{"id":3115,"date":"2008-10-02T18:04:59","date_gmt":"2008-10-02T17:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=3115"},"modified":"2008-10-02T23:23:45","modified_gmt":"2008-10-02T22:23:45","slug":"why-the-saw-films-own-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/10\/02\/why-the-saw-films-own-halloween\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Saw films own Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I remember walking through Leicester Square<\/a> in London last Halloween<\/a> and began wondering why Rob Zombie’s remake<\/a> of John Carpenter’s Halloween<\/a> wasn’t being released then.<\/p>\n

It had opened on September 28th, a full month beforehand, and in the US had opened even earlier on the Labor Day weekend.<\/p>\n

Given the obvious marketing benefits, why had the distributors not gone for the obvious October 31st release date?<\/p>\n

The answer is simple: The Saw franchise<\/a> owns Halloween.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the tag line for the Saw IV poster cockily put it:<\/p>\n

If it’s Halloween, it must be Saw.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although I’m still looking for them to use an actual image of a see-saw<\/a> with the tag line:\u00a0<\/p>\n

See. Saw.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But anyway, how did this extraordinary success come to pass?<\/p>\n

In 2004, Lionsgate Films<\/a> released a low-budget horror film from the unknown writer\/director team of\u00a0James Wan<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Leigh Whannell<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although it had some known actors in it such as\u00a0Cary Elwes<\/a>\u00a0and Danny Glover<\/a>, it was it’s clever mixture of extreme gore and unpredictable twists that powered it to a gross of over $100 million worldwide.<\/p>\n

Given that it was made for just $1.2 million dollars, you can see why Lionsgate keep churning these out every year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, the last two Saw films alone were made for just $10 million each and both made box office revenues of well over $100 million, showing just how popular and enduring the franchise has become.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the financial success, there has been an inevitable decline in the quality of the films; Saw II was entertaining, but III and IV were tired riffs on the original premise to the point that I just didn’t really care about who was doing what.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the success with mainstream audiences does intrigue me. Do people get a kick out of the sadistic torture sequences? Or is it the intricate and puzzling aspect of the killings that fascinate audiences? (Remember, the villain is called Jigsaw<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Perhaps in an era where the current US president has essentially legalised torture<\/a> they represent a bizarre fantasy for the viewer – after all, there is often a twisted morality to the people Jigsaw tortures.<\/p>\n

But a more practical answer might be that these films are just brilliantly marketed – not only do they offer a younger audience effective scares, but they have an appealing sense of mystery in each one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most horrors involve monsters or a lone boogeyman<\/a> stalking unsuspecting victims, but the Saw films have an added dimension in that each death is nearly always some kind of diabolical puzzle.<\/p>\n

Added to that there is always an element of choice the victim has – even if it means gouging out their own eye<\/a>, they can still save themselves – which is a neat twist on the helplessness of most horror movie victims.<\/p>\n

On top of that, the inherent theatricality of these sequences mean they stick in the mind more than some bimbo getting stabbed with a knife or a creature gobbling someone up.<\/p>\n

The latest film\u00a0sees Forensic Hoffmann (Costas Mandylor) take over Jigsaw\u2019s reign and here is taste of the from the trailer:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

The big question for me is where does this all end? The tagline for the poster above states:<\/p>\n

In the end all the pieces will fit together.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But I’m already hearing there will be Saw VI next year along with a computer game<\/a>(!).\u00a0<\/p>\n

It seems we haven’t seen the last of Saw.<\/p>\n

Saw V<\/strong> is released in the UK on October 24th<\/em><\/p>\n

> Official site for Saw V<\/a>
\n> Find out more about the Saw franchise<\/a> at Wikipedia\u00a0
\n> Listen to our interview with Tobin Bell (who plays Jigsaw) from Saw III<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember walking through Leicester Square in London last Halloween and began wondering why Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween wasn’t being released then. It had opened on September 28th, a full month beforehand, and in the US had opened even earlier on the Labor Day weekend. Given the obvious marketing benefits, why had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,8],"tags":[545,544,477,69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}