Review by Walter Sim, NTU

Halloween is upon us once more, the October 31st celebrations capturing the visceral imaginations of many around the world. While the festivities here (or lack thereof) are unfortunately restricted largely to the club scene and do little justice to the age-old festival, we can seek solace in how horror films have simultaneously hit local screens en masse, perhaps an indication that we are not a wimpy nation afraid of those fiends that go bump in the night.

Trick-or-treating we may not be going, nor are we displaying jack-o'-lanterns around town, but Darah, Saw VI, Paranormal Activity, Halloween II and Lesbian Vampire Killers, amongst others, are worthy companions.

Heralding the advent of the monster/horror genre was the 1922 vampire classic Nosferatu, considered a film noir gem today. The genre has since expanded to include all forms of fiends, the plethora ranging from ethereal ghosts and poltergeists, indestructible humanoid mass murderers like Freddy Krueger (Wes Craven's Nightmare of Elm Street) and Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th) and even plants (Frank Oz's Little Shop of Horrors; M Night Shyamalan's The Happening).

The Saw franchise was a successful departure from the mass murderer norm. Despite being a bloodbath in itself, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) was an advocate of egalitarianism thus providing a modus operandi of Pecksniffian righteousness as he aims to rectify society's ills. This was unlike Krueger and Vorhees who killed at their own whim and fancy, anyone who dares to cross their path. The astute concept and ingenious weaponry that could only be borne in the minds of a pervertic engineer led to a critically-acclaimed box office hit for the first editions.

But along the way the show was a victim of its own success. The writers threw in more twists than the audiences could bear, and more questions slowly popped up along the way than were answers proffered. Of course confused audiences would not stick to a sinking ship and ditched the franchise, as evident from its free-falling ratings. The bloodbath stuck but it was insufficient in keeping viewers faithful.

The series expanded from the originally-schedule trilogy to six installments, and from the cliffhanger in this episode, future parts are certainly likely. Continuing its tradition of a US release the weekend prior to Halloween, Saw VI successfully redeemed itself in a step-up from the recent installments. The metamorphosis can be attributed to a change in focus as the film offers answers to many questions that were thrown up in previous installments, tying up many loose ends in the saga. The gore remains, albeit in a more mellowed fashion as much of the screen time was devoted to flashbacks. But with more coherence in the plot this time round, cinemagoers sure would not be left so bewildered.

The writers cleverly tackle the health care system, perhaps a timely social commentary in view of the debate thrown up with Obama's presidential campaign this year. In particular, the ineptitude and conniving nature of insurance companies that engage in pseudo-Darwinism was scrutinized. The famous naturalist purported that nature yielded "the survival of the fittest", and the writers attacked the despotic manner some insurance companies take in denying coverage to the weak. In a flashback scene, the late Jigsaw (who died two installments ago), having been denied insurance coverage due to his malignant cancer, questioned William Easton (Peter Outerbridge) of his insurance company, "Who are you to judge who has the will to live," the latter refusing to take the gambit by claiming it's company policy.

And of course William would find himself a victim of Jigsaw's game, posthumously continued by his successor Lieutenant Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), having to complete a series of gruesome tasks in order to survive. Of course, it ain't going to be pretty, and the effort put in devising the repugnant devices this season is remarkable. The steam room was disgusting in itself, at least to me, due to a natural revulsion for the notion of burning flesh (yes, the botched sun-tanning machine scene in Final Destination 2 vividly sticks in my head), though it passed pretty mildly. And if you hate carnival rides, wait till you see what the victims strapped onto the carousel in this edition have to face.

You just cannot help but root for the protagonist, himself a victim of his own occupation in a double-bind situation in spite of his own character flaws, as he weaves through the maze. The concise direction and editing lends itself to a tense atmosphere from start to finish.

But the episode is nonetheless unlikely to win the series any new fans with its tried-and-tested formula, and you wonder how many more installments could there be before the writers finally exhaust themselves of devices to torment, or of posthumous twists to introduce for Jigsaw.