DVD review
Directed by: Darren Lynn Bousman
Starring: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh

The sadistic mastermind Jigsaw is on his deathbed. His disturbed apprentice (and former victim) Amanda is instructed to kidnap a city nurse to care for him – after the nurse has been fitted with a trap to her neck, obviously. At the same time, a grieving father must face a new series of blood-curdling tests if he’s going to make it out alive.

Here we ago again. More blood, more traps, more twists and turns. A pertinent morality tale on the lengths that we’d go to survive…or just an excuse to create the goriest set pieces possible? Hmm, judge for yourself …

Saw III suffers from the same problems as its predecessors – namely variable acting, ludicrous dialogue and over-stylised direction. But crucially it also lacks what set the previous Saw movies apart from other splatter fests. For all its flaws, the original Saw (and to an extent Saw II) married a simple but effective plot to some genuinely surprising plot twists. By the third outing, plot is virtually non-existent (the opening twenty minutes are barely relevant to the rest of the film, and the running time is padded out with flashbacks to events in the earlier movies), while the final act ‘twist’ feels half-hearted at best.

Even without Scary Movie 4’s tired spoofing, the Saw franchise rapidly feels like it’s slipping into the realms of parody. There are still some gorily inventive set pieces - it’s just a pity that there’s so little in between.

In common with the previous Saw films, this DVD does come with a selection of fantastic commentaries. Best of the bunch is one featuring director Darren Lynn Bousman, writer Leigh Whannell and producers Peter Block and Jason Constantine. Honest, fact-filled, self-deprecating (“here’s another pretentious shot!”) and very funny, it’s almost worth buying Saw III for this alone.

Fans are also likely to enjoy the feature on how the traps were created, and which reveals the true aim of Saw III – “we wanna make sure people are squirming in the aisles!” Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 4/10
Leaving aside the great DVD extras, this is the weakest Saw movie by far. The occasional flash of invention will no doubt be extinguished by the time Saw IV arrives later in the year.