Fridae

You have a character flaw? You will pay for it with your blood and we will watch you escape from your death trap in our plush cinema seats. Concept-wise, the seventh instalment in the Saw movie franchise is no different from any of its six predecessors: it’s all about the satisfaction of seeing and hearing people die in gory ways in a reality game show format.

There is a target audience for this series: modern grindhouse fans who roar for more gore. There’s really no need to change the concept or its execution or even advancement in terms of plot. Subsequently, all the strengths and weaknesses that have been pointed out in the Saw franchise apply here; we need not account them again.

Perhaps it will be revealed in a typical twist in this film’s DVD making of featurette that Malaysian director James Wan, the creator of the Saw horror franchise, did indeed visit Singapore in his youth and spent a most memorable day at the Tiger Balm Gardens, imbibing its grotesquely elaborate grotto dioramas depicting inventive tortures that fit the sinner. Note I call this the Tiger Balm Gardens: the park went through a long, ignominious decline coinciding with its new name of “Har Par Villa” and then “Dragon World”, where its grotesque exhibits were watered down and then Disneyfied by incompetent park managers.

You can still see if you go there today various tableaux depicting various venal sins which to modern eyes, illustrate how arbitrary and idiosyncratic ‘morality’ can be and that a self-appointed moral guardian who decides on crimes deserving extreme punishment may actually subscribe to a deluded, crackpot notion of morality. I suspect that had James Wan taken on directorial or writing duties for the alleged “final chapter” of the franchise, this would have been the direction the film would take instead.

Thanks to James Wan, gore is now democratised and we can have gore in slow motion (Zack Snyder’s 300), gore with intimate pain (Takeshi Kitano’sOutrage) , gore in a mainstream action flick (Samurai Assassin), and even gore with a rock soundtrack and pre-teen girls (Kickass). Regardless of its actual strengths or flaws, Saw has had a good run.