First of all no, I am not going to see the movies because I am a recluse and am afraid of the outside, and also because they aren't very good. The first movie was awful, and while I will say 2 and 3 were marginally better I still didn't find them affective, it was just a bunch of people stuck in devices that were complicated as hell and that usually ended with the camera switching to spaz o vision and turning something that could have been marginally scary into a bloody hilarious snuff film. Meanwhile the plot was fairly typical trapper fair (I would say slasher but he doesn't really slash anyone, he traps them.) of course the series does have some big balls to kill off the titular character in the third movie and have an individual inspired by his teaching continue his psychotic work... Oh wait they don't, they kill him off but it seems like he is still planning the events of movies that take place a considerable time after his death going so far as to swallow a tape recorder for the coroner to find, and the best part is that all of these scenarios are really one scenario. I have never seen the killer have a contingency plan. Is he god? That is the only conclusion, the Jigsaw killer is god and knows all that will ever happen.
But now I would like to take a moment to critique the slasher movies in general, they don't have to be bad, in fact they could be scary as hell but more on that later. The big issue is that the writers seem to have such a hard on for their slasher they make him into some sort of executioner, slaying the wicked and unlikable characters, and in a way we almost root for him, and if you are rooting for a person to kill a teenager because said teenager is a shithead that is not good horror. The real tragedy is that these movies could be really scary. If you had a decent relatable character with friends who weren't shitheads being stalked over a period of time by the killer it would be pretty fucking scary. Imagine him decapitating our protagonist's parents and leaving their bloody heads on the foot of her bed. Then when it is time to make the kill our hero runs but the killer doesn't care he just methodically pursues her, until at least he makes the kill. These movies could be scary but they aren't and that is sad, and Saw is the biggest offender because the entire concept is that he kills bad people therefore it is kind of hard to sympathize. "Oh no the Jigsaw killer is going to kill the pedophile... wait. Is that a good thing? Hooray Jigsaw!"
