Saw III

Most people who go to see Saw III will already know what they are letting themselves in for - a continuous helping of stylised gore, violence and torture, where the only tongue in cheek will be one that is literally chained there in a macabre and psychotic trip that needs no justification other than audience demand for video-nasty-type scenes without the slightest pretence of a psychological storyline to justify prolonged physical and mental cruelty that makes the Nazis look uninventive.

The moral dilemmas seem pretentious in the extreme. A lovely doctor is forced to save a monster's life, or be killed herself. A man, grieving the death of his son in a car accident, has to "forgive" all those vaguely involved to win his redemption.

As standard fare, Saw III delivers, no more and no less than Saw II, or The Hills Have Eyes, or The Devil's Rejects. Deranged serial killer, Jigsaw, devises complex games for his victims, often involving self-mutilation. Clues are left on cassette recorders and the captives follow instructions to try and win a reprieve.

Saw III reprises some of the themes and loose ends from the previous two movies, but stands up equally well on its own. The overuse of loud and jangling sound effects is distracting and unnecessarily sensationalist and I found myself weary within the first three minutes.

Sadly, after so many films of this ilk, particularly ones with the sophistication of Hostel, or Audition, it loses much of its shock value and is little more than a late night gorefest to wind up the series.