Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

This film is generally seen as the point at which the franchise hit rock bottom. I actually disagree with this assessment. In fact, I consider these two final films to be a major uptick in enjoyability. Ironically, the salvation of this film was the embracing of old-school horror cliches. The cast is now made up of a group of teenagers who are doomed not because of a curse, but because they are idiots. This gives the film a sense of direction and energy that's lacking in the other Paranormal Activities, where you just wait for Toby to finish the protagonists off.

This is one of those movies that has a real sense of multiple scripts being melded together. However, unlike most such cases, I'm unsure which was the “original” idea. On the one hand, there seems to be an implication that the protagonists were targeted by demons because they investigated the activities of the Cult. However, later in the film we're given some information that suggests one of the main characters was always a target of the Cult. My best guess for a reconciliation is that he'd fallen off their radar, and had the bad luck of putting himself back on it.

That's not a huge weakness, though. There's enough stupid teenaged antics in this film to keep me moderately amused for the run time, so I can put up with a bit of plot incoherence. Furthermore, I don't think the acting is especially bad.

I'd say the opportunity to mostly cast-off the other films for this entry was a huge benefit. For anyone unaware, The Ghost Dimension is considered the official fifth entry, with Marked Ones regarded as a spin-off. The entire reason this movie exists, unofficially, is demographics. The numbers said the franchise was popular among Hispanics, so a film with a mostly Hispanic cast was commissioned.

The movie starts with two recent High School graduates named Jesse and Hector (Andrew Jacobs and Jorge Diaz), who begin filming everything in their lives out of apparent boredom. When a neighbor (Gloria Sandoval) starts making strange noises, they attempt to peer through her vents, and see her and an attractive younger woman, taking part in a nude occult ritual. When the neighbor is murdered, the two friends investigate her apartment, because why not. They find an altar, VHS tapes, and a book of spells. Also, a boy named Oscar (Carlos Pratts) runs out of the apartment, apparently returning to the scene of a murder we later find out he committed.

So, the two would-be investigators perform an occult ritual with their friend Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh). What this has to do with finding the murderer I have no idea. Afterward, Jesse begins to develop psychic powers, and this is where the movie really starts to pick up. We pretty much know that Jesse is possessed, and that things will eventually go downhill, but for a while our protagonists have their fun. In fact, some scenes actually seem like the kind of thing you'd expect would-be magicians posing as psychics to post on YouTube (a point acknowledged when they read their comments). They get a game of Simon to answer Yes or No questions, and Jesse can momentarily levitate.

However, as is usually the case with supernatural powers in horror movies, Jesse begins to grow more violent and cruel with his powers. At first he just uses them to fight off a pair of muggers. By the end, he's torturing a dog with levitation just because he can.

We eventually find out that Oscar was possessed like Jesse, and was living under the apartment complex, where there's another altar covered in pictures of various people. We see Jesse's mother in a picture with a much younger version of their murdered neighbor, indicating that she was a member of the Cult. Also, Ali (Molly Ephraim) from the second film reappears, to explain to Hector and Marisol that the Cult marks unborn children for later possession. She tells them that if the Cult can perform a final ritual, Jesse's original personality will be completely erased. That officially makes this film the only case in the history of this franchise where the protagonists actually knew what the villains were up to before the final moments. In fact, this movie probably gives us more knowledge of the Cult than any of the “Official” five.

As is to be expected, Jesse's Catholic mother (Renee Victor) attempts to exorcize her son. The wise, devout Hispanic woman was a cliché already done in the second film, but here it bothers me a bit less because the entire cast is Hispanic, so there are less unfortunate implications. Of course the ritual fails, Jesse blows up the living room and then attempts to kill his mother the next day, before fleeing to join the cult.

The ending is unquestionably stupid, but amusingly so to me. The site of the ritual turns out to be Lois' house from the previous films. Not only is Jesse permanently possessed, but he chases Hector through a time portal to 2006, where he encounters Katie and Micah (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) on the night of her possession. As it turns out, the noises in the kitchen at the end of the original film were Hector! That certainly needed an explanation!

Yes, the movie is dumb. However, I still find myself recommending it. There was no need for the final link to the first film, especially when Ali was already there to provide continuity, and the time travel angle is the final deathblow to subtlety in this series. Of course, it will continue into the next movie. However, it's fun, and the actors sell the material in a cheesy way. Plus, the connections are tenuous enough to make the movie stand on it's own. Honestly, I'd like to see some more spin-off films in this style.

Paranormal Activity 4

And with this film the Paranormal Activity series officially crashes into a brick wall. While not all the performances are bad, the plot has become an illogical mess that exists only to excuse the same story being told for the fourth time. It would be one thing if the series presented itself as an anthology, with Toby attacking different families, but they maintain just enough continuity to hint at a story they’re not telling us.

It’s the fourth film, and we’re given protagonists who know less than the characters from the first film, and far less than us. Keep in mind: the first movie started with Katie and Micah already aware that they were under attack by a demon. All subsequent films feature protagonists who begin with no idea that anything is wrong. At this point I’m ready for a film about Paranormal Investigators who’ve viewed all the previous tapes, and are actively searching for information on the fate of Hunter Rey.

Instead, we get the Nelson family: Skeptical father and mother, Doug and Holly (Stephen Dunham and Alexondra Lee), cute little son Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp), and teenaged daughter Alex (Kathryn Newton). In short, the exact same cast from the second film, played by different actors, and with different names.

However, a mysterious boy named Robbie (Brady Allen) and his unseen mother move in across the street. We’re told Robbie’s mother has fallen ill and been taken to the hospital, so the Nelson’s agree to let Robbie stay with them…because taking in your neighbor’s kids at such times is perfectly normal. Robbie begins telling people about his imaginary friend Toby, painting weird symbols on Wyatt’s back, and generally acting creepy.

Now, given what I’ve just told you, imagine the most obvious twist that the filmmakers could possibly write. Did you come up with “Robbie is a Red Herring we’re supposed to think is Hunter, Wyatt was secretly adopted, and Robbie was sent by the coven to prepare Wyatt/Hunter?” Congratulations! You win absolutely nothing, because there wouldn’t be enough prizes to go around! Also, no extra points if you figured Robbie's “mother” was Katie (Katie Featherston).

As with 2, the teenage daughter begins to investigate, and what little of value can be found in this film is found there. I actually find Alex to be a bit more charming that Ali, and her boyfriend Ben (Matt Shively) takes an active role in the investigation. It’s a shame they never find out who Hunter Rey is, who the coven are, or any of the other information we already know. The only thing they do uncover is that a demonically possessed person will have to sacrifice a virgin, by tying virgin sacrifice to the symbol on Wyatt’s back. They may have intended us to think Robbie would sacrifice Wyatt, but by this point I already took Wyatt’s status as Hunter for granted, so it was painfully obvious it would be Alex getting axed. Mind you, we don't see the moment of sacrifice, so I can only assume the witches disabled her, and then had Hunter do the deed offscreen.

Most of the conventions of this series seem to be taken for granted now. Barely a word is given to justify the constant filming, and Toby moving things is barely noticed by the characters. Please consider: they review their videos enough to notice Robbie crawling into Alex’s bed while she’s asleep, but not enough to notice flying knives or self-starting cars.

The movie gets points for one of the more creative examples of product placement I’ve seen. The Kinect can apparently produce at least a vague image of Tobey using infrared light. It’s the first time in the series he’s been seen, so hooray!

That’s about all I have to say in this movie’s defense. The parents relation with their children is stilted and unnatural. While it’s true they’re supposed to be having marital problems, I never once believed these were people who actually knew each other. The movie has the same slow pacing as previous Paranormal Activity films, as we watch the characters fail to find out information the audience already knows.

In case you’re wondering the obvious, no, we never do find out why the coven put Hunter up for adoption. They clearly had plenty of people to take care of him, and it’s not like they’d have a lot of trouble finding a virgin for him to sacrifice. It’s just a plot contrivance to put us back with a suburban family in a story that should have moved beyond suburbia.

This film makes it clear just how much this franchise stagnated. The second film ended one night after the original, the third was a prequel. This was the film that should finally have started to move the story forward again, and tell us what happened to Hunter Rey. We technically get the answer, but it’s not a satisfying answer. Even as someone who isn’t a huge fan of the series, I think it deserves better than this.

Paranormal Activity 3

My criticisms of the Paranormal Activity series seem more closely tied together than any series I've previously reviewed. The fundamental problem from the first film, “who the hell chooses this format in the real world?” remains valid. However, I feel that Paranormal Activity 3 has the opposite problem from the second installment. While 2 made no sense from an in-Universe perspective, this film can pass the in-Universe test, while making no sense from a meta perspective.

This movie is a prequel, showing us footage from Katie and Kristi's (Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown) childhood, taken by their stepfather, Dennis (Chris Smith). I can understand how footage from decades ago might have taken longer for the documentarians to uncover, explaining why this is presented to us as a separate work (hell, with the cult at work I imagine his exploits getting the film could be a film in and of itself, since they're implied to have stolen these tapes in a brief scene of the future at the beginning). In-Universe this is the result of a continuing investigation.

However, for the audience in the real world, I'm not sure what this movie is supposed to bring to the table. We see that Katie and Kristi were haunted as children, which we were told in the previous films. The big reveal is that their Grandmother (Hallie Lois) made a deal with a demon...which is also exactly what the last film presented us with. In-universe this makes sense. The characters were speculating when we were first told this, and if I was watching a documentary on a real haunting I would want more proof than some girl Googling it on the Internet. This film gives us that visual confirmation that she was correct.

However we, the audience, have a much lower burden of proof. We have no reason to assume a fictional character was wrong, and would typically assume that the filmmaker would not present us with incorrect information unless it was to later be corrected. So, if we're going to have a prequel, I expect to find out that there were major details we were not privy to. Instead, we get a recounting of what we already know, given to us very slowly. Katie and Kristi live with their mother, Julie (Lauren Bittner), and the aforementioned stepfather. The parents are interrupted from making a sex-tap by an Earthquake, and reviewing the footage Dennis finds that the dust in the room is acting unusually, and decides to begin filming everything in the house.

I will give the movie props for at least acknowledging how expensive that many VHS tapes would have been in 1988. Grandma Lois complains about it to Julie about Dennis using her money to buy them. Obviously she has ulterior motives, but her attempts to get rid of Dennis by painting him as irresponsible don't come across as unreasonable.

On the other hand, Dennis is easily the most likable person in this series to date. For the most part, he doesn't do a single thing that he doesn't think will help his family (and never curses anyone, either). While he tries to humor Kristi as she talks to her “imaginary friend Toby,” Dennis shows increasing concern as the paranormal occurrences begin to mount. Kristi seem legitimately afraid of being in “trouble” with Toby, a symbol Dennis is able to tie to demonology appears in the girls' closet, and a babysitter (Johanna Braddy) quits in fear.

Dennis does share some similarities to Micah, and at times seem excited by the haunting. However, he never provokes the demon, or treats his stepdaughters as anything short of his top priority. When Toby is walking through his kitchen in a sheet, he's thrilled. When his friend Randy (Dustin Ingram) encounters a much less friendly Toby, scratching and throwing furniture, Dennis becomes Cassandra, trying to convince Julie that the girls aren't safe.

If this film does add something on the technical front, it's the use of a moving camera Dennis hooks up downstairs. It has the advantage of giving us a larger space to cover whenever we see its perspective, while also cutting away from the action and then returning to it again and again. During these scenes it's much harder to predict where the scare will come from, or even if it will be onscreen.

The ending of the movie is probably the only other clever thing in it. As it turns out, all the mysterious happenings actually served a function, unlike the previous films where Toby just messed around until he decided to possess someone. Toby wanted to drive them out of their house, so they would go to live with Grandma Lois. Once there, we get a series of scares, that ends with Toby killing both Julie and Dennis, leaving Lois free to raise the girls as she wants. Granted they would have gone to her if Toby killed the parents at home anyway, but it's something to add to the mythos.

...oh, and Kristi married Toby as a child. Not sure how the curse is any worse because it involved a marriage ceremony. I seriously doubt Toby consummated it, but maybe I'm just naïve. I'm actually somewhat curious if the marriage was transferred to Katie with the curse. And does this mean the second film was really about domestic abuse?

The movie would actually be far more entertaining if you haven't seen the first two films. For the most part it's competent, and the scares don't come quite as slowly as the previous installments. It's something of a transition point between the boring subtlety of the first film, and the sensationalism that Ghost Dimension will eventually become.

Paranormal Activity 2

Paranormal Activity 2, while far from the worst Found Footage movie I've seen, is practically an essay on everything that is wrong with the genre. Who is presenting us with this footage, and why did the person think that this was the format that made the most sense? The film starts well before the original movie, and ends a few hours later. The events are intimately tied together. So, why are we being shown these events as a separate film, when the in-universe filmmaker should have had access to this footage while making the original?

It's clear that there was editing done here. We're given text telling us what night it is, and at one point when Micah (Micah Sloat) appears we're even told by the text how many days until he dies. So, who is this bizarre documentarian who thinks this is a good format for informing the audience about these events?

For this film, the story revolves around the family of Katie's (Katie Featherston) sister Kristi (Sprague Gayden). This movie drops the pretense of naming characters after their actors. It works for a standalone film, but when expanding the world to include relatives and more characters it obviously becomes impractical.

Kristi is married to an older man named Daniel (Brian Boland). The two have just had their first child, Hunter (William Juan Prieto and Jackson Xenia Prieto). They share their house with an Hispanic nanny named Martine (Vivis Cortez) and Daniel's daughter from a previous relationship, Ali (Molly Ephraim). The dynamic here is actually pretty good. Rather than the drama and constant arguments of the previous film, we get a real sense that all of the people in this movie like each other. They disagree at times, but it's clear that they do so because they care.

This time the footage is from several sources. At the beginning of the film Daniel is documenting his new family. Shortly after Hunter's birth someone breaks in and vandalizes the house, causing Daniel to install security cameras to give us another perspective. Later in the film, as events become stranger and stranger, Ali takes it upon herself to document the events, and we get a perspective more focused on the supernatural.

The film actually starts out even more ambiguous than the first installment, and for a while it does work. We get a period of focusing on why the pool cleaner is coming out of the pool every night, and it's genuinely unclear if this is something the machine is capable of doing on it's own when the settings are wrong, or if this is a supernatural occurrence. I'm actually still not sure, having seen the movie twice in the past week.

By the end of the film, however, subtlety is thrown out the window. We've seen a baby levitated out of his crib, walk around the house, and go right back to where he started. We also get a detailed explanation of exactly how this curse got started: Katie and Kristi's grandmother made a deal with a demon for wealth, promising the first-born male child in her lineage. Given the amount of lore about demons, the idea that Ali was able to stumble onto the correct conclusion on her first time surfing the internet for answers is jaw-dropping...oh, and it also completely spoils the third film, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

The climax of the film actually seems to exist to spell out in pain-staking detail exactly what happened in the previous film and why. Apparently the demonic possession was intended for Kristi, so that she could abduct her son for the demon's purposes. However, Daniel found out from his house-keeper that the possession could be transferred to a blood relative, and so he cursed Katie, leading to the events of the original movie. However, after killing Micah, Katie came to Kristi and Daniel's home the next night, murders them both with her super-strength, and abducts Hunter herself. Ali, being away from the house at the time, survives to return several movies later.

This brings me full-circle back to my complaint: the previous film ended by telling us that Katie's whereabouts are unknown. If a documentary was made about these events, wouldn't “she killed her sister and brother-and-law and abducted their son before disappearing” have been a very relevant detail to include in the original?

As I said, this movie is far from the worst of this genre, or even this series. This is a point where effort still seems to have been made to provide us with something of quality. However, it also provides us with a textbook case of why this genre so rarely works well. Honestly, if you want to see Found Footage done correctly, see The Last Broadcast, a film that understands that the editor is a character within the story, and uses that to it's advantage.

Wednesday Review - Incarnate

Incarnate is a movie with potential that it fails to live up to. The ideas are clearly there, but really don’t seem to fit together. We have an agnostic exorcist more concerned with the practical aspects of casting out demons than the theory. But, we also get hints of a crisis of faith. Those hints are then never properly explored, and the whole issue of his world view seems largely irrelevant by the final act.

That’s not to say this is a “bad” movie. I’ve certainly given favorable reviews to movies with far less talent behind them. However, here it seems quite obvious that there was so much more to be achieved with this concept. The idea of an exorcism being treated like a true medical procedure has the potential for some truly groundbreaking drama.

The problem with this aspect of the film is that the manner in which the exorcism happens is laughable. The procedure involves our exorcist (referred to as an “Incarnate” once in the entire movie as best I can tell to justify the title) going into the minds of the possessed Inception-style, and attempting to break whatever illusion the demon created to keep it’s host passive. However, if the Incarnate remains in a trance for more than eight minutes his heart will stop.

We’re also given two ways by which the demon can transmit itself to a new host. During the trance it can jump into the Incarnate. It can also jump into anyone who touches it’s current host. In fact, the primary host of the film is a little boy who was attacked by the previous host, apparently in a bid to get someone more innocent and helpless.

This sounds like a great set-up. You have rules that can easily be manipulated to drive a strong narrative. You also have obvious safeguards like restraints on the victim and Incarnate, and bio hazard suits, that we can watch the demon trying to bypass by clever means. We’re even told the boy won’t survive more than three days, so we have a ticking clock.

But, we don’t get that. The possessed and Incarnate just sit in a room unrestrained, with nothing more than a warning of “don’t touch me.” Of course, when the Incarnate needs to be brought out of the trance, it’s done by an assistant, wearing a sleeveless shirt, with a syringe.

As for what actually does drive the plot...the demon that killed the Incarnate’s family. Rather than creating high drama, this just emphasizes that our main character is a dick who wouldn’t help save a little boy from demonic possession unless he, personally, was able to get revenge by doing so. And no, that is not speculation, he directly refuses to help until he is absolutely sure it’s the same demon.

So, like I said, there’s stuff here that’s entertaining, and some good ideas. Unfortunately, the movie could have been so much more, but fails utterly at that. Instead, we get a fairly simple Inception-style exorcism movie. Not something I’ve seen before, but not more than average without greater meat to the drama.

Paranormal Activity

I don't like this series. For the most part, it's boring. Just boring. The story moves forward at a snail's pace, and the plot becomes dumber with each successive film.

That said, I don't really hate the first film that much. It was made for $15,000, and looks like it cost at least six digits, Given the vague name of the film, I can't help but wonder if they considered using the franchise as an anthology series, showcasing talented horror directors working with low budgets. I imagine we would have gotten something much better if they'd gone that path.

This first movie follows Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat (all characters share their actors' names in this entry), a young couple that just moved into a large house. Katie explained to Micah shortly before the film began, and right after they moved in together, that she's been haunted by a mysterious entity since her childhood. Micah immediately becomes determined to film the entity. He claims that he wants to find a way to get rid of it, but it becomes quite obvious quite quickly that he simply wants to satisfy his own morbid curiosity.

Over the course of the film the two come into repeated conflicts over how to deal with the entity. Neither side is completely sympathetic or unsympathetic in their views. Katie seems to have simply given up, and accepted that she'd rather live with the occasional supernatural activity than try to fight the being and risk enraging it. Micah, on the other hand, often seems intent on hitting a hornets' nest with a stick. He lays out powder to see if the entity leaves footprints, films everything in the house, and even brings in a ouija board.

Katie does bring in psychic Dr. Mark Freidrichs, who recommends contacting a Demonologist. Micah objects to the Demonologist, so by the time they attempt to call him he's out of town. Micah's objection here has always baffled me. He could easily have filmed a battle between good and evil, and instead chose not to. I really have no explanation except that the film needed to be dragged out longer.

The entity, for it's part, seems as much amused by Micah's efforts as angry. It burns a message into the ouija board, and even leaves footprints, which Katie assures Micah it left only because it wanted to. I'd say that at this point in the franchise, when we still knew so little, the being was a lot scarier.

There are several endings, all of which involve Katie leaving the bedroom one night, screaming Micah's name off-screen, and then apparently killing him when he comes. I'd say the original ending, created before the movie was purchased by Paramount, was likely the best (the police arrive, and the entity spooks them into shooting Katie).

That said, the ending we're left with is still quite intense, no matter how many awful sequels it leads to. Katie throws Micah's body at the camera, then crawls over next to it, showing a demonic look on her face, and attacks the camera. We're then told by a title card that Micah's body was found, but Katie's whereabouts are unknown.

This movie is far from a masterpiece. The characters constantly bicker, and neither of them are especially smart. However, their reactions aren't unbelievable, and the actors do a decent job of portraying two people who really shouldn't be together.

There are much worse products out there (including products in this series). This movie is at least worth a try. The same cannot be said for many later entries in this franchise, which as of this writing seem to have finally run the entire series into the ground.

Saw: The Final Chapter

 

Saw: The Final Chapter is easily the best Saw film from outside the original trilogy. I would even argue it to be better than Saw III in terms of raw entertainment value. This isn't exactly intentional. Rather, with the Box Office haul of Saw VI dropping off they decided to compress what otherwise would have been a two-part finale into a single movie, leaving us with a product that, at minimum, doesn't' waste a single second of our time.

It took me a while to accept the opening sequence, in which two men (Sebastian Pigott and Jon Cor )decide to let their ex-girlfriend (Anne Green) die. However, having watched the sequence a number of times, there's no denying that “Dina” is a psychological abuser who would happily watch both of them die for her own convenience. It's not the first time we've seen abusers in this series.

The film revolves around three major players: Hoffman (Costas Mandylor, as always), seeking revenge on Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery), a man who became rich pretending to be a Jigsaw survivor, who finds himself in a real trap, and the return of Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes). Intermixed with these we get at least two other traps that don't really tie into anything, except to say “look what we were planning for a later movie!” At one point Jill Tuck even dreams about Hoffman killing her, so that the filmmakers can squeeze in yet another death sequence.

The ending of Bobby's storyline is controversial among fans, to say the least. His series of traps, much like Saw VI, revolves around trying to save people who knew the truth and choose to remain silent, and Bobby proves to be astoundingly incompetent, failing every test (you can't help but wonder if Jigsaw intentionally gave him all the hard ones, because he couldn't stand the thought of a faker actually pulling it off). The final trap, however, required him to re-enact his own fictional trap (lifting himself up by hooks inserted into his pectoral muscles), to save his trophy wife (Gina Holden), who never knew he'd lied.

First of all, it's debated whether Jigsaw intended for this trap to fail, because Bobby described an impossible trap, or if the trap's failure wasn't Jigsaw's intention. I don't personally feel that Jigsaw would give someone a trap that was unwinnable, so I favor the theory that the trap was intended to work. But his pectorals rip, and Bobby's completely innocent wife is burned alive.

Either way, I think ending at this point was a bad idea. If there was an out, I'd like to know what it was. If there wasn't, I'd like someone to give us some form of exposition of Jigsaw's failure. If Jigsaw was just being a vindictive prick prepared to kill an innocent for the pettiest reasons imaginable, then I'd like to see him say that in flashback. Either way, if there's ever an eight Saw film, I want Bobby back for more.

This is probably Mandylor's best performance as Hoffman. That's probably the result of finally giving him a clearly defined motivation: revenge on the woman who tried to kill him. Hoffman seems to have finally given up on the games themselves, and is instead focused on Jill.

Some say that Russell's character became weaker in this film, but I disagree. In the last movie she exuded confidence because she caught Hoffman off-guard. She knows it isn't going to happen again. She seeks out the protection of Matt Gibson (Chad Donella), an Internal Affairs detective who, while trying his best to protect Jill, seems to view the entire Jigsaw affairs as a bizarrely homicidal dysfunctional family...and he's not actually wrong...

Gibson is a nice new addition to the cast, almost like a more emotionally stable version of Strahm. He held a grudge against Hoffman long before the latter became an Apprentice, reporting him for brutality, and arresting men under him for the same after joining IA. He's probably the single most noble law enforcement officer in this entire series...and he's killed off when he and a number of other men are lured into a trap, and machine guns and poison gas come out of the walls to kill them all...

Gordon makes a cameo at a survivor's meeting at the beginning of the film, but his reappearance comes at the end. I don't think there was a single fan who didn't know why he was in this movie. Gordon as the final Apprentice had been a popular fan-theory for years, based on the fact that many of the traps' preparations required extensive medical knowledge that none of the existing Jigsaw killers possessed.

The final twist of the story: Hoffman is using traps and other misdirection throughout the film to draw the police away from headquarters, while switching himself with the corpse of a neo-Nazi killed in a trap in order to get close to Jill Tuck, with as few police officers to kill as possible. With his capture of Jill Tuck, the Reverse Bear Trap finally gets to claim a victim after seven films of waiting. I like the scenes between the two, particularly because Jill refuses to speak a single word to Hoffman. She's defiant to the end, even knowing that she's screwed.

However, just as Hoffman destroys his lair and attempts to flee, he's ambushed by Gordon and his own apprentices (originally the entire survivor's group would have joined, but instead we get two masked men, who the creators say were from the trap at the beginning). Gordon locks Hoffman in the same room where Gordon himself was tested, says “Game Over,” and locks the door, with the movie ending.

I don't exactly consider this a satisfying conclusion. Hoffman was able to get out of the Reverse Bear Trap in slightly more than sixty second. I find it unlikely that he can't get past a chain on his leg, and a locked door, when his only limitation is how long it takes him to die of thirst (or possibly of hunger, if the water still works in the bathroom).

This movie is cool. Yes, there are better horror movies out there, but I challenge you to find any others that are more energetic and just plain entertaining. I hope the Saw series eventually comes back. As I said, I don't consider Dagen's story truly complete. However, for now, this is where it ends. And with that I move onto the series that replaced Saw at the Halloween Box Office.