—–

Bobby (Sean Patrick Flannery) is the main victim in this new story. He has successfully built a career out of being a victim of one of Jigsaw’s twisted games. He has written a book  and is conducting a publicity tour talking about how being tortured by Jigsaw turned his life around.  However, there is one problem with his tale of near death at the hands of a serial killer. It isn’t true. Bobby and his hard-working publicity team are selling lies to make a profit.

Having broken the ethical code of one of Jigsaw’s murderous accomplices, Bobby “must” now be forced to re-evaluate his life . Detective Hoffman, one of the people who has carried on Jigsaw’s long and tortuous legacy, has set up a series of traps for Bobby. (Jigsaw himself died several films ago, along with the energy of this series.) In his traps, Bobby must make tough decisions to save the lives of his publicity team. In some situations, he is asked to suffer physically to alleviate the suffering of his contemptible allies.

While Bobby is put through these tests, a detective named Gibson (Chad Donella) is on the trail of Hoffman, his former colleague. With the assistance of Jigsaw’s ex-wife Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), Gibson is on the verge of ending the murder spree that Jigsaw began. After trying to kill Hoffman herself, Tuck has come clean about Hoffman’s murderous ways. However, Hoffman knows that she has betrayed him and is ready to do what he can to stop her. 

Unfortunately, “Saw 3D” is just another lame sequel in this series that ran out of stories to tell a long time ago. The script is awful and the characters are useless. In addition to its other faults, “Saw 3D” is also missing a sense of logic. For instance, if a serial killer used an elaborate trap to kill people, would the police leave the weapon on an easily accessible shelf where it can be used again? Also, if a woman is being chased in a police station, wouldn’t she try to grab a gun from a fallen officer rather than hide behind a file cabinet? This whole movie is a mess and is simply set up to show new torture trapsin all their 3D glory.

The most interesting trap is revealed early on. It isn’t exciting because its components are new but because the audience is. The trap is at an outdoor shopping center and onlookers watch as the trap springs into action through a glass window. A woman is suspended in the air while two men are asked to kill each other to save the girl who has betrayed them both. Considering that the “Saw” films profit from people watching carnage onscreen, I thought this trap offered filmmakers the opportunity to question the reason why people watch these movies in the first place. However, “Saw 3D” takes the easier route and doesn’t expand on this interesting concept.

If there is anything good to say about this grotesquely violent sequel, it is that the film reveals the answers to some questions laid out in the original “Saw.” Dr. Gordon and another victim were left to die and the audience didn’t know if or how they survived. Now they do. As  a fan of the original, it was interesting to see what eventually became of Dr. Gordon.

However, that is not enough to make this bland sequel worth watching.

There are a lot of films that scared us as kids, and still scare us. Many of the films today are far too graphic for my tastes. Heck, most of television is, too, for that matter. So, I should say right at the outset that I’m not a fan of gore, not in any way shape or form. I know some folks out there are big on the stuff, but not me. Sure, I’ve seen some, the classic Herschell Gordon Lewis, Romero and Savini works, but none of the modern multi-sequel films that grace our theaters with single word titles. I don’t mind being scared. As most would agree, we all need a good scare every now and then. It’s good for you. It’s thrilling. But gore isn’t thrilling for me. It’s sickening. I like to be thrilled, I don’t wish to be sick. Besides, I’ve seen enough of the footage and descriptions of films like “Saw” and “Hostel,” which I rebel against, regardless of how “intelligent” or “clever” they are reported to be.

So, as I began to write this essay, as the wind and rain hit my window, I started to think on things that scare me. Matt Damon came to mind. Not because he’s scary or anything, of course, but because I noticed just the other day that the popular actor announced, quite out of the blue, that he’s not interested in working on films that have gratuitous violence in them.

He said, “I always look at the violence (in a script). I don’t want it to be gratuitous because I do believe that has an effect on people’s behavior. I really do believe that and I have turned down movies because of that.”

Wow.

I had to stop for a second after I first saw that, since I associate him with films which contain explosive, deadly violence. Right now, there are very few characters more lethal than Bourne for their efficiency in killing people to death, at least in the main stream. Obviously I wasn’t the only one who noticed the incongruity between his words and his roles. Damon’s statement that aside from Bourne, he has turned down many-a-script that contained violence could very well be true. I have to take him at his word, since I’m sure he receives tons of scripts every day that have him climbing, kicking and wrenching the feathers out of very bad good guys from Finland to Fuji. So, I asked myself why would he take this suddenly public stand? This was the first time I had seen an A-list actor, a very liberal A-list actor, at that, confessing such a view in public and to a news outlet, no less. Stunning. No other word to describe it.

Two days later, I saw a small news piece where Nicole Kidman was basically saying the same thing, not that she turns down violent scripts, but that she believes media influences behavior:

“Asked if the movie industry has “played a bad role,” Kidman said “probably,” but quickly added that she herself doesn’t. “I can’t be responsible for all of Hollywood but I can certainly be responsible for my own career,” she said.

Wait a minute.

So here were two very big stars, stating in no uncertain terms that media influences behavior, and can do so in bad ways, two days apart. This, after years and years of denying it and ridiculing those who believe media plays a huge part in influencing behavior, our culture, they come out with this. Two days apart!  As long as I can remember remembering, I’ve read and heard from professors, media experts, authors, artists and filmmakers, from friends and foe alike that media doesn’t influence. Period. End of story. Get over it, etc.

To be fair to those two actors, they didn’t deny it or ridicule others, but their industry, Hollywood, has made that denial, that firm stance, the unmovable rampart against the charges that their product, their message is increasingly detrimental, that it’s screwing up our kids and us.

So, I had to wonder why would not one, but two big celebrities come out with very similar statements mere days apart. All I could think of was they want to be on the right side of the facts when some soon-to-be-released study by an organization embraced by Hollywood, such as Harvard, Yale, or Jon Stewart hits the net or news stands. Who knows? But, as I looked out through the glass at the dark foreboding skies, I suddenly remembered something. I remembered the recent news on severely declining box office receipts and DVD sales. I remembered John Nolte’s essay and all the others on the subject. And then it all clicked. “I know what’s going on here,” I said to my reflection in the window. Fear is what’s going on here.

Which leads me to something almost as scary as Hollywood actors making statements to the press. A movie that scared me with very little more than fear. No blood or violence or graphic anything. Just good old fashioned fear.

I’m not a huge fan of “The Blair Witch Project,” but I do give the filmmakers kudos for their idea, for their execution of it, and for their spunk. I hate spunk (No, just kidding, I love spunk, but I can’t hear that without thinking of Lou Grant’s famous reply to Mary). Anyway, the filmmakers of  “The Blair Witch Project” mentioned some of the things that inspired them in their “fresh approach” to producing their now famous hoax film. Among the lot was an overlooked little film of the 70s.  I had noticed the similarity of the film that they mentioned and their own hugely successful project right off the bat. I noticed it minutes into their wooded project. So, I was glad to see they acknowledged it at least.

The Legend of Boggy Creek

This little gem scared the dickens out of me as a kid.  For those who haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it, if that’s even possible, with any spoilers. But I will give you a very brief rundown of it, just so you know where I’m coming from and why.  To a boy, it aroused tremendous fear; to an adult, I wonder about where that fear comes from.

The film starts out with a disclaimer that “This is a true story.” Right there, you got me. I’m already hooked. I’m not sure why that is – undoubtedly an expert psychologist can explain it with some long words that will take another expert psychologist to interpret. I’ll leave the business of that to them and just be satisfied with knowing it’s a swell gimmick with a set-up that can’t lose.

After a few dark, and yes, boggy images of a swamp, dead trees and scenes of late Autumn, a scene Andrew Wyatt or Charles Sheeler might paint on a depressing day, we get a young boy in denim overalls, the kind Opie would wear, and looking like a lot of kids looked in the 70s, running across a golden, sunlit field. He’s not goin’ fishin’ and he’s not havin’ fun. In fact, he looks terrified. We hear howls and hoots of various animals echoing off in the distance as he runs along. He makes it to a country store where the local gentry, the older men are sitting around chin wagging. Out of breath, he blurts out that his mama sent him to get help, because “there’s some kinda bayou man down by the woods and the creek.”

The men laugh it off and send the boy on his way, certain it’s just the overactive imaginations of mother and child. He runs back home across the same fields with the sun now setting and the spaces between the trees getting gloomier by the minute. Suddenly, he stops when he hears a sound echoing in the distance. We hear it too. It’s the angry howling of the beast.

In a narration reminiscent of Earl Hamner Jr., a comforting male voice-over describes his little town and how it was when he was a kid, that kid. The scenes are of pleasant fields, trees, and woods. It’s a picturesque though remote “neck of the woods.” Playful country music is used to make us feel at home, down home in this place known as Fouke, Arkansas, population 350. This, he tells us, is his recollection of what happened to that town back when he was seven years old. The comforting voice of the narrator goes on to welcome us in, in a neighborly way, describing the post office and the gas station, the school, garage, motel and a couple of cafes “where the men stop-by to discuss the fish they caught, or the duck, quail or deer they’ve hunted.”  He then introduces some of the good sturdy folk of Fouke and how most are “farmers or ranchers.” Not exactly the kind that scare easily. Again, a good set-up.

He sums it up with the killer line: “Fouke is a right, pleasant place to live… until the sun goes down.”

What happens after that isn’t so picturesque at all. We get a documentary style format showing a variety of the characters, real or imagined, that the story presents as true. All sorts of recollections of dead animals, mauled hogs, pet dogs and others that were either found scared to death, ripped apart like rag dolls or just plain disappeared. The characters whose names are displayed on screen all seem trustworthy and basic, simple folk, not the kind who want publicity. And it’s all shot as if it came off the same reel as that Paterson big foot footage we’ve all seen.

We are then treated to a variety of episodes where the creature, the Fouke Monster, as it came to be called, terrorizes the locals in various ways. These “reenactments” based on our trusted narrator’s words along with the very amateur quality of the production add to its realism. Descriptions by farmers of 200-pound hogs carried over barbed wire, dogs and cats slain wet our appetite setting us up for the real big hit, which doesn’t really strike us so much as it dampens, like wet socks or a soaked sleeping bag on a camping trip.

The narrator further sets the tone with his ominous, “I doubt if you could find a lonelier, spookier place in this country than down around Boggy Creek.”

Sure, there are some sudden shocking moments, some classic fright magic, but it’s all a consequence of the set-ups we were treated to. Without them, the frights would not last much longer than the frames they took to show, which are minimal. The film really doesn’t show much at all, actually. But the implication of what is “out there” and “running on two legs” is clear and never far from our minds. A monster is stalking the woods at night. Is it man or beast? What does it want? Is it going to hurt us?

There’s no teen angst, no sex scenes and no hot tubs. There are no rowdy bullies who get their just desserts after picking on the cute couple. No car chases or explosions. No special weaponry or resourcefulness to make any. There isn’t even a gruff and disbelieving sheriff who always finds out the hard way how wrong he was to dismiss the whole thing. Nope, none of that stuff. What there is are very average, simple, vulnerable people in cabins or mobile homes, far from telephones or neighbors who all alone, or in small groups, get the stuffing scared out of them by something outside. There’s also fierce hunting dogs whimpering and turning back at the first whiff of the monster, motorists narrowly missing the creature as he runs across the road and more vignettes adding to the overall feeling of fear. There’s also a very odd musical segment that might very well be the scariest thing in the movie! The entire film is really nothing more than a loosely connected string of “documented” incidents described in a fashion not unlike a darker episode of
“In Search of…” (which by no strange coincidence was another inspiration to the filmmakers of “The Blair Witch Project”).

I saw this film with my brother and sisters. I was a small boy, not unlike the lad depicted. And even though I exited the theater into a hot, hazy and bustling normal afternoon in the city, bereft of anything wooded or rustic, I was still very anxious to get home as fast as possible. I was certain that the Fouke Monster, that “huge hairy creature watching from the shadows” was somewhere out there, behind a parked car or hiding in a dark stairwell waiting to rip my neck out like he did those dogs, which we never actually saw him do. I really didn’t see much, did I? But, boy did it scare me. And perhaps, sometimes, when the sun goes down and the wind howls, like the now all grown-up little boy says in the film, “and it scares me now, too”

Horror movies are almost all remakes now, and they fall almost exclusively into two big categories: Remakes of Old US Movies, and Remakes of Asian Flicks. Both tend to fail at the same rate in being great or even passable entertainment, and that rate is approximately 100 percent. Last year’s The Eye and Shutter were all remakes of Asian originals and all were pretty much forgettable. On the US side—and again, sticking just to 2008—we got Prom Night (which I thought was pretty good, but not many other folks agreed), and fresh (sic) installments of the Saw and George Romero’s …of the Dead franchises. Overall, these too were weak, and so were the dozen or so others I could have mentioned.

The Hollywood trend on horror (and pretty much all else) is to add on to a franchise or borrow a proven title on the belief that a previously proven premise is a safer investment than something brand new. The studio executives may be right: Horror movies are usually pretty cheap to make, so they can get into the black pretty fast. But few of these remake pictures are making crazy money (with the huge exception of the five–so-far–Saw films: $661 million gross on $37 million budget) and none of them are memorable entertainment.

Horror pictures have become an assembly-line operation. They rarely feature an original story and differ from each other only in the order in which they deploy the standard scary-movie tricks such as Loud Noise During Quiet Passage, Surprise Face In Mirror, Evil Child With Horrifying Prediction, and Creepy Image On Common Item.

There are young, will-work-for-cheap writers and directors out there who could have given Friday the 13th a surprising and engaging new direction. That would have been so much more exciting than the the slick, soulless 90 minutes this remake turned out be–a re-shoot incorporating the latest (and already exhausted) CG tricks. Absolutely any filmmaker’s product could not have been less stirring than this, and–here is the heart of the argument–the title alone would have brought in the same crowd in the same numbers, regardless of the content.

So going with some new idea means there’s not really a risk involved. Horror fans (I include myself in that group) will show up, regardless. Hey, studio heads, why not try something different next time? Who knows, you might actually end up with something different, something better, something that draws in folks who don’t otherwise care about the genre. Stranger things have happened–just not in the latest crop of horror movies.