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Late to the Party: SAW (2004)

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“A guy saws off his own foot to escape his chains. It’s gory. It seems gross. So what? I don’t need to see a movie about a guy just stuck in a room who saws off his own body parts. Gore for the sake of gore is just silly.”

Oh, the things I would say when I was younger. I think I’ve written about this before – I’m almost positive that I did somewhere – but when I was less experienced in the horror genre, blood and guts wasn’t appealing in the slightest to me. Maybe I grew a tolerance for it. Maybe I got tired of the same old monster movies. Whatever the reason, there came a time when I needed something stronger. Something more extreme.

I started seeking out films that would test my limits. Films that exist simply to disturb and disgust the viewers, to visually and mentally assault them, much like in The Human Centipedewhich I wrote about back in May for this column. I actually saw that before I watched James Wan’s genre-pusher Saw, so I believed I had primed myself enough for the experience. I figured I’d be able to handle the gore and the guts much easier if I had put myself through the disgusting experience that Centipede had to offer.

I was correct, but only in part. There wasn’t much blood or gore to speak of in Centipede, but it reaffirmed me that I could probably handle a lot more. Saw is much more of an exercise in tension and mystery than the aforementioned film. Yes, it does contain a lot of gore – effective amounts that will shock and disgust – but the overall story is really what makes the film so popular. Maybe it’s the depravity of it all. Being able to imagine people stuck in a situation so vile because of one person’s sick machinations must give people a rise. Or, maybe it’s the hope factor. The thought process that, yes, this situation is horrible, but maybe there’s a way out.

My original impression that the film is merely torture porn was entirely incorrect. Though the film is a challenge to sit through (many must grit their teeth and bare it through some harsh scenes), the mystery of Saw is really what carries it. It’s much more in-depth than a movie such as Hostel – a movie I enjoy, but thoroughly admit to being torture porn. The psychological aspects of Saw are heavy; there’s a sick fascination with seeing these people play Jigsaw’s games.

It really is amazing how everything comes together at the conclusion of the film. There seemed to be so many twists that my head almost spun right off. And let us not forget that damn puppet rolling around on that damn little bike. That’s a horror icon if I’ve ever seen one, right there. You best believe it.

Though the later films would focus more on bloodflow than compelling stories (I have since watched every single one and enjoyed them all besides the seventh), the original is a remarkable piece of horror cinema. As usual, I regret waiting so long to watch this film. But that’s just how these things seem to go, isn’t it?

Stay tuned next week for the horror comedy classic, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN!

 

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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