demonic un-fucking-dead.  So after some “we need to get back into the building to find our drunk whore friend and get her home” shenanigans, demons, who are trying to possess enough people on Halloween night in order to screw up some biblical loophole business, show up and start slowly turning people and causing the ruckus that they are known to do in any horror movie they find themselves in.  Demon orgy?  Check.  Demon Sex? Check.  Demon gut munching? Check. Very creative substance/material that demons are “allergic” too? Check.  DEMON LESBIANS?  CHECKKKKKKKKKK.  Someone at the Halloween party dressed up like the Jigsaw puppet from the SAW MOVIES?  MOTHERFUCKING CHECK!!!!!!

GETTING JIGGY WITH IT!

All jokes aside, the film is pretty well acted, and it even stars the kid from Terminator 2, Edward Furlong.  Also Doira Baird and some other floozies I’ve seen in a bunch of these horror movies lately.  It isn’t quite a gorefest, but when the gore is present, it’s done quite beautifully with rubber, latex and Karo syrup.  The boo scares are very clever and well-timed to hit on the down or off beats and there are more than a few fake out scares that are teeth grinders because you’re just waiting for the shit to hit the fan.  The ending is also clever enough to gain praise and it doesn’t fall into the typical trappings of “OMG WE HAVE TO LEAVE ROOM FOR A SEQUEL” end of  movie bullshit.  Since going on any further would mean I would just start spoiling the best parts, I’ll leave you with a HEARTY recommendation and a 3.5 out of 5 star score.  If you’re a fan of the originals, this is a must.  I mentioned the demon lesbians right?

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Maybe she is born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.

Captains Pride - Volume 33 (Restored)

With a short film, comes a short review. And with a film that only runs a ball hair’s width over six minutes, this won’t take long.

First, the inevitable IMDb/Internet info:         .

Yes, that’s right, a search for this movie draws a complete blank. The file I have is called Captains Pride Volume 33 Restored. That’s all I know about it. There’s no intro, no credits, nothing. Very odd, as whoever made this deserves some credit.

The first minute or so shows a girl, trapped in a cage. She’s then unceremoniously dragged from the cage kicking like a mule. Not screaming though. No Sir! But that’s probably because there’s no sound with this film.

The entire six minutes have nothing but old fashioned projector sounds ticking away. And, to give it more authenticity, the film makers have applied some effects to give it that old your-not-supposed-to-have/see-this look, which works quite well.

Once the girl is out of the cage she’s tied to a table (by a gentleman wearing a rather fetching Motorhead t-shirt), gets her ear lobbed off with an open razor by said man, gets raped (no nudity though) by another man who just happens to be wearing a rather dapper mexican wrestlers mask, she then gets her throat ripped open by the first guy, using a saw. Nasty!

The entire cast in one shot...

But that’s how we like it here at Midnight Showing, and this is a nice little short. The six minutes whizz past and kinda make me want more. I’m sure if these folks had maybe 30 minutes, even 90 minutes, they’d probably come up with some pretty special. Someone find out who these people are… I have questions, and I want answers.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Saw VI (2009)

Who knew that a low budget film would spawn five sequels? Certainly not I, but I knew after seeing Saw that it we would end up with a Saw II. Fast forward five years and here we have Saw VI. If you read my review of Saw V, you’ll know I’m a bit of a Saw fanboy, and proud of it, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting Saw VI for several years, as it was announced that the same team of writers (Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton) would write Saw IV, V and VI and that Saw VI would effectively be the conclusion to the series (all be it that Twisted Pictures have since said that they’ll make as many Saw films as the fans demand), but, in this case, it seems like Saw VI was indeed written to be a bit of a wrap-up.

Like the title says, this is a spoiler-free review, so I’m not going to get too deep in to what Saw VI contains, but it does have enough to keep us Saw fans happy.

Gore. There’s quite a bit of it in Saw VI, the result of Strahm’s demise is shown, as is how Hoffman manages to plant things on Strahm. Several traps are quite bloody, especially some of the shots (literally!) in the now infamous carousel sequence.

Story. This, like Saw V (I think), is definitely a story orientated film as it shows us quite a lot of background detail involving Jigsaw and his cohorts, Hoffman and Amanda. And of course Jill. What’s in the box that Jigsaw left her in his will? What was in the letter that left Amanda so distraught? Saw VI tells all. And more.

The acting is good throughout, only a few bad performances from the I’m-thick-as-two-planks-and-dropping-hints-aplenty Fed.

I loved Saw VI, an hour after seeing it my brain was still in overdrive trying to place all the pieces into the timeline and trying to figure out what loose ends are left for the inevitable Saw VII.

If you love the Saw series, and are following the story closely, like I am, then you’ll love Saw VI.

Game Over.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Ooooo, shiny axe.

How to be a Serial Killer is the next logical step in the general media’s new found, and surprisingly open, love affair with habitual murderers.  From the raging success of TV shows like Dexter, the disturbingly widespread fandom of both the cinematic and book versions of American Psycho, to the almost decade long dominance of the SAW films, we as a collective unconscious are showing some complex, yet favorable, emotions towards people who commit the act most of us could only dream of.  Whether we are sucked in by our inherent voyeuristic human tendencies or by our desire to live vicariously through those characters who can turn fantasy into cold, hard, and very final reality, there is no doubt that the business of death is, at the very least, profitable if done in an interesting way.  How to be a Serial Killer (referred to as How To… from now on) taps into many of the principles and ideas that have proceeded it by those movies and others, while putting an educational and humorous spin on the etiquette and intricacies that serial killers face when applying their trade.

A snapshot of the seminar Mike Wilson leads that is interwoven into the film.

Instead of trying to spend its 90 minutes run time generating sympathy and compassion for our lead, the enigmatic and confident Mike Wilson, How To… leans on a darkly humorous exploration and examination of the morals, patterns, and rules that any good serial killer should follow into order to be the best that he or she can and, of course, not get caught.  Mike (played with uncanny magnetism by Dameon Clarke) is adamant about respecting those who are less fortunate than you (played out with a scene involving a homeless man), the importance of never involving children, never stooping to becoming a rapist or thief who also just happens to kill their victims, and so on.  Of course, without conflict we would have no movie, but I’ll allow you to experience for yourself how breaking any of these guidelines is the on ramp for a quick decent into trouble with the law.  Our story is anchored by Mike’s willingness to share his knowledge and experience with those who currently hate their life, and are usually subject to be stomped all over by society in general. Mike takes a video store clerk (Bart, played by Matthew Gray Gubler, who looks EVERY bit the part) under his wing as an apprentice, and begins to mold him into a stronger individual, albeit through murders which Mike commits.  It is at this point where the films begins to resemble a quest for personal identity, and even a coming of age tale, more than a horror, crime, and comedy mash-up.  Mike turns this anxious, failure-prone loser of a man into someone who resembles a human with a modicum of dedication and confidence within himself.  See, what I found to be the glue that holds this otherwise very risky and pseudo-experimental film together, is that I don’t think this is a movie about serial killers in the slightest.  Much like “Signs” (Yeah, I know everyone hates that movie now, but give me a minute to explain the comparison) was a a movie about personal grief and general faith (in and out of religious context), How To… is more like a buddy comedy where someone who knows his end is, most likely, inevitable decides to impart wisdom onto to someone less fortunate who may never have a chance to fulfill a dream, let alone just feel some kind of true companionship or being wanted and needed.  Normally, those kind of films are predictable and rather sappy, and written off (and rightfully so).  How To… takes that sentiment, and fuses it with a pitch black sense of what is funny, all while gleefully prancing around in a world that should certainly stay in make believe land.  The fictional realm where movies exist is what makes a flick like this work so well because if you can separate the messages it has to offer from the slayings it depicts ,you actually get a movie that works on two levels that couldn’t be more opposite.

In just 10 EASY steps!!!

Stepping outside of the headier discussion about the weighty concepts that How To… seems to sneak in under the radar, this is a film that looks, sounds, and plays like something with a much larger budget than I suspect it had to work with.  As I mentioned before, Dameon Clarke doesn’t steal the show, he IS the show.  The segues which shows a cross between an infomercial and a seminar are brilliant and captivating in their style, presentations, and brevity.  When they are finished book ending the chapters of the main narrative, the story itself does a more than commendable job of never dragging its feet by resting on the movies quirky and quaint vibe that is sure to win most over within the first act.  The third act, if there is something to nitpick, feels a bit uneven, and at a particular moment, very out of sync with the rest of the film.  This lasts for only a few jarring minutes however, before the films snaps firmly back into place with a tidy little epilogue piece that puts a pleasantly disturbing spin on the overarching motive of Mike Wilson.  Director and writer Luke Ricci deserves a pat on the back for both eyeing a good looking picture that uses a lot of natural lighting to give a real world feel and scripting a piece that teeters, dangerously at times, between comically subversive and intriguingly maniacal.  Ricci easily could have lost his grip on the tale and let it slip into either amateur hell or”been there, done that” land, but he sticks to his guns and sees the vision through, for better or worse.  Technically speaking, it is a very solid package, but the real measuring stick for something as out there as How To… will really be how it resonates with each individual viewer.  Chances are, you may see something very different that I did.

Disposing of bodies is hard work. That's how I keepy my abs in such good shape.

How To… earns a classification as “daring”, if nothing else.  While you can soak this in just focusing on what is at the surface, it is my belief that you should try to look a bit deeper to find what makes this picture just a bit different, and maybe even a touch special.  I’ve said it before and I will pound that drum again.  In a day and age where nigh everything is a remake of an older film, a foreign film, based off a book even though the movie has nothing to do with it except ripping the title, or a copycat, it’s a treat when a movie comes along that isn’t trying as hard to be the next big thing as it is trying to make changes to the formulas and see if something magical comes out.  Passing the final verdict on whether or not How To… has what it takes to create waves of transformation in the genre is a test only time can administer.  As far as being a slightly radical departure from the trite and predictable that also happens to be fairly entertaining, I can attest to How to be a Serial being just that.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Not horror movie related, although it could be, but I had to post this news item:

KALUGA, Russia, April 15 (UPI) — Russian police said a female hairdresser was arrested for allegedly keeping an unsuccessful armed robber bound as a sex slave for two days.

Web site Life.ru quoted police as saying the 32-year-old man entered the hair salon at about 5 p.m. March 14, brandished a gun and demanded money from workers and customers, The Moscow Times reported Wednesday.

However, the 28-year-old hairdresser, who had martial arts training, disarmed the man and bound him hair-dryer cord.

Police told Life.ru that the woman then allegedly kept the man gagged and handcuffed to a radiator for 48 hours. She is accused of forcing him to take Viagra and forcing him to have sex with her multiple times.

The woman let her prisoner go March 16 and he went to police after seeking treatment for injuries to his genitals.

The Web site said the man filed a complaint asking for the hairdresser to be brought up on charges for “actions of a sexual nature.” The woman filed a complaint the next day seeking armed robbery charges against the man.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” Life.ru quoted a police source as saying. “We could put both of them behind bars: him for robbery, her for rape and assault.”

—-

Jesus, it’d be like something from a Saw movie: you wake up, chained to a grubby radiator, you look down and you have a raging hard-on, then hear a gruff female voice:

“hello, I wanna play a game…”

NOOOOOOoooooo…..!!!!

Badass. Digging the Communist theme.

Repo! The Genetic Opera is the brainchild of Darren Lynn Bousman, who most of you know as one half of the team that made SAW such an immensely popular and lucrative franchise, and buddy Terrance Zdunich, who is mainly a storyboard artist working on movies and TV shows.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the plot.

In the year 2056 – the not so distant future – an epidemic of organ failures devastates the planet. Out of the tragedy, a savior emerges: GeneCo, a biotech company that offers organ transplants, for a price. Those who miss their payments are scheduled for repossession and hunted by villainous Repo Men. In a world where surgery addicts are hooked on painkilling drugs and murder is sanctioned by law, a sheltered young girl searches for the cure to her own rare disease as well as information about her family’s mysterious history. After being sucked into the haunting world of GeneCo, she is unable to turn back, as all of her questions will be answered at the wildly anticipated spectacular event: The Genetic Opera. Written by Lionsgate

If there’s one thing that is grossly apparent right off the bat, it’s that Bousman and Zdunich have a lot of respect and love for cult classics such as Rocky Horror Picture Show and also seem influenced by more elegant and classic opera works such as Phantom of the Opera.  There’s even a bit of The Who’s rock opera Tommy in there.  It’s no shock that the mind that helped push the SAW franchise forward would be able to create a Gothic, dystopian future, but credit must be given for slick, yet earthly atmosphere embedded in the sometimes hallucinogenic visuals of the film.  It looks great, period.

Bousman manages to keep the narrative moving along swiftly with great focus, even while dealing with the difficult medium of opera.  That’s right kids, an opera where no word of dialogue is ever simply “said.”  Unlike musicals, where there can be breaks in between musical passages to drive the story home with normal movie dialogue, Bousman ensures that every word is “sung”, which can be very awkward at first when your not expecting it.  It’s difficult to accurately describe, but once you see and hear it you will clearly understand what obstacles must have popped up from this bold and daring choice.  Other than that, Bousman also unleashes some incredibly awesome graphic novel panels to fill us in VERY quickly of a particular characters background.

Paul Sorvino and his shotgun-wielding ninja chick bodyguards.

It may be a tricky type of film to make, but Bousman is a razor-sharp horror producer and director, and knew that if he brought in the right talent, he would have a chance to lure in a slew of fans regardless of the experimental nature of the film.  Paris Hilton (Super Global Slut) , Anthony Head (Giles from the Buffy TV Series), Sarah Brightman (acclaimed opera/classical singer and once married to Lloyd Weber who wrote Phantom of the Opera), Bill Moseley (Of House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devils Rejects fame) and Paul Sorvino round out the eclectic nucleus of the cast.  Terrance Zdunich also has a fairly large role as the Graverobber, and steals the show with his “Zydrate Anatomy” song.  The cast is, like so many aspects of this brave venture into total cult cinema, uneven throughout, with those who can sing clearly being more enjoyable and tolerable than those who can’t, with Alexa Vega and Bill Moseley probably being the two biggest culprits.  Hopefully the star power and notoriety brought by those actors outweighs the damage they have done by simply being the weak links vocally.

Sarah Brightman definitely has some bitchin' pipes. And she's kinda sexy, in that scary way. She's probably a goddamn witch in real life.

Which leads me to my assessment of the acting itself, which again can be easily defined as uneven.  While some amount of over and under acting is perfectly acceptable in horror, especially in something this theatrical and over the top, but sometimes the cartoon like personalities crossed the line between tasteful and embarrassingly out of place.  At times the actors would play very serious, as if this carried the same weight as The Phantom of the Opera, and at other times it was clear everyone was having fun and things were much more airy and carefree.  I waited for the flick to settle down, and choose a definite mood and direction, but it never did, as it gleefully jumped back and forth between trying to be emotionally heavy and serious, and being grin-worthy, funny and lightweight.  Maybe I am reading to much into something that can’t truly be defined, but I would have loved to see some lines drawn pertaining to acceptable behavior from all characters, as you would with any other film.

She's got the creepy, googly eyes. Burn at the stake, you kinda-sexy witch.

The final piece of the Repo puzzle is one that isn’t a very common problem in movies, the soundtrack.  That’s not to say all movies has great soundtracks, but they also don’t rely as heavily as Repo does on its’ music.  So how does the song selection hold up?  Take a guess.

UNEVEN.

Some of the songs, like Zydrate Anatomy and Legal Assassin knock it completely out of the park, while others are either too short or too gimmicky to be considered truly great. While taste is bound to vary from viewer to viewer, I felt the music was acceptable, but could’ve benefitted from maybe one or two ballads complete with verses, chorus, and a bridge and a few more rock and roll anthems.

There's also some gore, which is very well done, but used very rarely.

I, like so many of you, have waited for years, eagerly anticipating this movie to be released in any format, anywhere.  And while it may look and sound like I have nothing but negative things to say about Repo!, I feel it’s a case of me being exceptionally critical of a piece of work I felt had all ingredients to really show the world how versatile the “horror” genre can truly be.  Repo is by no means a failure, but instead comes off as a combination of over-indulgence and lofty ambitions.  It succeeds at what it aimed to do, but the cost for achieving that goal may be a dent in Bousman’s reputation, depending on how this is received in the community.  There’s no doubt in my mind that this vehicle can be used to create an amazing, genre-bending film, but Repo! isn’t that flick.

There’s a lot of psychotropic, semi-gory fun to be had with Repo!, but it’s kinda like looking for a 20 dollar bill in your friends extremely messy room, you know it’s worth it to look, but your gonna have to sift through some shit to get what you want.

That's a lot of tapes. Guy must of had a reward zone card for Best Buy.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (or simply Tapes, as I will refer to it from here on out) is not a movie.

I’ll let that sink in.

“When hundreds of videotapes showing torture, murder and dismemberment are found in an abandoned house, they reveal a serial killer’s decade-long reign of terror and become the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives have ever seen.” -Tribeca Film Festival Synopsis.

It’s a mockumentary, minus the comedy and satire.  It’s a mockumentary that houses a two-pronged attack of brutally accurate portrayals of torture, murder and dismemberment seamlessly interwoven with expert analysis and the thoughts and memories of those who were affected by the killers rampage, and those who were hunting him down.

In fact, it’s not too far removed from what the Discovery channel and TLC show on a daily basis.  All those shows about FBI profilers and how they catch these seriously deranged serial killers all seemed to be influential to the Dowdle Brothers, who both penned and directed Tapes.

And  writing may actually be Tapes strongest assets, although I’m sure it will get lost amidst all the chatter about the lengthy, suspenseful, and downright shocking film the killer shoots himself that is shown at certain intervals throughout.  The writing leaps off the screen, as the Dowdle brothers concoct a credible, highly intelligent, innovative killer and sets him loose in the “Anywhere, USA” suburbs of Poughkeepsie, New York.  The killer taunts his pursuers and gives cryptic clues for investigators to find, knowing far in advance where exactly the authorities will look to find them.  It’s this depth to a nameless, faceless character that brings us closer to him than is comfortable for most audiences.  Instead of being bogged down with trite, rationalizing back story about how the killer was beaten as a child or not hugged enough as a baby, we instead get an uncompromising and genius killer, who has found a way to elude the authorities all while documenting his spree.

A brief glimpse of the killer's thorough work.

Direction is also key, not so much in the static look of the interview pieces, (with the exception of the interview with Cheryl which actually made me lose sleep, it’s that fucking clever and disturbing) but in the low-fi, slow burn masterwork of the killers tapes.  The camera is almost always in the right position, whether it’s showing you everything that’s going on, or whether it’s showing you nothing, such as the inside of a car door, or an empty room.  There are times where the camera will be haphazardly placed, seemingly by accident, and we are left with just the screams and pleads of the victim and the orders of the killer to clue us in of what going on.  It’s a time-tested approach that works flawlessly here.  Show some gore in full view to screw with audience equilibrium, and then deprive them seeing something later on.  It works in two ways.  Once you don’t show the audience a scene straight on, it gets their minds working.  They create in their head horrible visions of what must be going on.  It also works to create a sickening feeling in the viewers, because they have to realize that they WANT to see whats happening, so much so they are willing to create the images in their own heads to replace the ones that aren’t on the screen.  It’s a lost art, but it’s a tactic employed by the Dowdle Bros. in exemplary fashion.

Eyes Without A Face reference in the movie. Who would've thought?

With the audio and visual facets of the film firmly in and place grounded in reality, the one area where horror, or should I say terror in this case, goes awry is usually the acting.  You can have all your ducks in a row as far as directing and writing are concerned, but if your actors don’t come through in creating these characters in the physical form, than everything is lost.  Thankfully, the Dowdle Bros. must have been keen on this, and not only hired no names, but no names who looked liked everyday people.  I’m not sure how involved with the casting they were, but from what I’ve read and inferred through the piece itself, it seems fairly obvious they were pivotal in every decision made.  The most all inclusive and flattering thing I can say is, and this goes for the whole endeavor, not JUST the acting, if this were played one TV on night, and no one was told it wasn’t real, there would be a legitimate fear and uproar in many communities around the U.S.  It’s that believable.  So believable that even though I knew coming in it wasn’t real, I still lost sleep over it, and was looking over my shoulder while watching it.  It’s orchestrated with the sole intention of, if nothing else, to stay with you long after the credits have rolled.

Tapes has a long, uphill battle ahead it.  Still having no official release date for theatrical or dvd release, it is caught in release purgatory.  And once it is released, it will undoubtedly be met with serious backlash from angry mothers and politicians who won’t even bother to see the flick, but instead just berate both those who created it, and its fans.  It will be labeled as the next sick evolutionary step in the Torture Porn sub genre, when it really has a lot less to do with the fantasy world that movies like SAW occupy, and a lot more to do with the gritty, unfair, demented world we live in everyday.  There’s no sense of morals, right and wrong, or justification that other horror flicks try to implore.  It is just cruel, relentless, remorseless and always 10 steps ahead of you.  Just like the killer.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes has, buried underneath it’s tough outer shell, an insane amount of creativity and artistic ingenuity.  If an opportunity to see this bound-to-be-lost gem arises, don’t hesitate.  Just don’t plan on going to bed immediately afterward.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4876208113119754457]

Saw V

Readers of this blog will know that I am a self-confessed Saw fanboy. So I was eager to see how the Saw franchise would move forward with the death of it’s leading character.

Fear not dear reader, this review will be spoiler free, I will not be giving away any new plot details, I promise!

Saw V begins with a quick review of what we found out at the end of Saw IV, that Jigsaw is dead, Strahm is trapped in a room and the other players from IV are also dead. The only survivor is Hoffman.

Saw V starts with the pendulum trap that we saw in one of the first clips released. V spends half of its time jumping back and forth between the past explaining stuff (‘stuff’ that I shan’t expand upon), and the present, with five new players in a trap. This is the ‘five will become one’ clip that was circulating before the release of V.

A lot of questions are answered in Saw V, but – true to the series – more questions arise as the movie trundles along. Speaking of which, I found the first twenty or so minutes quite slow, but – true to form – picked up pace. This is definitely more of a story Saw, than a gore Saw.

‘You won’t believe how it ends‘ say all the posters. Well, I obviously won’t give away the ending, but it’s hardly earth shattering – still a nice twist though.

I breath a sigh of relief and say: I like Saw V, I’m still a fan. And well done Mr Hackl too, his first full film as a Director, and it looks good… has the continuity of Saw I – IV (hardly surprising since Hackl practically is Jigsaw!), it’s dark, nicely lit and gory when it needs to be.

I just worry that there’s an outsider lined up to Direct Saw VI. Oh well, won’t be long now ’til Oct ’09…

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132626/]