With Jim Sabatini

Saw III

Rated: R for strong grisly violence and gore, sequences of terror and torture, nudity and language
Reviewed by: Jim
Release date: October 27, 2006	Released by: Lions Gate Films

The cruel, dreadful games of the elusive, cancer-stricken Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) continue in this horror franchise which lives for the big Halloween weekend. Saw III has more story and backstory to it for its characters as devised by James Wan and Leigh Whannel (who starred in Saw). This time, the dark, torturous scheming features an tormented father (Angus Macfayden) and an ER doctor (Bahar Soomekh of Crash), the latter of which is helping to keep our less ominous protagonist's heart beating.

There are plenty of shocks, especially at the start and finish, to sate hardcore fans of this kind of unrelenting sadism. It runs a little long, but strives to make many connections to the earlier installments, and has a couple of narrative diversions to make it all nearly watchable. The hyper-kinetic approach of director Darren Lynn Bousman (back after Saw II) enhances the deep bleached-out tones of torturous, moral ambiguities that won't go down without a fight. For all of the wicked devices and nastiness, an electric saw coming in contact with a human skull could be the worst for most to endure.