Comments on: Horror Chick, With Melissa Lafsky: Why the 'Saw' Movies Are the Most Important Films Ever Made (No, Really)

By: Astrapto

Astrapto — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:49:12 +0000

Interesting theory, I think it is false.

By: selfConsciouslyIronic20somethingEveryoneHates

selfConsciouslyIronic20somethingEveryoneHates — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:51:36 +0000

This is what happens: you hire lawyers as bloggers and you get gay, Sunday Styles-esque, Social Phenomena rationales for everything.

I am a big fan of the snuff/torture genre (though I feel like Saw, Hostel et al. tend to feature a lot of redundant mere gore, making them sort of meh) and…believe me when I say I could not care less about social justice.

By: Devilbabytales

Devilbabytales — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:15:20 +0000

Get in front of me at the movie line and I'll freakin' kill you.

By: gaytheist

gaytheist — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:25:37 +0000

I'm just trying to figure out why this is all rated R but show a blowjob and its rated NC-17

By: BurnseyBridges

BurnseyBridges — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:44:16 +0000

That may be the intended audience, but the actual turnout is more than 50% female. Don't know why -maybe cause the women in the Saw series actually do stuff (gross stuff, but still). Never saw the films myself, though after reading Choire's awesome review of the latest one, I might just have to check it out.

By: Ziggy

Ziggy — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:06:48 +0000

My Number Is My Address– Pandas don't wear Jimmy Choo, bite your tongue!

By: blueprint

blueprint — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:31:19 +0000

I've always been under the impression that the Saw franchise holds the same appeal as reality television: Americans just love to watch other people suffer.

By: katalist

katalist — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:20:14 +0000

Thought so too.

By: contradicto

contradicto — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:43:31 +0000

Seriously. Never give a lesbian a hook. That was my takeaway.

By: productivitydecreaser

productivitydecreaser — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:04:54 +0000

Next time I'm stuck in a rubbernecking-induced traffic jam, I'll take comfort in the fact that people are really looking to assuage their guilt about contributing to global warming.

By: LondonLee

LondonLee — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:02:32 +0000

Especially when they come on the TV at 7:00 and my three-year-old daughter is watching. Pisses me right off.

By: LondonLee

LondonLee — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:00:07 +0000

'Saw' is just a remake of the Monty Python 'Architect' sketch, but less funny:

Good morning, gentlemen. This is a twelve-storey block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive in the entrance hall here, and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort and past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these…

Excuse me….

Hm?

Did you say knives?

Rotating knives, yes.

Are you proposing to slaughter our tenants?

Does that not fit in with your plans?

No, it does not. We asked for a simple block of flats.

By: Bittersweet

Bittersweet — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:43:06 +0000

Second the Spackler reference appreciation. You must have inner consciousness.

By: King of Pants

King of Pants — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:34:33 +0000

The answer is simple: American guilt.

Looks like there's more than one thing in the theater projecting.

By: kitten_witawip

kitten_witawip — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:29:16 +0000

It's Clyde Shelton now.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1197624/

By: Fredrick

Fredrick — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:09:37 +0000

As someone who loves horror movies, I sat through the first one (if you remember, there was tremendous buzz around it at the time) but I couldn't do the rest, as they are not really movies as they're 'scene collections'. But I'm the asshole who likes Eli Roth, so I can't pontificate.

By: formerly it takes a lot etc.

formerly it takes a lot etc. — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:05:54 +0000

I hope your toothache gets better, Melissa.

By: NicFit

NicFit — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:48:21 +0000

Saw is nothing. Whatever you do don't watch Hostel II. That freaked my shit out for like 2 weeks.

By: My Number Is My Address

My Number Is My Address — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:29:21 +0000

I had the same reaction as both of you. At the least to the extent that Jimmy Choo-wearing pandas are probably not what is propelling this franchise forward.

By: HiredGoons

HiredGoons — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:25:22 +0000

Has anyone seen the original 'The Vanishing'? Now THAT is a scary film that left my emotions in a knot and contained almost NO violence.

I don't get gore, I don't find it scary at all except in a few, well utilized cases or in a humorous vein, a la 'Evil Dead II.'

I will give SAW this, however: the dirty needle pool make my testicles crawl up into my stomach.

By: HiredGoons

HiredGoons — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:21:48 +0000

Lionsgate USED to be a company that made fine cinema.

By: HiredGoons

HiredGoons — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:20:51 +0000

Also people who like Slipknot and play way too many video games.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:20:13 +0000

If you don't watch the violence, you'll never get desensitized to it.

But seriously, by making these films Lionsgate (which I'd always thought was a company with a reputation for fine cinema?) shames both itself and a rather fine suspension bridge.
The last great Canadian horror film, IIRC, was Cube

By: DorothyMantooth

DorothyMantooth — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:13:42 +0000

Heyyyyyy... Point/Counterpoint?

By: Bettytron

Bettytron — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:12:18 +0000

I was under the impression that the primary audience was frat boys and high schoolers who aspire to be frat boys.