SAW 3D Review: Trappings of Blood, Guts, and Gore

Another deadly game and new series of grizzly traps with more mutilated bodies than survivors opened this weekend with Saw 3D. This is the latest film in the Saw franchise that continues the story of the Jigsaw murders with a new slew of unfortunate victims.

The movie focuses on Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), the wife of now deceased John Kramer (the original Jigsaw) and his successor, former police officer Mark Hoffman, played by Costas Mandylor. At the end of Saw VI, Jill puts a reverse bear trap device on Hoffman’s head planning to kill him, but he is able to escape and intends to hunt Jigsaw’s wife down. Hoffman sets up a new game with self-help guru Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery), whose book on surviving Jigsaw’s trap has become a national best seller. Dagen’s wife, publicist, lawyer and manager are all set up in various traps inside an old abandoned mental facility.

Meanwhile Jill has come to police internal affairs officer Matt Gibson (Chad Donella) to turn Hoffman in provided she gets full immunity from prosecution and protection. Gibson agrees just as bodies begin popping up. Hoffman sends Gibson a video recorded message saying that he’s set up a new game and it’ll stop if he gets Jill in exchange. Gibson refuses though and first puts Jill up in a safe house and when that fails locks up her inside a jail for safety.

One of my favorite parts of this film is the opening where we see what happens to Jigsaw’s very first victim, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (played by Cary Elwes) who had sawed off his own foot to save his family (who survived). We see him crawling on the hallway where he manages to cauterize his severed limb by putting it on a steaming hot pipe. We see Gordon again in a Jigsaw survivor support group led by Dagen that is being filmed for a DVD the author is going to sell to the masses. We also learn that Elwes’ character has actually played a big role behind the scenes throughout the entire series.

Without spoiling any more of the story, what makes Saw 3D interesting is the hidden twists and the eventual justice that the bad characters get. From the beginning people were being morally tested because they had committed wrong acts in their lives. This form of justice can be seen as far back in human history during ancient Babylonian times with Hammurabi’s Code where the core principle was eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, a fitting punishment for a given crime. The victims of the traps have to endure pain because they’ve caused pain.

All the traps were gruesome for a viewer like me who doesn’t regularly watch slasher flicks. In the aftermath, you could tell that the bodies were dolls but I thought all the actors did a convincing job in portraying the utter fear they felt and of course screaming their lungs off. Particularly great job to the victims of the first trap, a woman who had been manipulating two men at the same time to fulfill her own selfish needs.

This was a purely gore driven film that I would recommend you rent rather than seeing it on the big screen, in 3D nonetheless. The 3D aspect didn’t really do anything to enhance the viewing experience as so many others of the same ilk. The best parts were more due to the camera angles and the terrified screams of fear with impending spikes or flesh being ripped than from flying 3D projectiles. I found myself grossed out and gripped by the kinds of traps the victims endured hoping that they make it out alive. Throughout the movie I wondered how I would react if trapped in one of these contraptions myself, would I survive?

Saw 3D is a good addition to the franchise, but nothing remarkable. If you liked the series, you’ll enjoy this latest one as well and if you’ve never seen any of it, the blood, guts, and gore will be entertaining. You might even get curious how this whole thing started and want the in-depth back-story, in which case a marathon might be in order.