Vlane said:
Susan Arendt said:
Oh, really? You're going to punch me in the face? Good to know.
Damn it. Why do you have to respond? I can't hurt you.
Susan Arendt said:
which are horror, whether you like them or not
No The Exorcist is a horror movie. The Saw series belongs to the torture porn genre or snuff movies. You watch a Saw movie to see the death scenes, which are good, but you don't watch them to get scared and I have no idea how you can get scared watching that.
I think Stephen King's defense of the "torture porn" genre (albeit stated in response to criticism of the abysmal-for-reasons-not-relating-to-torture-porn-status Hostel Part II) applies here: "horror" is an evolving genre. What scared people years ago won't scare people as much now (Poltergeist was considered the scariest thing ever in the '70s. Now barely tingles a spine today). And what scares people today probably won't have as much impact twenty years from now. The "torture porn" genre does what it sets out to do: to get under the skin of the viewers and disturb them, even frighten them. Saw
is, indeed, noteworthy for its elaborate deathtraps and gory death sequences, but as Susan mentioned in her review, it's also about Jigsaw, a villain who isn't like the slasher villains of yore, who delivers wonderfully chilling performances every time.
I'm not going to hold up the franchise as a bastion of amazing and coherent storytelling (as much as I love the movies and enjoyed the game, I'll be first to say the plots are laughable at best and incoherent and nonsensical at worst), but it sets out to be more psychological than other franchises. The villain honestly thinks he is doing good work and doing the world a favor with his sadistic games. More to the point, he thinks he's doing the
victims a favor. It disturbs you by attempting (with varying success) to turn the good and evil dichotomy of horror upside down. The first movie was remarkable in its rather minimalist approach (other than the elaborate traps featured early in the movie and the reverse bear trap sequence, the majority of the story takes place in one room, with the main characters barely moving from their positions, and yet still manages to be unnerving and spooky).
As for the review, it was excellent. I agree with it wholeheartedly. It's definitely more of a rental if you're not a die-hard Saw fan, but it's also definitely worth at least giving a try if you're a fan of survival horror or puzzlers. (I played the 360 version of it myself, and yes, the controls are just as shoddy. I shudder to think what the PC version will be like, having played the PC version of Silent Hill: Homecoming.)