August 30th, 2007 -- Written by John Campea
One of the big quotes flying around Comic Con this year was Saw 4 producer Mark Burg pronouncing that the MPAA had given their first cut of Saw 4 an NC 17 rating. He acknowledged that they’d scale it back to get an R instead… but the big quote was: “One day we’d like to have the guts and leave it like it is“. Don’t worry Mark, that’s what the DVD is for.
The film has indeed been scaled back as noted by the good folks of Slahfilm:
Well no guts this time around (apparently), because the MPAA have given a new cut of the film an R-Rating for sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture throughout, and for language. I’m sure we’ll be able to see more of what the film could have been when the unrated dvd gets released next year (like we assume it will).
The problem with all of this is that it seems to suggest that Saw 4 is continuing down the ill fated path started upon by Saw 2, and ultimately ruined Saw 3. The first Saw film, while certainly not perfect, was as much thriller as it was horror. The film aimed to engage your head as much as it aimed to make you jump out of, or squirm in, your seat. It had character development, it had plot, it had fear.
The second Saw was pretty decent… but you could recognize a greater emphasis on the “shock” factor, and less on solid story telling. Saw 3 just abandoned everything and went all out torture porn. It seems we should have little hope that Saw 4 will be any different. Oh well… let’s wait and see.
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haven’t seen the 1st and 2nd movie, but saw the 3rd one. IMHO, its a horrible film without plot, just frights and gore. i do not have high hopes on the 4th. btw, is it the same director and producer as with the SAW III?
haven’t seen SAW I and II, only the 3rd one, which i totally abhorred for the lack of plot. btw, is the 4th movie still being produced by the same people? (director, producers, etc?)
fuck i hate the term torture porn…
i really hate the way people are looking down at these films as if they are so disgusting and lowly….
it is exactly what people were saying about the evil dead and texas chainsaw back in the day films that are considered classics today…..
i just don’t see the difference between jason chasing a terrified kid through the woods and hacking her her up with a machete to the antics in a hostel or saw film. its just means to an end.
a case can be made the very first torture porn was texas chainsaw massacre one og my all time favorite movies…..is it extremely graphically violent?? no but it is still fucking disturbing and although people love to claim “theres hardly any blood in it” as if that somehow makes it any less fucking disturbing….and if what happens to the main character in the last third of that film isn’t considered torture then you have a very definition of torture than i do.
don’t get me wrong…..by all means criticise these films on their qualities as movies. If you don;t lilke them as stand alone films fine…….i personally think the saw films are fucking terrible. they are bad movies but i am not going to take some puritan holier than though view and condemn them as sick.
if you condemn these films the hostels etc etc for the depravity then how can you not condemn all horror movies? we all go to see these types of films for the same thing…to be horrified…to be shocked…to be scared….to see people get killed in a variety of inventive ways……some are more violent than others but derek richardson being tortured in hostel is no different to me than michael myers implaing a guy to a wall with a giant kitchen knife. I just think if you are going to complain about these films because you find them sick then you must complain about them all.
I am glad that there are guys like roth and rob zombie and the makers of saw out there pushing for hard R films in cinemas. In a way all the criticism is good because its the same kind of criticism that some of the masters faced when they were in their peak….
I am sick of horror being this candy assed t.v. actress starring pg13 bullshit. give me hostel over the fog or when a stranger calls any day.
sorry for the rant……it just drives me crazy.
i dont give a shit about saw 4 . its already fucked with the same director on board . for me thats it.james wann. we desperatly need u back. kick this fuckin director of the film set.
Ok well I think me and James dissagree here and there but the SAW series is where I think we would debate forever on. I love the orginal, the second was ok bt over all it was dissapointing. The 3rd one was better than the 2nd but not better than the orginal. I also hate the term torture porn as well. I see no diffrence in SAW3 or say Halloween or Nightmare on Elm st. Where there is little plot but the charaters are not highly developed because lets face it…their gonna die anyway. SAW 4 looks like the same as we have seen b4 however with the way the 3rd ended the writers have to use some brains to keep their franchise alive. Truly this is just like the old slasher films where they come out with a new one each year. But if they make a really bad one then its game over.
fuck this man, I want it to be NC-17. FUCK SCALING BACK. I don’t give a fuck about little shits and their parents. Sick of everything trying to be nicer for the public. I could be wrong and usually am, but i’d like for once a movie to cater to my age of 30 instead of waiting for an uncut to come out on DVD. but it is Saw, and they haven’t got better with age, so why am I complaining.