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Quint talks SAW IV with Jigsaw himself, Mr. Tobin Bell!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here.
Now this is one of those odd situations. I set up an interview with Tobin Bell early in the day during the Con. I left from the Con floor to the Omni hotel where I was to have this interview. Turned out I had it up in Bell’s hotel room… right after he had just gotten his lunch.
So, the interview was done as he was eating his salad.
It was Kraken and myself in the room, with Kraken trying to get pictures during the conversation, not when Bell had a gob full of food. Keep in mind this was before the panel, so it was a bit tricky talking about anything SAW IV… which was the whole point of sitting down with Bell in the first place.
So, an odd circumstance, but not a bad interview. Enjoy!!!
Tobin Bell: Have we met before?
Quint: I was at ShoWest and they threw us together for like four minutes or so.
Tobin Bell: Are you guys horror fans? Do you like horror films?
[Kraken explains the site to Tobin]
Tobin Bell: Oh, well I have to check it out.
Quint: We love all movies. Of course genre plays into it, but we’ll cover fantasy and drama and… We’re doing a series this year celebrating 1982, which is a big year in geek movies, where you had movies like TRON and POLTERGIEST and E.T… FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH… you know, everything, so we’ll cover anything. We just love movies…
Kraken: Yeah, Quint’s definitely the big horror guy…
Quint: Well one of the others actually writes horror projects. He writes for John Carpenter now, so it’s a little hard to claim the mantle fully, but I am the one keeping it alive, that’s for sure.
Tobin Bell: Is this your first year at COMIC-CON or what?
Quint: This is my eighth year at COMIC-CON. I love the CON and it’s getting so hard now, because I’m the only one here covering for the site, so I’m having to run from the interviews to panels to screenings and all that stuff, so it’s a little overwhelming, but hopefully next year we’ll bring the troops.
Tobin Bell: Where are you offices?
Quint: Austin, Texas.
Tobin Bell: My assistant comes from Buda.
Kraken: Oh really? I live in South Austin, which is pretty much north Buda.
Quint: Small town.
Tobin Bell: She’s just a wiz, you know, she’s really great.
Quint: It’s weird, because I was trying to write some questions here, but it’s really hard to talk about anything SAW related, especially before the panel…
Tobin Bell: Yeah.
Quint: …it’s like we’re here to talk about SAW IV, but there’s not… In the last one you were killed off, so we have to talk without forcing you to give away the whole plot for the movie.
Tobin Bell: Well, I haven’t seen the movie, so until I do it’s really hard to tell what, because the SAW films… it’s sort of one way on the page and then with Darren Bousman as a director and the input of people as the thing evolves, unlike many other films like you name it… most of the films I’ve ever done I just show up there and I have the script, I read the lines… I do it the way it’s written. SAW is a real collaborative sort of effort as we move forward and things evolve… Up until the point in time where we roll… things are changing all the time.
Quint: Yeah.
Tobin Bell: So, I can confirm that I’m dead. I can comment that death is like the final chapter in most western civilization, but in fact in many cultures in the world it’s just another point in the journey and I kind of view it that way in the SAW situation, because SAW and the way it’s taken place is it’s like a puzzle.
And so you learn different things about the puzzle. It doesn’t happen in a linear way, so even though you might say “SAW I is here and SAW II is here and SAW III is here and there’s this big open space over here and SAW IV is over here…” So you saw in SAW III, you found out how I die, but does that mean that you understand the rest of the story of my life? You know, you don’t, so all I can tell you is I find it kind of fascinating that the writers and producers have created an opportunity where most people would be like, “well, wake me up, the guy’s dead…” But there are all of these open spaces in the story that haven’t been filled and you know, we filled some of them in SAW IV.
Quint: I remember at ShoWest… you hadn’t even read the script at that point and we were talking about how they pretty much set up the third one to say that the next puzzle is going to be finding out about Jigsaw’s life and how he’s making himself part of the puzzle. You were like “that sounds great to me. I don’t know if it’s true, but…”
Tobin Bell: Well, but you notice it… it’s like the first question that people ask, which is really is a comment on the way we view death as being the final chapter, but it’s just a moment in an entire journey and do we know… is death somehow more interesting than other aspects of the journey? I don’t think so.
And then you can ask yourself “when does death begin?” “Does it begin the moment you’re born?” “Does it begin when you get out of bed the day you die?” “Does it begin when you take your final breath?” I remember sitting at the Actor’s Studio in New York one day and Al Pacino was talking about that. I think he was talking about preparation for this process and preparation of an actor… some actors do before a scene and he said “well, when does preparation begin… does it begin as you’re standing outside the door here waiting to come in? Did it begin down in the lobby? Did it begin when you got out of bed this morning? When does your preparation begin?” So when does death begin? I don’t know.
Quint: I know that there’s some worry that they’re going to start making Jigsaw like a Freddy or a Jason that can just keep dying, but you know that doesn’t seem… Well, one it wouldn’t fit the movies like it would in those slashers, but it’s good to see that they’re not trying to make it go down that road.
Tobin Bell: Well, yeah I think it was kind of… I have to feel that there must have been someone who had that point of view, that there was more story to be told and so what? So what if we kill him? I thought it was kind of a ballsy thing to do, you know?
Quint: Well definitely, because Jigsaw’s so much the face of these movies now.
Tobin Bell: Yeah, but as far as I’m concerned good stories are made of character and relationship and plot’s important, but character and relationship are important, so you can say Jigsaw is the face of it, but as far as I’m concerned Shawnee Smith and his relationship with Amanda, then you start to feel like “now, there’s a guy who has a relationship…” you know, I’m always looking to develop the delicate aspects of… You know, the script is going to lead me inexorably toward wherever the script leads me. I’m always looking to dance in-between that and to flush out the humanity, because if you don’t do that, who cares?
Quint: Then he’s just a cartoon.
Tobin Bell: Yeah or just one dimensional on a certain level, so I’m always looking to find that and it isn’t always going to be there in the script, so it sometimes has to be done with a touch… with a look… you know, with a moment, but sometimes those moments, especially with film, they’re like “boom!” It’s like “Whoa,” like “Oh, I get that relationship now,” and then it’s gone, but at least the viewer… you’ve got to let the viewer in to “what do these people do with their time?” “How do they spend their time?” John Kramer was a kid once too, so where’s the person in all… it’s not all just plot.
Jigsaw may be the face of the SAW thing, but from my way of thinking it’s his relationship with the other characters and the fullness that can be brought to those relationships that really matter and not that he doesn’t matter, but… by himself… off by himself without… since his character’s introduced in SAW IV, some people are brought back from other SAWs, they’re a part of his world and the more we can flush those out and flush out interesting moments…
Have you seen all of the SAW’s?
Quint: Yes, I have.
Tobin Bell: Like in SAW III, they wanted to go back and they wanted to do the moments just before I laid down on the floor in SAW I. People like seeing that kind of stuff. It fills in some of the gaps and so I like doing it. I particularly am eager for us to keep the level up.
You know, I was in London recently and people came from Scotland and Ireland and Wales, just to talk about SAW. They talked for two days in this kind of situation. People would come in and they would go out, then somebody else would come in… they’d go out… and they were all very aware and very tuned in and so as far as I’m concerned, the eyes of the world are on this material for whatever reason and I feel an obligation and a responsibility, as I know that the producers of the films do, to try to keep the level… to try to grow it.
I’m reaching to make it better, not to keep it at the level even, because if you reach for more, you might keep it even, but you’ve got to reach hard and SAW fans, you know, they want a lot, so… I’m just grateful to have the opportunity to participate with such a… with a team that… like Darren Bousman and Mark Berg and people from Twisted Pictures, who really have the same objective to bring something to the fans…
Yeah, you want it to be successful. You want it to be financially rewarding and you know, it’s a part of business. It’s a business, but that’s not my job. My job is, as an artist, “does this make sense to me?” “Do I think it’s really interesting? The character and relationship thing, is it there?”
So we fight and struggle all the time when we’re making these things to keep that level going and saying “we can do more.” There’s a scene in SAW III where Shawnee… this scene was dreamed up the night before… where somebody said “this is how these things happen with SAW… don’t happen with most films…” We kept batting around why doesn’t Bahar Soomekh’s character, the doctor… she’s walking around here looking at stuff and there’s all of these mechanical things and Shawnees has told her “go find something to operate on his head. There’s all kinds of shit around here, get some stuff… find something…” Why don’t you just grab something and hit her with it or shoot her or hit her…
So this kind of logic… basic logic… that the viewer, most viewers might not think of that, but the ones who do think of it, those are the ones that you want to serve. You want to think, because somewhere subliminally the viewer knows that there’s something awry, there’s something missing… there’s something that doesn’t quite jibe with this situation, so they came up with this scene where Shawnee turns around to Bahar’s looking for stuff… Shawnee comes up “well, did you find it yet?” She says “no,” she turns her back on her and she reaches down and she goes something like… she gives her an axe. She hands her an axe and she says, “go ahead, you want to do me? Go ahead… do it…” she turns her back on her and the logic of it being that if she did that she would not operate on my head. I would die. That thing would blow up much sooner than it eventually did in III, so we addressed and it was done the night before and they grabbed this scene out of the schedule and Shawnee almost improvised what she was going to say. I thought the scene played really well in the film, where she invited her to kill her…
Quint: And took away her power to do so.
Tobin Bell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought that was really a good choice to address that situation rather than go “well, most people aren’t going to think of that…” So they just took a bang at it you know and it probably took them two and a half hours to shoot the scene, but they were committed to it and they did it and I like the scene. I thought it made a lot of sense. It also played into Shawnee’s character, it made her smarter. So I liked that too.
Quint: Now have you seen the poster? I just got an email that has the one that it’s your head…
Tobin Bell: Yeah, I’ve seen it. I’ve just signed some.
Quint: Oh yeah?
Tobin Bell: Yeah, my head in a scale?
Quint: Yeah.
Tobin Bell: Yeah, I’ve seen it. Took my breath away when I saw it. I was like “wow.”
Quint: Yeah, because it’s not as overtly disturbing as the previous SAW posters, but there’s just something about the scenario that I…
Tobin Bell: It’d be overtly disturbing to you if it were your head…
[Both laugh]
Tobin Bell: I looked at it and was speechless. I was like “oh my God… my career is… looked what it’s reached…I’m a rutabaga at a farmer’s market.” I liked it. I thought it was really pretty intense.
Quint: Did I read that you have a production company?
Tobin Bell: I’ve had a production company for awhile.
Quint: What’s…
Tobin Bell: I just produced a film called HIGHWAY 61. It’s called Lay in the Road Productions and HIGHWAY 61 is a rock and roll road comedy about a down and out L.A. band who has no career and they just… their manager tells them how Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in ‘52 or whatever year it was. So they said “that’s fucking great, we’ve got to do that… maybe it’ll work for us,” so they gave up their day job and they take a trip across the country to the exact location on Highway 61 at 49 in Clarksdale Mississippi, where Robert Johnson did that to offer their own soul and that’s basically the setup and we shot it in Utah.
Quint: Who made it?
Tobin Bell: Luke and Jeremy Jackson, two brothers… good writers… great script and I also have two TV shows that I’m trying to get off the ground in LA.
Quint: That’s cool.
Tobin Bell: Yeah.
Quint: Do you like the producing? Do you like doing that?
Tobin Bell: Well, yeah. You know, I’m not exactly sitting there counting numbers, you know there’s different kinds of producers…
Quint: Creative producing…
Tobin Bell: Yeah, I’m more like “Hey Bob, this is Joe…here’s the script and you didn’t know him, but I know him and I know you…” just bring people together and you hope that we can get enough money to make these things, you know? And that they’re good.
So yeah, I’m happy to be functioning on that level, because being an actor and I’ve been an actor for many years, you’re in a relatively powerless position and you wait for people to nod your way then hopefully you will make a paycheck that week.
When you function as a producer, you’re still doing the same thing, but you’re taking a little bit more control of your destiny. You’re not waiting for someone to choose you, you’re doing something about it, you know?
So I’m grateful for the many opportunities I’ve had and I’ve had so many… I’ve worked with some great directors and before the SAW thing I did THE SOPRANOS, I did 24, I did SEINFELD, I had done… I worked with Allan Parker, I did four movies with Gene Hackman, I’ve worked with Holly Hunter, I’ve worked with Sydney Pollock, Tom Cruise, I had a wonderful scene with Clint Eastwood in IN THE LINE OF FIRE...
So I’ve just been really… it took me twenty years before I began to work. The first film of any consequence that I did was MISSISSIPPI BURNING and it was not a big role, but it helped me get started to build and then to be able to participate in SAW … I’ve done a lot of projects, but now I’m a main guy in this very successful thing, which is another kind of success… which is a pleasure to do, so I don’t take it lightly… just took too long to get here. (laughs)
There you go.
Hope you guys liked it. More on the way!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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why cant they bring michael emerson back? they're bringing everyone else back from the dead.
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an unintentional first.
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...as the Unabomber!
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!!!!!!!!
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the other 2 suck.
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Damnit....fucking Tobin bell?!?
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...that was boring...
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No Veronica on Lost sucks.
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the first movie.
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Yet people complained about Hostel 2. Geez...
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Kristen, Catherine, Alexander Graham, the list goes on and on...
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...spouting pseudo-intellectual bullshit about the nature of death just to shoe-horn out another sequel is fucking deplorable!
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And didn't like what I saw. At all. All I remember is shitty acting, phoney Seven "atmosphere" and annoying as fuck avid farts. The big tie-all twist came and everybody was pleased. Except for me... I knew better. Crap, it was. Never saw the others saw, never will.
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Aug 12, 2007 1:11:31 PM CDT
Best thing about Saw: Tobin Bell finally gets attention
by derlanghaarige
He's been "Hey, I know that guy from somewhere" way too long.
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Shouldn't the proper reply have been "we complain about all movies"? Because that happens a lot. It does.
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No matter how much AICN wants to pretend otherwise.
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and so does other torture porn like Hostel and the like. Who the hell comes up with this shit? Whatever happened to the good horror films like Alien, Friday the 13th part 1, A Nightmare on Elm Street part 1, Halloween (the original), and etc? Hell, even the original Child's Play was better than the shit we get now days. Now those were some good horror films and it's a shame that all writers can think of now days is torture and gore. Whatever happened to good atmosphere and scares? I yawn at the crap hollywood produces now days.
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isn't the first one like a year and a half old?
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You complain that they dont make movies like they used to, but if they made one like they used to you would just complain that they are just ripping off all the classic movies and that they cant come up with anything original! The first SAW was great but 2 and 3 were ok. The difference between Hostel and SAW was great acting, a good story and great twist at the end. The series has gone down hill since then, but Shawnee Smith is hot!
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I would have liked to hear a few words on his work on that, since it's probably the best thing on TV right now.
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The "Saw" films would appear to be coming along to make sure there is at least one horror-ish film on display at cinemas every Halloween. as they are not really bad films, despite being no classics, i do not see the harm in them. rather the Saw films than the vile trash that is the "Hostel" films - please let there be no more of them.
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ZZZZZzzzzz
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SAW IT 4 TIMES ALREADY
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a sub sven knock off. with a great baddy and that ending. wow. but I have no interest in seeing the rest. Its like watching mid sommer murders. The first series was fresh but now its old and tired. SPeaking of bloody crime dramas the writer of Frost Died over the weekend. RD Wignfield. once something becomes routine its time to give up. Its called the wes craven effect.
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a sub seven knock off. with a great baddy and that ending. wow. but I have no interest in seeing the rest. Its like watching mid sommer murders. The first series was fresh but now its old and tired. SPeaking of bloody crime dramas the writer of Frost Died over the weekend. RD Wignfield. once something becomes routine its time to give up. Its called the wes craven effect.
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Are tanking at the BO recently and hopefully Saw 4 will do the same...
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Aug 12, 2007 3:40:20 PM CDT
"good stories are made of character and relationship"
by trader groucho 2
God willing, this guy will actually start listening to himself....
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How would that not count?
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watch 2 and 3, actually you dont even need 3...so watch part 2 and your answer is there.
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Here is an essay/review of Turistas I wrote. It's mostly about the torture porn genre.
The current crop of so called "torture porn" films are to be expected. A situation like that shown in the phenomenally popular "Hostel" and "Saw" franchises is a reaction to stresses of the world.
Tom Savini famously commented that all of his effects work was based on what he saw, and took meticulous photographs of, in the Vietnam War. The prevalence of the Slasher genre in the 80's is often seen as a reflection of the societal backlash from the sexually open hippy era to a point where sex was again something to be feared. The slasher, reinforcing these values was a creation of cold war paranoia. Freddy, Jason and Michael were just manifestations of the seemingly indestructible force of communism—a monolithic beast ready to destroy the All-American kids and take away the future of an entire generation.
In the slasher films the enemy was clear and the motivation was simple because America knew "They" were the bad guys and we were the good guys. Things were clear cut and there was a linear path between problem and solution.
That is no longer the case.
Today, we have been weaned on paranoia. Anyone could be a "sleeper-cell" hiding in our neighborhood. Anyone we pass on the street could be planning to make some homemade explosive and put it in his or her shoe. The enemy is no longer a nation. No longer some clear cut "Them" whom we can gather together to hate. We have been taught that the Muslim faith is not the enemy (while simultaneously told that it more or less is) and that we cannot possibly try to fight a war against the religion. So what are we left with?
"Saw" and "Hostel" and "Turistas" especially all deal with this problem. Where once the teenagers who had committed some sin would be punished while the sober virgin would survive now the victim is most often a completely innocent person. Also, the murder is not its own end any longer, the torture that comes first more than the inevitable final blow is the focus. Terrorism works this same way. It is not the number of people killed, it is the fear this instills in those still alive.
It is important to note the prevalence of the idea of games in these films. From an outside perspective, there is a sort of art and beauty to the simplicity of the 9/11 attacks. The most effective moments in the "Saw" films recreate this effect. Basic tools turned against their makers. A child's clay made into a facsimile of a bomb. Box-knives into weapons used to kill thousands. A videogame as instruction. All of these become puzzle-pieces to the twisted games of the madmen on screen in these "torture" films. And the monster is no longer some giant oaf. He is smarter than you, and in the case of Jigsaw and the Doctor in "Turistas" he is going to literally convert you to his way of thinking.
To ignore the messages of a film like "Turistas" or any of the other torture based horror films is to ignore what could well be the central problem of our modern world. Horror films are one of the most telling signs of what a society is grappling with at any given moment, even as, or perhaps because, they are rarely appreciated until generations later.
"Turistas" is the latest entry into the torture horror subgenre. However, unlike its predecessors, this film seems almost uninteresting in its' gory bits. There is a feeling of an adventure chase film from the 80's with organ removal added onto it. Like many similar films, "Turistas" starts off with some somewhat developed main characters traveling abroad and finding their way into what amounts to a Venus fly trap. Here, the twenty-somethings are Caucasian tourists in Brazil who are abducted by an evil doctor who wants to take their organs so that they can "give back" to the country they are taking so much from.
When this film was released there was some talk of it being racist or unfair to Brazilians. But to interpret the film in this manner would be to deeply undersell its point. Ultimately, this is a film about xenophobia. Brazil is used as a sort of shorthand for the protagonists eroticizing foreign culture while extolling their own ethnocentrism and assuming that the locals will just do whatever is requested because of the European nation's dominance in South America. One man sleeps with a woman presuming she must want him because he is a foreigner and is shocked to discover that she is a prostitute and wanted him for his money. The underlying irony is that in either situation, her agenda is identical. It is also worth noting that only one of the main characters even bothered to learn Portuguese, while the others continually yell in broken Spanish, unaware of their own idiocy.
"Turistas" deals with deep seeded issues of disenfranchisement and subjugation. The organs taken from the youths are little more than extensions of Shylock's demand for a pound of flesh. The Brazilian characters are almost never subtitled and most of the discomfort and terror that an audience is likely to feel results from our collective ignorance of foreign cultures. The assumption that people outside of our own circle of European white culture are somehow less civilized or boorish is played off of to great effect.
Our own ethnocentrism is challenged with the character of "Kiko" who is at first played for comic relief because of his fractured English. He seems almost slow or "special" if you will. As the story progresses however, he is shown to be the moral center of the feature, choosing to protect the protagonists from a fate too terrible for words.
This is certainly the best looking of the torture horror films (thanks to the steady directorial hand of John Stockwell) and for as much as it has been compared to "Hostel" and "Saw" it is more derivative of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" than anything else.
Even with these faults and the added baggage of abundant brutality towards women and some logical jumps in the narrative, "Turistas" stands on its own as an above average thriller thanks to its claustrophobic and tense final act where the surviving characters desperately try escape through a series of underwater tunnels. The tension is palpable and effect is gripping.
"Turistas" is not a revolutionary film but it is definitely underrated (IMDB currently has it listed at a 3.0 average). There are some excellent set pieces and plenty to think about if you look beneath the surface.
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I thought the underwater stuff in Turistas was the most ridiculous aspect of the film. Were they all in the Navy Seals program prior? They could hold their breath an incredibly long time, not panic in what should've been pitch-black water for the most part (yes, I know they had flashlights), and so forth. It was pretty silly.
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there is no "philosophy" begind the saw films. They're made quickly and cheaply and generate a ton of money. Not because they are good but because teenagers like seeing horror films in the fall. Jigsaw is a mediocre villain with half baked reasoning behind his actions. I have no axe to grind with the series, but lets not make the movies out to be more than they are. btw, the little girl starves to death.
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but interesting nonethless.
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is in killpoint, which is on tonight.
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meh...
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I don't think I was flaming from the getgo, just hard not to think of someone who thinks the saw movies are interesting and philisophical as anything other than an ass. But you're right, and I apologize. Also, sOnics essay was interesting because it discussed the genre more than it defended a mediocre series. Interesting asses is more of an oxymoron anyhow.
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The best you can hope for from a horror flick now is that they're at least entertaining, even if they're not fantastically great. I thought the first Saw was great and the other two entertaining, which is more than can be said for, let's see, 90% of horror flicks from the last 10 years.
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But Tobin Bell's good, at least the best thing about those horrible movies.
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its only a matter of time. and did i actually see someone say they miss Freddy and Jason? what a homo.
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Goddamn shit-boring crap he drones on about. Fuck, trying to make Saw intellectual when it's supposed to be merely fun. I would've walked out. "Have you seen the Saw movies?" "What's AICN?" "Is this your first time at Comic-Con or what?" FAGGOT! If he doesn't know these things, he doesn't know what people want to hear.
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Saw: Halfway interesting premise, some of the worst acting ever (Cary Elwes), but watchable.
Saw II: Utter shit. Borderline unwatchable, but I somehow made it through the entire film.
Saw III: I lasted for about 15 minutes before turning it off. Completely unwatchable. -
Every interview I read, he seems to be quietly screaming, "I'm a REAL actor! Honest! I've done good work, I swear!"
As for the "Saw" films, the first one was boring, the second one was mind-numbingly cliched, but the third... well, I won't say it was good, but I confess I was impressed by the amount of the thought that was put into it. It would've been very easy to say, "These kids just want the gore--bring on the buckets," but they actually made an attempt to tie the trilogy together and create an interesting character conflict. Wasn't deep or mind-blowing, but it was heartening to see that someone out there in horror-land actually gives a shit about story. -
This old dude sounded like a pretentious prick if you ask me.
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Saw in Space, Saw Vs Demonic Toys...
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I miss Phantasm...
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Sorry about being off topic, but shouldn't the new Harry animation have some kind of punchline or at least feature Harry?
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= Standard line for actors who never made it
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...To do in a movie franchise? Please?
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When you say intellectual you mean for a 5th grader right? I swear I had a 12 year old who I talked about the saw series with at the video store I work out and he sounded just like you. It is bad writing trying to be intellectual, the only good one in the series was 1 and even it fucked itself over in the last minute by showing us who the villain was. The film would have been much superior if it ended after we find out zeph isn't the killer, roll credits after the recording in his pocket plays. Not to mention the doctor said how dead the guy looked, but oh wait doc you were fooled by a sickly cancer patient who hates the world. That was such a huge whole in the script, it is embarassing that it took them till saw 3 to finally say he used a muscle relaxent. There is actually a comic that explains jigsaw's motives more, which is alright but still a pretty lame villain with a lame backstory, they should have left the killer a mystery and waited till number 2 to ruin the fucking story.
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apologies on both, I am typing with one hand and corrections are a pain.
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They're great fun around halloween, everyone looks foward to them for a good two hour nonsense/violence/plot-twist fest, and i think it's pretty cool that they're trying (stress trying) to keep them fresh and scary. But I have to agree, I think that this guy takes them a little too seriously.
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Sersiously guys, these things are almost friggin' impossible to read. "It's like... I know the audience wants things to be... I said before in [BLANK MOVIE] that I had to... well obviously...". The damn things are full of holes and ... and they are frustrating as hell to slog through because it feels like no one ever finishes a point! The Robert Downey Jnr interview recently was exactly the same. Edit stuff out, or even use the old sqaure parentheses when people aren't being clear [about what they mean], if the interviewer understands what the point is. You might get it because you were sat in the room with them but to most readers half the transcript stuff is gibberish. Please, for the luvva Pete, start doing some decent samn copy-editing on these interviews, Quint.
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could edit my typos above. Thanks. ;-)
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Cabrones!
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...and underused character actor, and personally I'm glad that he's finally getting some time in the sun with the Saw films, the guy has earnt it. And hating on a guy for taking his job seriously, just because you don't personally value the films that he's making, honestly that seems pretty fucking low guys, especially when many of you will praise a different actor for acting the exact same way and taking his work seriously when you approve of that actors filmography. My thoughts anyway.
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I like the Saw films. The first was a jaw-dropper. The sequels have problems, but overall the series was entertaining for me. My problem is, the story plays out like we're supposed to sympathize with Jigsaw, like a part of us is supposed to understand that he's doing these people (the victims)a favor. He says he's not a murderer, but fact is almost no one has a good chance of escaping alive, let alone not gruesomely harmed. Only Amanda's 'game' gave her a way out that didn't involve harming herself.
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Nothing like a weeking girl having her guts torn out. S-L-O-W-L-Y. Through her vagina. Fuck, that shit makes me cum in my pants.
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I like when people go "What happened to good old horror films like Friday the 13th Pt.1 and Nightmare on Elm Street Pt.1" What's funny is these movies are cut from the same cloth. Now, I love "Friday" and "Nightmare," but don't act like horror\slasher films have fallen from this golden pedestal of amazing, smart, filmaking.
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Shit acting admittedly but nevertheless a compelling story and cracking ending. Thought parts 2 and 3 were utterly unwatchable shite. Tobin Bell sounds like he takes himself a bit too seriously.
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despite myself. HATED the other 2 with a vengenace
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My 80s childhood is being ass-raped!!!
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The only real reason anyway is 'Audition' by Takashi Miike, which is a genuine classic and far beyond any Hollywood knockoff in recent memory. Just as all horror movies were like 'Psycho' for a while or 'Halloween' for awhile you have filmakers imitating a movie they are into.
Miike even has a cameo in 'Hostel'
"You could spend....ALL your money."
I've never heard anyone else who noticed that. -
Yeah, I hope you were kidding. If not, you ruined it. How'd you like someone to shit on a movie you cared about? I hope you wake up to find yourself wearing a spring-loaded venus flytrap spike mask of death.
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I don't care enought to subject myself to another viewing, but at the end of three jigsaw dies, and nobody finds out where she is hidden. Doesn't everyone die? I thought it was clear she would just starve because nobody listened to jigsaw. I don't know anything about the plot of saw 4 so I don't know if she somehow get rescued or not. who cares? Is the story really so great that it would ruin it for you to know something like that?
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but don't expect spielberg to be doing it.
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never hearing of AICN? How refreshing.....
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Just for the record, I never once said that the Friday the 13th or the Nightmare on Elm Street movies were incredible examples of "smart" film making. What I did say was that they were much better "horror films" than the likes of torture porn movies like Saw and Hostel. I mean seriously, what's the point of Saw and Hostel other than to make people cringe at the grotesque imagery on the screen? That's not horror, it's just there to gross people out and thus it has earned the name "torture porn". The last time I checked, horror films were meant to scare the shit out of me. Well I haven't had a movie truly scare the shit out of me since the class horror films of the 80s. Hell, even Scream is a much better horror film than Saw is and I personally thought Scream was weak in comparison to the classics.
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There, I said it. :P
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Now I'm pretty sure you're fucking around Wnanahara7. You got me.
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I wasn't talking smack. Of course a lot of AICN'ers are onto him, I was just pointing out that no one seems to take how much that movie influenced the current wave of American horror flicks into account. There was this whole essay by a film critic on MSN about it and I couldn't believe how off topic he was. BTW does he appear in any of his films? Can't remember...
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I have as much trouble believing that the Shrek series was conceived as a 5 movie series as I do that Saw isn't just playing it by ear at this point.
However, I enjoyed the three movies for what they were, and I think the storytelling works in all three movies. The twist in 2 was particularly gruesome and shocking -even if you did get a premonition of how it would go down before it did. -
No shit it's spelled out. This series aint the Pilgrims Progress, this series consists of poor to mediocre movies designed to make money. Nothing wrong with that. Jigsaws POV being interesting and philisophical is what I took umbrage with. Mignolafan pointed out that 12yr olds (primary audience) are *usually* the only group that would find Jigsaws motives high minded. Btw, I've been diagnosed with cancer twice and and Jigsaws POV could only be plausible to someone who has little to no experience with life with cancer. Like perhaps an average twelve year old.
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i gotta agree with prunkhat. i love the all the saws, but they're just dumb fun i don't think there are any life messages in there. also im with both you and soylentmean on trickrtreat. love going back to tales from the darkside/creepshow format. it's all in the same town at the same time though right? the preview isnt that clear.
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they signed the writers up for parts 4-6 at once. I got the impression that they pitched a 3 film arc.
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And Bladerunner then realised Leon was played by Brion James! Oh well at least he's able to delude himself that the scripts he reads and doesn't even seem to understand or bother to make sure make any sense are worth doing because they somehow probe the bigger questions of life after death etc instead of actually being just another excuse to wring a few more dollars from a franchise that tickles gore hungry kids just like the Freddy and Jason sequels which also had reasonable originals but spawned ever increasingly rediculous franchises!
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Seriously, I liked his performance in what other wise is a fairly standard Lifetime movie. Also, Keri Russell is hot.
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Who gives a fuck? This series started recycling itself at SAW 2. How much interest could there be in SAW 4? The third remake of SAW 1? And as for Tobin Bell...he's an actor. What he thinks is irrelevant. He does what the script tells him. He's only being covered because the SAW films made money. If the first SAW had tanked, would his opinion be sought? Jesus!
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... had some really brutal deaths. I def. cringed like seeing the results of 2004.
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