Saw VI

Setting: 7:00 P.M. A dark, musty room at the top of a skyscraper. A SENIOR EXECUTIVE of Lion's Gate Studios sits at a desk, looking nearly dead. The blinds are drawn to cover the waning light of day.

[Enter a YOUNG EXEC named JENKINS]

JENKINS: Sir?

EXEC: [Stirring from his soulless daze] Eh? Who is it?

JENKINS: It's me, sir. Jenkins. Did you get a chance to watch that film we sent you?

EXEC: Jenkins, that movie was the worst piece of garbage I have ever had the misfortune of personally witnessing. What was that, anyway? We can't release that! No one would ever watch that.

JENKINS: Sir, the movie you watched was Saw VI...

EXEC: Saw VI! Well, then, I guess they'll eat it up. People inexplicably always come to see those awful movies. Do we have a trailer?

JENKINS: Uh, no sir. We were considering cutting one that featured the detective and kind of a revenge angle, or-

EXEC: Jenkins! Please! The only promotion we need for a Saw movie is something that ends with the words "Saw VI." Just have one of the effects guys whip us up a CGI trailer.

JENKINS: Yes, sir. As you say, sir.

EXEC: Don't let him work on it for too long, though, Jenkins. An hour or so will do. Now get this dead hooker out of my office and bring me some more money to eat.




So, here we have the trailer for what I'm sure will be a really great piece of cinema. I'm referring, of course, to Saw VI. It seems to me that Lion's Gate is perhaps a bit optimistic if they expect their target audience to follow Roman numerals, but really, the "Saw" part of the title is all anyone cares about anyway. I don't particularly care about these movies, so it was a huge relief to find out that neither did Lion's Gate, or, judging by the trailer, anyone else involved. So let's get started!

We open with a CGI doorway leading into a CGI hallway. I really hope you like this hallway, because it's where we'll be hanging out for the duration of this trailer.

I know what you're thinking, but no, this isn't the opening to the newest MYST game.

We find ourselves zipping along in this Playstation-2 era CGI hallway while mildly threatening psuedo-metal plays. I guess it was the most terrifying music they could find on MySpace. "6 CHANCES", claim the bold words mysteriously floating in mid-air. At what? Revenge? Escape from this twisted game where people get killed in really grisly ways? Love?

Then we take a corner and are confronted with something truly nerve-wracking; I would advise my readers with weaker stomachs to turn back and abandon this blog immediately. You're about to see... a lot of televisions.

Multi-screened displays... the most terrifying displays of all.

People are screaming and freaking out on the TVs. "I'm gonna help you!" cries a woman. Please, do, we think to ourselves, and end this trailer as fast as you can. But true to the movie's sadistic premise, it ticks on like a man possessed and lacking all humanity.

"6 LESSONS", continue more floating words. You may be tempted to think that we have converted to a Rosetta Stone commercial, but alas, the CGI hallway and the third-rate techno-metal mean that we are still in Saw VI-land. We quickly come to a room that features only 2 televisions, but makes up for its lack of horrifying TV displays with an operating table, which helps account for Saw VI's strange motto. "It's like an appendectomy, but scarier" just didn't make any sense before now. More people scream on televisions, etc. etc. etc.

"6 CHOICES", declare our final pair of hovering words under an ominously flickering light. That may be so, but since this is a movie about people dying in really gruesome ways, I'm betting all of those choices suck really bad. Our trek down the virtual corridor brings us into the most chilling computer-generated bathroom in the history of computer-generated bathrooms. You'll never guess what this room features, unless you make the fairly obvious guess and go with "televisions", in which case you'd be correct.

Dave, your punishment is this: you must watch all your friends ride on a merry-go-round and there's no room for you. Imagine how much fun they must be having, Dave! Oooh, it's awful, isn't it?

Suddenly, our metal has a chorus of synthetic violins backing it, and the music is swelling into an unflinchingly brutal crescendo of doom. We leave our hallway and see the title. "Saw VI", it informs us as if we didn't already know. Fading into the darkness like a soul making the descent into hell, the words make room for another informatory phrase, "Halloween 2009", reminding us of the sinister tradition instituted by Lion's Gate. "We'll make one of these movies every year that Halloween happens," they say to themselves, and dose back off.

Final verdict:
0.5 forbodingly lo-fi CGI hallways out of 10

-Hamilton Henson