Tag Archives: Shawnee Smith

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Saw X (2023) Movie Review

September 30, 2023 Alex Brannan

19 years ago, James Wan’s Saw became a surprising hit for Lionsgate and a meaningful propeller for the 2000s cycle of torture porn horror films. Since then, that grisly subgenre has fallen far out of fashion, and Lionsgate is in a potentially pivotal moment where it is hoping to rejuvenate past successes. Both Saw X and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes are prequels; this is fitting, given the studio is looking backwards to its most profitable franchises in an attempt at similar box office success.

The trajectory of the Saw franchise, aside from being packed with lore rendered nearly incomprehensible due to sequel ret-conning and increasingly inane plot twists, has its ups and downs. After Continue reading Saw X (2023) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Halloween Horror, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Saw III (2006) Movie Review

October 20, 2017 Alex Brannan

This review of Saw III is part of the Saw Franchise Retrospective series in anticipation of this month’s release of Jigsaw.

Saw III might be the most dull installment of the torture porn franchise. Directed, like with the first sequel, by Darren Lynn Bousman, this seeming end to a trilogy sees the final waning days of John Kramer (Tobin Bell). Kramer is an aging man with terminal brain cancer. He is also an eccentric serial killer known as Jigsaw.

While needing critical brain surgery (he kidnaps a woman and forces her to operate to solve this issue), Jigsaw has another crazy plot Continue reading Saw III (2006) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Halloween Horror, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Saw II (2005) Movie Review

October 19, 2017 Alex Brannan

This review of Saw II is part of the Saw Franchise Retrospective series in anticipation of this month’s release of Jigsaw.

Is Saw II genius for its opening scene, which alludes to the horrifying opening to Luis Bunuel’s surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou? Is Darren Lynn Bousman making some commentary on how art repeats itself, making a bold self-reflexive statement about where the Saw franchise was headed back in 2005?

No. Okay, just checking.

Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is a father and a cop. That’s about all you need to know of his character. Lucky for him (?) he stumbles on Continue reading Saw II (2005) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Halloween Horror, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Saw (2004) Movie Review

October 17, 2017 Alex Brannan

This review of Saw is part of the Saw Franchise Retrospective series in anticipation of this month’s release of Jigsaw.

The first image we see in James Wan’s Saw, now somewhat of a perennial torture porn classic, sets up the illogical world that this series is grounded in. A fitting introduction, one might say. We see Adam (Leigh Whannell, who also serves as screenwriter) underwater in a tub with a key dangling in front of his face. He is holding his breath, but also unconscious. When he wakes, he yanks open the drain and the key disappears forever.