Saw III (2006) 7/10

Starring : Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh, Donnie Wahlberg, Dina Meyer, Leigh Whannell
Director : Darren Lyn Bousman
Running Time : 109 mins

In the third, and I imagined last, installment of the Saw series, serial kidnapper Jigsaw (Bell) seems to be getting more and more violent. His traps are becoming harder, if not impossible, to escape from. The reason for this is that Jigsaw is critically ill, and he has left Amanda (Smith) in charge to continue his legacy. He asks Amanda to bring a doctor to help treat him for his illness, but Amanda becomes increasingly jealous of Dr Denlon (Soomekh) as Jigsaw begins to pay her more attention than Amanda. Meanwhile. Latest victim Jeff Reinhart (Macfadyen) finds himself faced with impossible challenges that he just can’t win.

Nowhere near as good as the first movie, mainly because it relies primarily on gore for effect rather than inferred violence or claustrophobia, this is still a fine example of the horror genre, and gives what I hoped would be a nice rounding off to the series. Unfortunately it looks like the fourth movie is in post-production, so the nice neat ending I hoped for seems to have gone out the window.

You’ll like this if you liked : Hostel