Sometimes It Just Sucks

To this day, I'm the only one of my friends who watched all of the Saw movies. Not for the faint of heart, nor the squeamish. Serial killer stuff.

The first film was brilliant. The second and third films were less so, but still good.

(Spoiler alerts ahead for those who want to have the authentic experience...or save themselves the wasted time, depending on how you look at it).

Then came Saw 4, Saw 5, Saw 6, and Saw 7. Each one worse than the last. 

You know those compound interest charts that show you how your retirement savings will increase exponentially over time?

It was like that, except going downward. A reverse compound interest chart.

The series became so obsessed with the "let's leave some details out so we can fill them in with the sequels" schtick that it became unwatchable. 

There are still about a dozen plot holes that remain to be filled in by fan-fiction enthusiasts.

The acting got worse.

The special effects and gore became less-believable.

Everyone died at the end, every time.

I mean, who wants to watch a series where the bad guy wins every single time, without a hope of escape? But, I stuck with it to the last wasted minute to see how the series ended.

When I tell people about the series, right after they say, "You watched that !@#$?", I tell them to just stop watching it after the third one.

Some years later, they came out with an eighth movie called Jigsaw.

You know how you can see something gross and inappropriate, like a naked man in public, and have to look away? But at the same time, you kind of need to look at it for the oddity of it all?

It was that phenomenon that brought me to watch Jigsaw.

I had to applaud the filmmakers. They managed to continue the reverse compound interest chart in perfect form. Perhaps they thought by calling it Jigsaw instead of Saw 8, it would renew the series.

It didn't.

In fact, the only reason they renamed it was probably because it didn't connect to the plot of the original series at all. And it still sucked.

No interesting plot. Everyone dies at the end.

And finally, about a year ago, another movie came out. Spiral: From the Book of Saw.

This one starred Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, and featured a new villain named Spiral rather than Jigsaw.

I couldn't help myself.

I mean, Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson...those are, like...really good actors, right? How bad could this one be?

I should have been suspicious when it only cost $7 to buy it on iTunes, having only been released six months ago. Lest, I continued.

And they got me again.

The acting was great, yes.

But the exact same thing happened as the previous six movies.

Lots of people die, they attempt a "twist" at the end that isn't really a twist, the bad guy wins, and I'm on the floor crying...grieving the past 90 minutes I wasted on this awful movie.

In creative work, sometimes you just have to accept that a concept just sucks and needs to come to an end. 

You can rename it, get famous actors to be in it, spend a million dollars promoting it, and find someone like me who will watch all of it...but if it sucks, it sucks.