Would You Like to Play a Game?

(No, Katie Featherston has nothing to do with this news. Just keep reading.)

So, about a week ago, Paramount hired Saw VI director Kevin Greutert to direct a sequel to Paranormal Activity, perhaps the biggest success story of 2009 (or at least, Avatar aside, the biggest low-budget success story, anyway). This was funny because Paranormal Activity was the movie that finally knocked the Saw franchise -- Greutert's entry, actually -- from its four-year throne atop the Halloween box office. I guess the old saying, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" still applies.

Greutert's Paranormal sequel was positioned against Lionsgate's Saw VII 3D, which may or may not, depending on its financial performance, be the last theatrical Saw movie (that is, until they remake or reboot the first one, which, going by Spider-Man, may be as soon as, say, Thursday).

Or at least that was how things were until yesterday, when Lionsgate decided to exercise an option they held on Greutert, forcing him to direct Saw VII instead of Paranormal 2. Saw V director David Hackl, who was previously slated to direct VII, is relegated off to some other, as-of-yet undecided project.

While it makes for great, hilarious, public Hollywood shenanigans, this is a terrible, terrible move. First of all, how does Lionsgate expect to get a good performance out of Greutert when he's got the taste of sour grapes in his mouth the whole time? Greutert edited all five Saw films prior to his directorial debut on the sixth, so there's no doubt he's got the franchise in his blood. But is he going to be able to creatively and emotionally invest in a project he doesn't want to make? As low-rent as it may be, I am still a die-hard Saw fan, and if this is the last hurrah, I want it to be good.

Then there's Hackl. The general consensus is that Saw V is the worst of the series (I agree). Producers being producers, they'd never tell you straight up that a movie they worked on sucked unless they were fired or something, but I'm sure Hackl thought it was a good display of solidarity when he was asked back to direct the seventh, and in 3D as well. Of course, the moment it became "the last", I'm sure the stakes went way up, and all of a sudden, going with the fans' least favorite director starts looking like a bad idea, especially when your last director is running off to the competition. Greutert expressed his frustration via his website, although he chose to delete what he specifically said and left it at "pissed". I imagine Hackl doesn't feel much better (although for him, "used" be more accurate).

Of course, Hackl's involvement raises another question: the movie supposedly starts rolling on February 1st, so the film can make its traditional last-week-of-October date. Since it's January 26th, I imagine the movie's ready to go before cameras, but didn't Hackl do all the pre-production work? Not only does Lionsgate have an unwilling, angry director, but he's also gonna have to adapt using months of another director's pre-production work, on something as complicated as 3D.

In any case, I'm excited to see how this story develops. Personally, I'm hoping Hackl signs on to direct Paranormal Activity 2. I hear they're looking for a director.

In Defense of Saw

Yeah, yeah, my last post was about Saw as well, but hey, if it's Halloween, it must be Saw. Here's a lightly extended version of an already lengthy comment I wrote on Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily post here about the series.

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Man, people really take the term “torture porn” literally. I don’t like it, but the term is simply implying that is as exploitative of horror movie torture/bloodletting as regular porn is of sex. It doesn’t mean that it necessarily has any actual sex or nudity in it, just that people go to get their “torture”-loving rocks off at the sight of some violent death sequences.

That said, like any Saw fan would tell you, the real reason I go each year is to see how the plot develops. It’s like a crappy cop show, just with splatter. People are always derisive of this kind of statement, as if I have to have some sort of high-minded attitude to claim the Saw films have a plot to follow, but usually those are the people who didn’t bother to see the film and don’t like that kind of movie anyway. It’s okay not to like the Saw franchise, but you don’t need to go and decry it as some sort of bane on humanity just because your cinematic sensibilities are different from mine, especially since you haven’t gotten into it and never would, even under the best, most unbiased circumstances. I'll probably never watch The English Patient, but you don't see me hanging around generalizing to the world that it and other Oscar-bait pictures are repulsive.

I also think it’s ridiculous to imply that it’s good that horror is moving in a PG-13 direction. Not everything needs to be a Saw or a Hostel, nor does everything need push the gore envelope farther than the last, but bloodletting is part of the territory. The original A Nightmare on Elm Street is pretty bloody, but it’s a pretty classic genre picture, and the idea that PG-13 is better would stomp all over several of its greatest, creepiest scenes (like Amanda Wyss getting lifted out of the bed and dragged up the wall or Johnny Depp getting sucked into his bed). To say that horror should be less violent as a blanket statement is like saying action movies should have less guns and explosions, or that romances should scale back on the intimacy. Some of these movies that have come out in the last few years probably are torture porn, but you can’t just ball everything up into a category because you don’t like it without examining it. Again, I don't want to sound like I'm overanalyzing this into artsy-fartsy territory, but films like Hostel were made by auteurs trying to create something compelling and interesting to like-minded people, which is the right idea, even if some people can’t stomach it, and series like Saw are too over-the-top, really, to worry about (I mean, come on, someone gets melted in the latest one!). It’s PG-13 films like the Prom Night and Stepfather remakes (which always end up Unrated on DVD, to try to entice in the very same Saw crowds), which are artistically empty, financially motivated and poorly made that deserve to get canned.

Lastly, it’s ridiculous that anyone not interested would be so burdened by the Saw movies anyway. It’s like the inverse of having your cake and eating it too: you don’t like it, so nobody should have it. Just make an effort to stay out of the discussion. Did anyone see the movie’s most recent theatrical trailer? It was only 50 seconds long! The films are playing to the faithful, and the faithful alone, so in the age of TiVo, can’t you just ignore it?

The Dr. Gordon Factor

I'm betting (but don't want to know for sure -- don't tell me, a friend and I are gonna play it) that the recently-released Saw: The Video Game, at long last, ties off the plot of Dr. Lawrence Gordon, originally played by Cary Elwes in the original Saw.

In 2004, Elwesm supposedly at the prodding of his lawyer, sued Twisted Pictures for some unpaid back end, which caused bad blood between the actor and the films' producers. He eventually retracted the lawsuit, citing the lawyer's insistence and publicly stating he regretted it, but the damage was already done. Despite references to Dr. Gordon in almost all of the subsequent sequels, the actor is never seen or heard from again -- in Saw III brief vocal snippets are voiced by someone else and the character's face is covered when we see his unconscious body in the infamous bathroom, and in all of the other sequels, the character is neither seen or heard, only mentioned by others in passing.

Having just returned from Saw VI, I wonder how different the films would be if Dr. Gordon had made some sort of return appearance. Would they dispatched him in just a few minutes, or taken the time to weave Dr. Gordon into the plotline of each new film? Admittedly, he looks pretty boned at the end of Saw, but the franchise has begun to make a point of overturning every rock the camera even glanced at in order to add more strands to an ever-growing web of connections and plot twists.

In the event that the book, shockingly, is not closed by the video game, I wonder if the producers will ever let bygones be bygones and allow Dr. Gordon to make a reappearance. Historically, he seemed to be at the front of fans' minds when it came to the series, and the producers are kicking over the last few rocks. If there's only one more Saw movie (something I wouldn't bet on), I'd like it to go out with a bang -- or perhaps, more fittingly, put its best foot forward.

The Box trailer FTW, Saw theme FTL

I love the Saw movies; they're this generation's Friday the 13th, a series of slasher flicks that please on a goofy, splatter-movie level. I also like the music, by Nine Inch Nails member Charlie Clouser. That said, they keep using the "big reveal" music from the end of every Saw picture in movie trailers, like the final Valkyrie trailer, Deja Vu, and now The Box, the third film from Donnie Darko and Southland Tales writer/director Richard Kelly.

Aside from that musical misstep, the trailer looks awesome.



The Box opens on October 30th, 2009. Here is the IMDb page for the movie, because there are 33 other movies with the title The Box.