All right, the third film in the Saw franchise (and second to be directed by Darren Lynn Bousman), ups the ante from the previous film by having not one, but two extremely violent killings in the first twenty minutes.
A quick side note: In previous posts I've mentioned that I enjoyed the first film and actually appreciated it's lack of onscreen violence and was therefore confused as to why the violence level increased so sharply in the subsequent films. The answer? The filmmakers read responses of fans in the horror magazine Fangoria that the first film would have been better if there had been more explicit, onscreen violence, and therefore changed the following films to reflect the tastes of the fans.
The problem with this is that Fangoria is a magazine which has heavy focus on makeup and special effects in horror films, so obviously it's readers would prefer more onscreen opportunities for special effects and makeup.
The third Saw film basically sets the template for the rest of the series, a victim wakes up in a strange place and witnesses the torture or impending murders of a number of people - sometimes they help, sometimes they just watch, either way the film ends with the protagonist failing at their test and the Jigsaw Killer makes some announcement which (supported by heavy flashbacks) means that the test wasn't exactly what was expected.
The third film has people dying in various horrible ways, and includes a significant flashback to the first Saw film (other than a few cameos from Saw II the second film is barely mentioned) and actually concludes the series in a relatively satisfying way.
The problem being that after the dramatic success of Saw II at the box office(approximate $87 million, with a production cost of $4 million), both Saw III and Saw IV were immediately green lit for production.
Honestly, this month is beginning to feel like a marathon to me.
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