There’s horror, there’s gore, and then there’s Saw III—a movie that looks you in the eye, hands you a bucket of pig guts, and whispers, “This is art.” Darren Lynn Bousman’s third entry in the franchise is the cinematic equivalent of getting locked in a Chili’s bathroom with a philosophy major who won’t stop talking about Nietzsche while you vomit. It’s long, it’s mean, it’s convoluted, and worst of all, it thinks it’s deep.
This is a film that asks: what if grief could be cured through elaborate Rube Goldberg death contraptions? What if forgiveness was less about moving on and more about standing in a meat freezer with a naked woman while hoses blast her with liquid nitrogen? And what if Tobin Bell’s Jigsaw, a man with stage-four cancer, spent more time running HR for his serial killing startup than actually dying?
A Soap Opera with Hacksaws
On paper, Saw III is supposed to be the “emotional” installment. Leigh Whannell’s script leans into the tragic bond between John Kramer (Jigsaw), his apprentice Amanda, and Dr. Lynn, the kidnapped surgeon forced to play Grey’s Anatomy: But With Shotgun Collars. In execution, it’s more melodrama than menace. You spend half the movie watching Amanda pout like a goth kid grounded from Hot Topic, while Jigsaw rasps about morality like a dying motivational speaker.
Meanwhile, poor Lynn is elbow-deep in Jigsaw’s skull, doing an impromptu brain surgery with what looks like an Ace Hardware starter kit. This is where the film wants you to cry. Instead, you’re wondering if her malpractice insurance covers torture dungeon lobotomies.
The World’s Worst Self-Help Program
The heart of the film is Jeff, a grieving father whose son was killed by a drunk driver. Jigsaw’s grand idea for therapy? Drag Jeff through a slaughterhouse of moral dilemmas so he can practice forgiveness—by watching people die horribly in front of him.
Here’s Jeff’s crash course in forgiveness:
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Test #1: Rescue a witness from a freezer before she becomes an ice sculpture. Jeff fumbles around like a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving, and she freezes to death anyway.
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Test #2: Save a judge from drowning in liquefied pig carcasses. Jeff reluctantly burns his son’s toys to grab a key, so at least he got some closure—and the judge gets a face full of bacon soup.
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Test #3: Confront the drunk driver himself, strapped to a machine that twists his limbs like a sadistic game of Twister. Jeff cries that he forgives him… while the machine still snaps him into a human pretzel.
If forgiveness is supposed to heal the soul, then Saw III suggests it also breaks every bone in your body.
Amanda: Intern of the Year
Amanda, Jigsaw’s protégé, is proof that not everyone is cut out for middle management. She rigs traps that don’t have actual escapes, undermining her mentor’s “philosophy,” which at this point is basically TED Talk gibberish about appreciating life. She’s jealous of Lynn, hostile to everyone, and somehow always has time to apply thick eyeliner in between abductions.
Her big emotional arc? Daddy Jigsaw doesn’t love her enough. And when she finally shoots Lynn out of spite, it’s less shocking and more like watching a coworker throw a stapler after a bad performance review.
The Torture Spectacle
Let’s be honest: nobody comes to Saw III for the script. They come for the traps. And to its credit (or discredit), this movie has plenty: the ribcage harness, the brain surgery, the pig grinder, the limb-twisting rack. It’s like Willy Wonka’s factory, except everything’s sticky with blood and nobody’s singing.
The problem is, by film three, the novelty has worn off. Instead of being inventive, the traps feel more like a gross-out competition. The freezer scene is cruel, the pig vat is laughable, and the rack is so over-the-top it might as well be a rejected Cirque du Soleil act. The gore isn’t terrifying anymore—it’s tedious. You don’t wince, you yawn.
Pacing by Molasses
At 108 minutes, Saw III drags more than Jigsaw’s cancer-riddled lungs. Every trap is padded with endless monologues about morality, as if the audience signed up for a Philosophy 101 night class at a slaughterhouse. Jigsaw sermonizes. Amanda sulks. Jeff dithers. You start rooting for the traps to speed things up, because at least they get to the point.
By the time Jeff finally slits Jigsaw’s throat, setting off his wife’s shotgun collar in the process, you’re less horrified than relieved. Roll credits, please, before somebody else starts talking.
The Pretension Problem
Here’s the thing about Saw III: it really, really wants to be meaningful. It’s not enough for the movie to show you gore—it has to justify it with sermons about appreciating life, the power of forgiveness, and the nature of suffering. But it’s like slapping a Hallmark card on a chainsaw. The result is absurd.
Jigsaw isn’t a moralist; he’s a petty sadist with a tool shed. Jeff isn’t healed; he’s traumatized into oblivion. And Amanda isn’t a tragic figure; she’s a cautionary tale about promoting from within. The film’s attempts at depth only make the shallowness more obvious.
The Legacy of Diminishing Returns
Despite being a bloated, self-important mess, Saw III raked in $164.9 million at the box office. Why? Because by 2006, torture porn was a trend, and audiences wanted more. It didn’t matter that the film played like a bad soap opera with power tools. It had blood, it had buzz, and it had enough sequels lined up to keep Halloween occupied for years.
But rewatching it now, Saw III feels less like a horror classic and more like a grim reminder that franchises can eat themselves alive. The creativity is gone, the suspense is dulled, and all that’s left is noise—chains clanking, bones snapping, characters shouting about forgiveness while bleeding out.
Final Autopsy
Saw III is not scary. It’s not profound. It’s not even fun in a trashy way. It’s a joyless slog through dimly lit corridors, dressed up as a meditation on grief but really just an excuse to show another severed limb. Tobin Bell gives his all as Jigsaw, Shawnee Smith tries to wring pathos out of eyeliner, and Angus Macfadyen spends most of the movie looking like he wandered in from a soap opera audition.
The traps are inventive in the way middle school doodles are inventive. The themes are hollow. And the runtime feels like punishment. If this is Jigsaw’s big lesson about appreciating life, then I appreciate mine more by never watching it again.
Verdict: A failed philosophy lecture with pig guts for visual aids. Two out of ten.
