Saw Series Ends With a Whimper

Saw 3D, the seventh installment in the gory horror franchise, will be the final one, according to its producers, and most critics are hoping they stick to their word.

• The use of 3D is effective but "a lack of multi-dimensional flying body parts wasn't this series' problem," Geoff Berkshire writes at Metromix. The Saw franchise, he writes, "goes down in history as the most unnecessarily convoluted horror franchise of all time—and that’s the nicest thing you can say about it."

• The inventive traps that are the series' trademark are reasonably well done, but the characters audiences care about are barely seen, grumbles Eric Goldman at IGN. Saw 3D is a weak way to the end the series, he decides, but at least it's better than Saw V.
• If you're only there for the torture sequences, you won't be disappointed, but if you're hoping for a story, Saw 3D is "a rotten joke that laughs in the face of anyone who has followed the ongoing corkscrew narrative and expected it to properly wrap things up," complains Dustin Putman.
• Saw 3D isn't much good, but "are you really expecting an amazingly fresh and ingenious journey" from the seventh installment in a horror series?" asks Anthony O'Connor at Film Ink. "Teenage boys, stoners, and gore-hounds with low expectations may have fun. Anyone expecting a decent ending to the series will not," he writes, noting that so many loose ends are left that it won't be much of a surprise if Saw VIII surfaces next Halloween.

(More Saw 3D stories.)