With "Saw 3D hitting theaters on Friday, we have more still from the film courtesy of Lionsgate.

This October, one of the biggest, most successful horror franchises in movie history arrives in theaters in vivid, chilling 3-D with the release of Lionsgate’s SAW 3D.

As a deadly battle rages over Jigsaw’s brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror...

The film stars Tobin Bell, Cary Elwes, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell and Sean Patrick Flannery.

"Saw 3D" hits theaters on October 29th.

"Saw 3D" Official Trailer

Lionsgate recently released the first stills and teaser trailer to "Saw 3D". It's the final chapter of the most successful horror franchise of all time.

This October, one of the biggest, most successful horror franchises in movie history arrives in theaters in vivid, chilling 3-D with the release of Lionsgate’s SAW 3D.

As a deadly battle rages over Jigsaw’s brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror...

The film stars Tobin Bell, Cary Elwes, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell and Sean Patrick Flannery.

"Saw 3D" hits theaters on October 29th.

"Saw 3D": Teaser Trailer

DIRECTED BY
David Hackl

STARRING
Tobin Bell - John Kramer/Jigsaw
Costas Mandylor - Detective Mark Hoffman
Scott Patterson - Agent Peter Strahm
Betsy Russell - Jill Tuck
Julie Benz - Brit
Greg Bryk - Mallick
Meagan Good - Luba

Genre - Horror/"Torture Porn"

Running Time - 88 Minutes

Score - 2 Howls Outta 4


When SAW V was released this past weekend, I wasn't excited about it. Let's face the facts - the fifth installments of many big horror franchises usually disappoint and are just plain awful. Don't believe me? Check this out:

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING - Many fans consider this to be the worst entry in the long running franchise. Why? Because it should have never been made, especially when the entry before it was deemed FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER. Paramount Studios got everyone's hopes up thinking Jason Voorhees would return after getting butchered. But noooo...let's put a fake Jason doing the killing instead! That'll make the fans happy! Unfortunately it doesn't work, giving us a mystery that can be solved fifteen minutes into the film. Plus when you have the most annoying characters in the franchise's history, things are gonna go sour. If I ever see Violet [a.k.a. Robot Girl] again, I'm gonna pop and lock her ass into submission.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 5: THE DREAM CHILD - Here's a film that had a really interesting and mature theme that could have made this movie a highlight in the franchise. Instead, these mature ideas are tossed aside for horrible dream sequences [Super Freddy anyone?] and a Freddy Krueger that's no more than a shell of what he used to be in the previous installments. Plus other than "final girl" Alice, the characters weren't worth the paper they were idealized and written on.

HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS - Probably the biggest disappointment of them all. THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS ended with a great conclusion that could have led to very interesting installments. Instead, fans were given the shaft when they pussied out of that ending - instead giving us a horrible storyline where Michael Myers is psychically linked to his neice, Jamie Lloyd, while some Man In Black follows him around like a love sick puppy. And let's not forget that horrible looking mask, bad direction, and a character named Tina that deserves to burn in the pits of Hell for all eternity.

There are so many other fifth installments I could mention here, but you get my drift. So coming into seeing SAW V, I went in with low expectations. And the funny thing is that those expectations were pretty much met. SAW V is as pointless as SAW IV, but I can say at least that it could have been a lot worse.

PLOT
Continuing from SAW III and SAW IV, we watch Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) struggle with escaping the location where Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) died as Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), who was revealed in SAW IV to be Jigsaw's secret apprentice, has him trapped there. Strahm has to survive a supposedly unescapable trap if he wants to escape. Being crafty, Strahm manages to outsmart the trap and barely escapes with his life intact.

As Strahm deals with his own trauma, Hoffman is congratulated and promoted for tracking down Jigsaw and solving the case. But once he's able to finally relax, Hoffman receives a note that says "I know who you are". Now rattled this cover may be blown, Hoffman must figure out who knows his true identity. Is it Strahm? Is it Jigsaw's ex-wife, Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), who recently received a box from Jigsaw telling her what to do with the contents inside? Or is it someone else entirely?

Meanwhile, five people wake up to find that they're all chained together as some sort of Jigsaw trap. Apparently they've all been privileged and pretty much used it to ruin others, now having to suffer through "rehabilitation" in order to find their way to survive.

Yeah, this film is as interesting as it sounds.

REVIEW
While I was expecting worse, SAW V still fails on many levels. Like I've said countless times before, it's not needed and it makes me wonder how much longer can Lionsgate extend a franchise that was perfectly fine as a trilogy. Nothing in this film really adds all that much to the narrative and has proven that the SAW franchise lost all the unpredictability and originality that made it so powerful and effective to begin with. Yet, I was never bored nor did I hate the film to give it a lower score. It was just a mediocre SAW film, which is something a SAW film should never be.

I will give credit to Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who wrote the horror film FEAST. While the script was as predictable as they come, at least the film was easier to follow than the mess that was SAW IV. While there are multiple sub-plots, at least they all made sense in their own segments. The strongest one, of course, was the Jigsaw-Hoffman flashbacks, which detailed how the two encountered each other and led to Hoffman's recruitment. That's mainly because it's hard to screw with a character like John Kramer and since we're already invested in him, any scenes he's in take priority. I don't feel these flashbacks are necessary really, but at least they were written well.

Even the sub-plot with the five trapped characters is interesting, mainly because that's the only time where the film actually feels like a SAW flick. It actually reminded me of SAW II, where the victims had a common link to each other and through surviving traps was when it would all be revealed. While it's not as involved or as exciting as the narrative in II, at least it was kept simple and to the point so you can be invested in it somehow.

The script does have its problems though. My biggest beef is that the film focused on two characters that have no right carrying any horror film, let alone any film. Having SAW V focus on the most boring conflict of good vs. evil [Strahm vs. Hoffman] pretty much ruins any enjoyment one should have with this film. These two people are dull and not worth investing time into. I still don't understand why these two are the main characters in this "new SAW trilogy". How do you go from interesting characters like Jigsaw, Amanda, Detective Matthews, Dr. Lawrence Gordon, Detective Kerry, etc., to underwritten characters like the ones we have now? And to have these two men carry this storyline is a terrible injustice for any SAW fan. It's bizarre to me.

I also found that the sub-plots didn't work together as well as they should have. They just didn't have a cohesive feel and I was wondering if SAW V was really three different movies in one. It kind of all came together at the end, but not enough for it to really be effective.

And the ending that "you won't believe how it ends" was kind of disappointing. It just shows how badly written certain characters are when one of them ends up being the biggest dumbass in a span of 3 minutes. I couldn't believe how much viewers had to be forced to invest in such a stupid fuck of a character for two films. And as for a twist, the only twist I got was that I was ripped off 12 bucks to watch this and that there will be another sequel. Sigh...

The traps in SAW V are probably the tamest of all the traps in this franchise. They were really old school and traps I would expect to see a magician in Las Vegas use to wow the crowd. They sort of came across as unoriginal, but I still kind of liked them nonetheless. The pendulum bit was kind of cool, as well as the water box trap, the trap that involved pints of blood to release the survivors, and the final trap right at the end [as much as I disliked the actual ending, at least the visuals for it were pretty cool]. Gore hounds probably won't be into this one as they are in the other installments, but I didn't mind it all that much.

The direction by David Hackl wasn't all that bad. Taking over for Darren Lynn Bousman, Hackl is pretty much a point and shoot type of guy. The crazy cuts and shaky cam are done at a minimum, which is a plus. He's very subtle and keeps the visuals very grounded. It doesn't totally feel like a SAW film but it's a nice looking film that works well enough on the eyes. Not a bad debut for Hackl. It's just a shame he couldn't work with better and stronger material.

The acting, on the other hand, was pretty flawed. Tobin Bell was still great as John Kramer/Jigsaw. His scenes were the strongest in the film and it amazes me how these producers continue to use a dead character to extend a story that doesn't deserve to be as long and detailed as it is. I also enjoyed Betsy Russell as well as the ex-wife. I think her performance here was just as good here as it was in SAW IV. I also liked the acting of the five victims, especially Julie Benz, who's best known for her work on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and especially on Dexter. Her character sucked but I like Benz in anything she does. Too bad she had to wear a horrible wig too. What was up with that?

However, Scott Patterson and Costas Mandylor were pretty bland as the main characters of the film. Patterson doesn't really have enough charisma to turn Strahm from a stereotypical detective to a three-dimensional character. Plus he had to talk with a raspy voice due to something that happens to him at the beginning of the film, which came in-and-out everytime he spoke. He doesn't make a convincing good guy and I didn't care about him at all. As for Mandylor, if there was an award for "Best Mafia Boss Wannabe", this guy would take it by a landslide. He never comes across as a menacing villain. He actually comes across as a bored actor desperately trying hard to be a genius badass. I don't buy this dude at all and I can't see any one who would. It's like a joke and he's the only one in on it. They made two SAW films and are making another one for this Mandylor dude? Who is this guy sleeping with and where is the evidence he's holding over the producers heads that prove this? I really don't get it.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED WHILE WISHING THIS FRANCHISE ENDED TWO MOVIES AGO

- Don't ever fall behind when going after the key to your survival. You'll fall heads over heels at the consequences to your snail-like behavior.

- Jigsaw blackmailed Hoffman into working for him. Apparently he also blackmailed someone at Lionsgate studios for continuing this franchise. I smell nude pix and a sex tape!

- Don't ever try and steal someone's key that leads to a bomb shelter. The bashing to your head that created that terrible headache is just the beginning of an explosive night.

- Don't mess with Julie Benz when her life is at stake. She's been dating a serial killer for three seasons, plus she used to be a vampire longer than that. The ways you can be murdered increase tenfold whenever she's around, so don't be shocked by the results of your actions.

- Don't put your enemy in a trap that was meant for you. You'll look like nothing but a dumbass. You may need no education but you'll still just be another brick in the wall.

THE FINAL HOWL
SAW V is a hit and miss for me. I did enjoy some elements of the film, but the rest of it was too flawed for me to ignore. For those who haven't seen SAW V, make sure to watch the others. This film is basically for SAW fans only since it never explains much of anything from previous films and pretty much just continues where the last one left off. It could have been a lot worse though and I'm surprised this fifth installment still managed to entertain on some level. I'm not looking forward to SAW VI next year, but I'll be there because Jigsaw blackmailed me into watching it. I knew I should have never taken those compromising photos with that Jigsaw doll...

CAPTIVITY (2007)

DIRECTED BY

Roland Joffe

STARRING

Elisha Cuthbert - Jennifer Tree

Daniel Gillies - Gary

Pruitt Taylor Vince - Ben

1/2* out of ****

Have you ever had that feeling that someone was constantly following you? At home? At work? At social events? Unless you're a celebrity, or Paris Hilton, this is not a feeling you should normally have. But what if it were taken one step further, to the point where this stalker drugged you and kidnapped you? How would you feel waking up in a strange room where traps await you to test your survival skills because some madman has nothing better to do?

CAPTIVITY asks and answers those questions, as Elisha Cuthbert's character has to deal with that very thing. And boy, I do not want to be in her position. Not because it's a horrible experience. It's because it's the most boring, pointless ordeal anyone will have to deal with. I would rather be killed than experience CAPTIVITY again.

PLOT

Jennifer Tree (Elisha Cuthbert) is a fashion model [isn't she a little too overweight to be a model] whose has her mug all over New York City. Her life is pretty meaningless [from what I got anyway] and pretty much goes through the motions. She's invited to some charity party where she is drugged and kidnapped. She wakes up the next morning in some dark room that looks like her own apartment. Her captor then begins to mess with Jennifer by putting her through traps [like incasing her in sand, using high pitched soundwaves, and making her drink some crimson - yum]. Just when Jennifer is about to give up, she learns that she's not the only victim inside the underground nightmare.

REVIEW

I have three words for CAPTIVITY:

WHAT THE FUCK!!??

CAPTIVITY has got to be one of the most pointless, absinine horror films I have seen in a really, really long time. It's mean, it's bleak, it's gloomy, and it's boring. This film was so heavily hyped before it's release last summer because of the posters of Elisha Cuthbert looking tortured. The government and MPAA tried to ban the film because it could give people ideas on hurting others. You know something? I actually agree with Big Brother here. This film should have banned so I wouldn't have watched 90 minutes of my life disappear in front of my eyes. Let's just say that the hype would make a much better film than the actual product.

Supposedly a member of the "torture porn" sub-genre, CAPTIVITY is probably the tamest next to SAW and HOSTEL. The gore factor is pretty lame for a "torture" movie. Sure we see someone get burnt by acid being poured on them. But other than that, nothing else happens! Jennifer gets stuck in a glass box where sand pours on her. Wow, color me scared. Or what about the fact that she gets a funnel in her mouth and she has to chug blood with some body parts mixed in? Okay, that's gross but cannibal movies make that kind of shit much more effective. It's a pretty lame concept here, as Jennifer is never really tortured much. It's just a more extreme form of prison. I don't understand the hype behind it all. And I saw the UNRATED version of the film. I can't imagine the RATED version. Was there any difference because I couldn't really tell? It's never tense. Nor suspenseful. Nor scary. It's just dementedly stupid. No wonder this piece of shit made no money at the box office. For once, mainstream America made the right call.

Roland Joffe directs a really boring film here. The pacing is totally off, as there are random fade-ins and fade-outs for no reason whatsoever. Like I mentioned before, Joffe never builds any tension or any scares. It's just a really blah directorial job. And Joffe is a very good director [see THE KILLING FIELDS and tell me he's not]. I don't know what happened here. Not even Uwe Boll would want to direct this film and that's saying something. I do admit that the picture looks nice and clear, which is due to great cinematography. If you like that sort of thing, then you might like this a lot more than I did.

The story/screenplay was also uninspired. Apparently the creators were trying to do a SAW-like film and pretty much failed. None of the characters are intelligent. None of the characters are sympathetic. We don't know these people long enough to care about them or care about their situation. They are caricatures of other horror characters that we have grown to know and love. For example, Jennifer is supposed to be the protagonist of the film. And yeah, what she goes through sucks balls. But do we care? Do we want her to survive for other than the fact that we don't want to be placed in that situation? She has no personality and we don't know enough about her background [except that she's some blonde model] to really give a damn. We usually root for girls who fight back their oppressors, but I could have cared less here. It's uninspired and I can't relate with uninspired.

It would have helped if there was an actual REASON for why the captor puts her through this. Say what you want about "torture porn" films but at least the villain always has a reason for what they do. In SAW, Jigsaw put people through hell in order for them to appreciate the life they were wasting away. It was all about morals and it works brilliantly. In HOSTEL, the villains are doing what they do because it's a sport. It's all about capitalism. In CAPTIVITY, the captor does these things because...well who in the fuck knows? Maybe he's just a sick motherfucker. That's nice and all but do I really give a shit? Not really. There's no background to this guy as to why he does what he does. I like mysterious villains but you got to throw me at least ONE bone! Maybe if the story was actually better constructed, this could have been a much better film. But apparently, Joffe only wanted to gross people out. And believe me, you'll barely flinch at this one.

As for the acting, it was probably the film's saving grace from being a total failure. Elisha Cuthbert is in th middle for me as Jennifer. She's beautiful to look at and she can scream and cry with the best of them. But I wanted to see more from her. I mean, you're fuckin' trapped by some lunatic in some underground hell. Panic! Yell! Go fuckin' nuts and try to escape! But nope...Jennifer doesn't do that and Cuthbert doesn't show any of that terror or her want to do that in her performance. Everytime she tried to fight back, it was forced and seemed totally scripted. It didn't help that her dialogue sucked. I was hoping Jamie Lee Curtis would walk on the set and beat some Scream Queen sense into her. I would have watched that for 90 minutes!

For me, Daniel Gillies as the other captor, Gary, made the film for me. Best known as John Jameson in SPIDER-MAN 2 and Rachael Leigh Cook's hubby, Gillies gives a really rockin' performance. He was convincing in every way. I bought everything part of his performance, which shows how good of an actor he is. I would like to see more of him in films - hopefully in a much better one.

And I gotta say before I end this review: Who in the hell would have sex during a traumatic experience that Jennifer and Gary went through? Apparently Jennifer and Gary would! I kept thinking to myself, "Hmmm...I'm about to die trapped in this hellhole. God I'm horny! Let's fuck!" I mean, it was like the dumbest thing I have ever seen! Plus they knew the guy was watching their every move, yet they consummated it anyway. Riiight. I'm sorry but if I'm being tortured by a nutjob, the last thing I want is sex. Especially with someone who hasn't taken a bath in days. If I wanted to smell fish, I'd go to the fish market. Just saying...

THINGS I'VE LEARNED WHILE GETTING TORTURED BY CAPTIVITY

1. I want nothing on me that involves Plaster of Paris. It'll only lead to blood tests, ointments, and a bad case of genital herpes.

2. One of the victims got showered with acid. That's no way to get rid of the itch. There's over the counter stuff for that!

3. Never crawl through a vent. Someone with a chainsaw will try and kill you from above. I see Leatherface got with the times. Or is in New York City to be a cross-dresser again. I'm hoping for the former.

4. The captor poured sand all over Jennifer's body while she was trapped in a glass container. He's obviously a fan of DAYS OF OUR LIVES. I knew Stefano will help create imitators!

5. The captor pulled out on of Gary's teeth forcefully. Nice to see Dr. Giggles still employed.

6. If you're captured with someone of the opposite sex, why not have with them? It's a whole lot better than trying to escape! Giving the asshole a free show is the least you can do to pay him back for hurting you! ::rolls eyes::

7. Elisha Cuthbert always causes trouble for two evil brothers. See also: HOUSE OF WAX (2005).

8. If you're a cop, don't ever watch a basketball game at a suspect's house. The players won't be the only ones taking a couple of shots...

9. When you sleep with someone, you belong to them. Wow, Lindsay Lohan must belong to a lot of people!

10. If you're a woman and you're using a big gun, you need to cock it before it can shoot. If you don't know how to do that, I'm not interested in dating you.

THE FINAL HOWL

CAPTIVITY is one of the most dull, predictable horror films I have ever seen. Yes, I got all the twists and even the ending really quickly. SAW was almost 4 years ago. Stop trying to make more films like this and move the fuck on! But hey, if you like bad acting, bad dialogue, bad direction, and a really tacky love story - then by all means watch this stupid film. Better you than me. CAPTIVITY, I personally put you in the WTF? Hall of Shame '08 for capturing my time away from something more meaningful. But if you do want me to set you free, all you got to do is...

KISS MY ASS!!