JIGSAW (2017)

Remember the old days when your friend would call you up when all those Saw sequels were hitting theaters and there was absolutely no way he/she could ascertain your interest in seeing it other than asking you flat out, “Wanna go see-Saw this weekend?”

Pretty funny, huh?

Well, there’s nothing funny about how bad Jigsaw is.

How’s that for a lead-in?

Though one could argue this about most horror franchises, Saw did not need to spawn any sequels, let alone seven — especially after having KILLED its main villain back during the fourth entry (and for real-killed, not Freddy Krueger-killed). The series managed to continue heavily involving Jigsaw himself, John Kramer (Tobin Bell), through the use of flashbacks, disembodied voices, and his “disciples.” If you’re lucky enough to have never seen most of this series, yes, it’s as stupid and tedious and very very unrealistic as it sounds.

As a loyal horror fan, the first Saw’s legend preceded it, as it had raised quite the stink at various film festivals, and I was in attendance opening weekend for its wide release. And it was…alright. It was over-directed by a clearly energetic James Wan, whose style would thankfully mellow as he found his footing in later films, and the well-executed twist ending was slick enough that it helped you to forgive how very silly it was.

A practice I’ve since grown out of, I would later hate-watch parts 2-4 before absolutely giving up for good, realizing I was only harming my brain and could better spend my time watching Dead Silence again. I’m only noting all this so it’s clear that I have absolutely no understanding of what goes on in Saws 5-7, though I imagine it involves Person A getting their toe cut off while Person B looks on and throws up on Person C, who is a jerk.

Jigsaw was proclaimed by its producers as being a radical reinvention of the series, but even based on my limited exposure to and utter impatience with the sequels, anyone can see that this seems to be more of the same old thing: heavy-handed posturing about morality while inflicting ghastly torture things on people who deserve it. Nu metal soundtrack, a foot falls off, twist, fin.

Though he’s not a gigantic name by any stretch, it’s still a shame to see Callum Keith Rennie appearing in this kind of garbage, considering he’s done solid work in the past, somewhat recently on David Duchvovy’s Californication and Netflix’s Longmire. Frankly, he’s the only person in this thing who offers a performance worth mentioning. Of course Tobin Bell appears, somehow (have fun figuring out how, ha ha!), though most of his presence comes through the use of audio recordings that he’s very very very strategically hidden around his barn of horrors.

Frankly, if you were on board with the entire Saw series to date, you’ll probably be on board with this one as well, as there doesn’t seem to be too much innovation going on. It even concludes with the same kind of twist that chronologically backtracks and shows you what really happened — executed in such a rapid manner that you get the indication the filmmakers want to get the whole thing over with before you have time to realize you could absolutely drive a tanker truck of liquid nitrogen through its many severe gaps in logic and plot holes.

Sadly, Jigsaw was huge at the box office, which led to the admittedly wacky-sounding sequel Spiral: From the Book of Saw, somehow written by Chris Rock and somehow starring Rock and Samuel L. Jackson. Though that odd development makes the forthcoming sequel the most intriguing entry in this series since the very first film, this series has also taken up far too much valuable Halloween real estate. I yearn for the days when John Kramer stays dead for real, allowing new ideas to flourish over October weekends.

REVIEW: STRIPPED

I suppose if it had been a bigger hit, or if someone had thought of it, Stripped would have been marketed as "Project X meets Hostel." Because that's pretty much what we have here: "found footage" of a group of horny frat-boy types hauling ass to Vegas for a weekend of debauchery, but finding themselves victimized and stalked by a group of black market organ traffickers.

It is Graham's 21st birthday, and so it's off to Sin City with his BFFs Luke, Cameron, and Tommy. They like to smoke weed and drink booze. They make an awful lot of jokes, some involving puke and some involving mothers. They call each other "fag" and make fun of Twilight. Because, you know, kids.

Along the way they pick up Capri, who crashes the party to hitch a ride so she can meet up with her boyfriend, Jake, who lives in Vegas. Once that happens, drama ensues when it's revealed she once had some kind of romantic tryst with Luke. But the kids quickly get back to their jokes and the social awkwardness is left behind for the time being. After stopping off at a gas station bathroom, they discover a business card promising "women willing to do anything to make you happy." (That means hookers.)  And we have a catalyst!

"Mind if I fornicate?"

The minute we meet out first character, you can immediately tell he, and all his cohorts, are going to be obnoxious and unlikable. That's a huge problem, especially in this genre. For Stripped, it's genuinely hard to tell if this was a conscious choice to make the eventual bloodletting all the more satisfying, or if the desire to make our kids "realistic" and "fun" didn't really work out that way. They fart, talk about fucking constantly, and make references to having sex with babies. (Seriously.) Either way, I don't care about any of these kids, at all.

Stripped, as a "story," takes entirely too long to get going. Except for the rather cheap and brief cuts of debauchery and torture soon to come (foreshadowing, only far less subtle!), the first 40 minutes is nothing but watching handsome and/or pretty young people hang out, high five, test your patience, and hold beer bottles. It is around the 40-minute mark when the kids finally get to the shady, out-of-the-way place where the strippers/hookers hang out.

Oddly, it is around the 45-minute mark where director J.M.R. Luna abandons the found footage aesthetic altogether and begins to shoot the film traditionally, which is jarring, to say the least. There is an attempt to maintain the style using surveillance cameras (which make no sense existing in an incredibly illegal and murderous operation), but all this does is make the brief, traditionally-shot sequences stick out all the more. Adding to this confusion is they seem to have used the same camera for every shot - the "found footage" amateur stuff as well as the real-movie, traditional stuff. So, take your established inconsistency, add this newer confusion, and you have Stripped: the feature film that dares you to figure out what's happening.

And finally, it is around the 50-minute mark when anything the least bit resembling a horror film finally begins to occur. This in a 75-minute film.

There is absolutely no attempt at coherence in Stripped. Although it's plainly established there is only ever one camera in use for most of the trip, suddenly, when it's essential to the plot, Capri randomly has her own camera. And speaking of, there's absolutely no reason, once Capri attempts to find her friends in a seedy whore house and becomes understandably scared, that she would hold her camera out at arm's length and film her own face as she walks around - especially when it's been established the filmmakers are willing to switch perspective to  traditional shooting, which easily could have been employed here. The most damning aspect to this is that Capri clearly has a camera - speaks directly into it at one point, like a diary - but then when she walks by in a "surveillance camera" shot, is obviously not holding a camera. This doesn't happen just once, but repeatedly.

I mean, what the fuck?

Honestly, there isn't much I can say about Stripped that's positive. The acting is decent, but only because it's not hard to get a bunch of kids to act obnoxious and silly. The girls were pretty and the boys were handsome. Everything shot was in frame and in focus. The strippers showed off their cleavage and sometimes their goods (if you're into that sort of thing). When the kids are killed and harvested (spoiler?), smile in relief, because it means the end is coming. 

I mean...that's it.

Look, if you always wanted to see the guys from "Jackass" get sliced up to rock/rap, all mixed with a lot of nudity, AND a scene where a naked boy fist-fights a crazy surgeon, now's your chance. Normally I'd feel guilty trashing a film this bad, but I don't this time. Maybe because this isn't even really a film. To call it such is an insult to filmmakers actually trying.

REVIEW: VILE

vile - (adj)

1. wretchedly bad; highly offensive, unpleasant, or objectionable.
2. repulsive or disgusting, as to the senses or feelings.
3. morally debased, depraved, or despicable.

derivative - (adj)

1. derived.
2. not original; secondary.
3. making a film about a group of strangers abducted by a madman who are then locked away and forced to perform torturous acts against each other and themselves in an effort to find salvation.

incompetent - (adj)

1. lacking qualification or ability; incapable.
2. characterized by or showing incompetence.
3. the feature film Vile.

Someone send director Taylor Sheridan a memo. After eight Saws, three Hostels, and a host of bottom-dwelling imitators, the torture porn subgenre is dead. No, wait - it's not just dead. It's had its fingernails ripped out, its eyes sliced in half, and, I dunno...maybe its ears thrown in a really hot stew. It is dead. Dead, gone, finished, good riddance. God damn.

Bu yet here we are with Vile, which exists for some reason. Why that is I couldn't say. It's certainly not for our entertainment. It sure as shit wasn't for mine.

We’ve been here before, folks. And I was hoping we would never be here again. But let’s just get this out of the way and save us all the misery that Vile did not save me.

A group of young twenty-somethings are out in nature laying around on blankets, contemplating life, and not holding down jobs, apparently. We get to know very little about them other than, boy, they’re all in love with life!

On their evening-descending drive back to civilization, a cougar-esque woman asks for a ride from a gas station back to her stalled car. The kids oblige, and the woman then hilariously (though it’s not supposed to be) straps on a gas mask and sprays the car with knock out gas. The kids awake in some kind of inescapable old house, meet a bunch of other strangers, and then an unfortunately-faced woman on a TV screen explains that the kidnapped folks all have some kind of hose thinger plugged into the back of their neck that will collect the special brain juices secreted by the body when it undergoes severe physical torture. You know, OW GOO. And so the kids must now agree to torture each other for as long as it takes until enough of this OW GOO is supplied.

That is literally it. The entire movie is these characters torturing each other.

Oh, and the guy who looks too much like Shaun White is in on it.

Did I just ruin that twist for you? Fucking thank me. I watched this nonsense for free and I still felt like a crime had been committed against me.

The film is directed by Taylor Sheridan, probably most famous for having played Deputy Hale in the first three seasons of "Sons of Anarchy." I like to think that, upon the announcement of his departure from that very high-rated FX show, a member of the press asked Sheridan, “What will you do next?”

And Sheridan smiled his very toothy grin and said, “I want to make a HUGE piece of shit.”

He should be commended for his uncompromising desire to fill his entire cast of characters with actors who did not deliver a single line convincingly. I’m almost in awe that he was able to locate a completely talentless group of people to bark and growl at each other, and with such wildly stereotype-busting character traits!

Oh, you mean the hot girl is the bitchy one? The dumb blonde surfer is the dumb one? The main guy super duper loves his girlfriend and is a good man?

Fuck you.

Vile is not worth dissecting because it does not present any themes that dozens of other movies like it have not already presented. And on top of that, they are presented so poorly and are lost in such a collection of bullshit gory set pieces that any such themes eventually become irrelevant.

If Saw did not exist, Vile would not exist. And Saw is not even a good movie. But I would promise my first-born daughter to Saw’s first-born son in an arranged marriage if my only other option was sitting through Vile again.

Vile is vile. It sucks. It blows. I really, really hate it. It’s not even worthy of my Shitty Flicks banner, because I got nothing from the film. Not a single thing. Except my time stolen.

If you liked Vile, you are a dumb human being.