It shouldn't come as a surprise that horror films are popping up leading to the festival holiday of Halloween next week. This week's new release of Saw VI is like old faithful. Right on time as usual, like it has been for the past five years. Only this time there's something odd.. Something different about this years snuff film.
I mean, they're typically gore filled and thinly lined excuses for people to jerk off to torture, but this year they're taking it to a new level of snuff porn by making it a sort of ripped from the headlines type of subject matter. Take a look at the trailer;
I have to say, they make maybe 1 or 2 good horror films a year and Saw isn't in the title of any of those. Saw is typically torture porn for people with bad taste. I mean, the franchise has been filled with literally the exact same content in each. I know I've seen at least two SAW films but since they're so much alike and unmemorable I literally can not tell them apart. They're completely indistinguishable.
But hey, let's not go on some random internet bloggers point of view, let's go see what the critics are saying about this in their reviews. From the New York Times review
The film goes all trendy in its selection of victims: instead of being punished because they take their lives for granted, which had a certain classicism to it, they’re now punished for being mortgage lenders or health-insurance adjusters.
What this does is make the main character the anti-hero. You have to hate the health care executive in this film. He did it to himself as the reason why he's in the SAW traps is because he denied the health care plan of one fella who ended up dying. So, you know, you really can't cheer for the guy. I sure hate it when horror film victims deserve to die. It ruins the suspense. It just makes me want them to die.
Look at that video clip, the joke in there is that the guy can only choose to save 2. Any real health care provider would just kill all 6 of them and Jigsaw will be all "What the fuck, dude! I went pretty far in setting up those traps." Then again, the clip shows he at least saves the white girl. Way to go, you racist fuck. Again, how can I cheer for him when I want him to die?
I wonder what sort of message this will wind up sending to the average movie view. Jigsaw is evil, therefore what he does is evil, and what he does is kill people. Namely douche bag Health Care provider assholes. If only the message can be spread the killing people is evil unless those people are evil and since jigsaw is evil he could not be killing people that are good, so these people must be good.. Fuck, now everyone is confused.
If it popularizes the idea of revenge killings against CEOs among even just angsty teens, then that's pretty cool. It's a whole lot more productive than that Anarchy phase that they seem to go through. At least it's getting something done in the world that's productive. It is pretty funny that the more I think about it, because the trailers it seems to indicate that a big plot point of SAW VI is that jigsaw's philosophy is spreading. I wont what else is "spreading" and would influence people to kill innocent, hard-working bankers and insurance executives.Oh yes, poverty..
Though, I heard on NPR that the armed services actually got an increase and for the first time in 30 years they actually meet their quota of voluntary recruits. It seems that in these tough economical times, the only constant paying gig is the armed forces.. The double edged sword to all this is that these films desensitizes people to violence which makes people more inclined to support military action. So perhaps we shouldn't allow people to watch torture porn like this. I'm pretty sure that the US has killed more people in Iraq than every psycho serial killer in history put together. Gotta keep that #1 status some how.
This idea of ripping ideas from the headlines isn't anything new. Though I have to say that it's happening way too often in ways that isn't the most healthiest. Earlier this year District 9 came out and well, it just made me want to shoot a Blackwater mercenary soldier with an alien pig gun. But to be perfectly honest, I wanted to do long before I saw District 9. The message was pretty clear though, hired assholes for government weapons and development companies need to die.
Then a couple of weeks ago Paranormal Actvity came out. In it a couple is haunted by a demon that has followed a girl with huge tits since she was a little girl and is now causing havoc for her and her Day Trader boyfriend. In the end, (OMG SPOILERS!), The demon used the possessed big boobed girl to kill the douchebag day trader after weeks of him openly mocking the demon. I couldn't feel bad for the guy because, come on, he was a fucking day trader who deserved to die. If not for being a douche bag, for putting us in this economical situation we are in today.
So it leaves me with, as mentioned before, victims that truly deserved it. Totally ruining the horror and suspense of it all. Does it make for good entertainment? I suppose. But in some cases, like SAW, it's more torture porn than anything else. I mean, I'm conflicted. Do I watch film smut and enjoy it for the torture of some health insurence executive or do I avoid it? Even if he's entirely evil in every way, no one deserves torture, right? Fuck it, when even saw is making a political statement you know our system has gone to hell in a handbasket. Burn it all down. Burn the entire system to the fucking ground!
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