Taking a larger view

Some of you may be wondering when all the talk of Saw is going to die down around here. The answer is: Not yet, but soon.

I wanted to point you towards this MSNBC.com article, which seeks to place the franchise within the context of the horror genre.

Excerpts:

“I like the ‘Saw’ movies,” said Brad Miska, editor of bloody-disgusting.com, one of the most popular Web sites for horror fans. Miska said his review of an early screening of the first “Saw” helped to convince Lions Gate to release it.

“I liked the character of Jigsaw, and I think there was a cool mythology attached to it,” he said.

“I don’t really believe in the torture porn genre,” he said. “I don’t think it really exists. It was just made up by certain individuals who don’t understand the horror genre.”

The article just went up today, but seems to have been written before VI came out. I say that because they quote producer Mark Burg saying:

“They thought the ‘Rocky’ series would go on forever, but once he made a bad one nobody came to the theater. It took Sly (Sylvester Stallone) years to get his core audience back.

... People pay a lot of money to go to the movies, and they want to be entertained. You have to make a good movie and deliver or people won’t come.”

It's funny you say that, actually...a popular theory among the fans is that at least one reason why VI has, thus far, failed to live up to its moneymaking potential, is because V was so terrible it chased moviegoers away from the theatres.

Oops.