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Review #376: Saw IV (2007)

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October 2026 Horror Reviews #4 - Saw IV (2007) Hot off the heels of Saw III, Saw IV begins a mini-series of entries that solidifies the plot into a snarl of timeline jumps and continuity that will leave your head spinning. In this movie, the primary plot follows Rigg, the SWAT leader for the police force in whatever town these movies take place. After the disappearance of Detective Matthews in Saw II and Kerry in Saw III, Rigg is spiraling into depression as he feels responsible for the loss of his co-workers and his inability to find closure. But then he gets caught in one of Jigsaw's famous games- will he sit tight and let things play out, or will he charge headfirst into danger if it means stopping this twisted game once and for all? I mentioned in my last review that I felt the filmmakers of this series really sat down and had a long think about where the series was going to go; while I could see they spent the third movie seeding a lot of the material that would eventually tak...
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Review #375: Saw III (2006)

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October 2026 Horror Reviews #3 - Saw III (2006) Saw III was greenlit during the opening weekend of Saw II, thus cementing this series as an instant and runaway success. This entry, much like the previous two, mostly follows two concurrent storylines: a surgeon named Lynn is kidnapped and brought to Jigsaw's underground makeshift hospital, and forced to operate on him to keep him alive. Meanwhile, a grieving father named Jeff wakes up elsewhere in the same facility and is put face-to-face with three people involved in the wrongful death of his son, and he has to choose whether to let them each die or put himself in harm's way to save them. At the end these two storylines cross in a, shall we say, explosive manner? Just a fair warning: I'm going to spoil a lot of what happens in this one, because I have some issues with specific elements and I'm not sure how else to talk about it. If you haven't seen the movie and don't want it to be spoiled, I'll give my rati...
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Review #374: Saw II (2005)

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October 2026 Horror Reviews #2 - Saw II (2005) Hot on the heels of the breakout success of Saw the previous year, Saw II follows a detective (Eric Matthews, not to be confused with the character from the hit family sitcom Boy Meets World) whose son seemingly has been kidnapped by the notorious serial killer, Jigsaw. The police track down Jigsaw easily, and the diabolical killer (who is near death suffering from terminal cancer) gives Detective Matthews an offer: sit here and talk with me, and your son will be returned to you, safe and sound. But according to the nearby surveillance camera feeds, his son is currently stuck in one of Jigsaw's death traps with an entire group of convicted criminals, all breathing in a slow-acting poison- unless they can solve deadly puzzles and get the antidote. As we flash back and forth between the two conflicts, will Detective Matthews play Jigsaw's little game or is he going to take the law into his own hands? It's going to be hard not to ...
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Review #373: Saw (2004)

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October 2026 Horror Reviews #1 - Saw (2004) Saw is a film where two men wake up in a grungy bathroom, chained to the wall by their ankles, with no memory of how they got there. There's a dead body in the center of the room with a gun and a tape recorder. After some escape-room-style investigation, they discover a pair of hacksaws- not strong enough to cut through the chains, but strong enough to cut through their feet. They realize that their predicament must be the work of "the Jigsaw killer"- an enigmatic villain who kidnaps people and sets them in elaborate traps where they must overcome their own flaws, or die. Will they be able to follow the clues and figure out how to escape? Or will they need to saw off their feet for a chance at survival? I first heard about this movie around the time the second one came out, right after I graduated high school. And to be perfectly honest, just the premise terrified  me. (I was still pretty new to horror at the time, and the idea ...
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2026: The Franchise Strikes Back

Hello again, everyone! Hopefully you've had an uneventful year so far. It's almost that time, and you know what that means- 31 more horror reviews! A few years back (2020, it feels like a million years ago) I chose four movie franchises- Halloween, Hellraiser, Jeepers Creepers, and A Nightmare on Elm Street- and reviewed (practically) all of the movies in those franchises. This year I'm doing something similar- I've chosen three franchises I'm going to watch in full (except for a couple entries I've already reviewed), and then I'm going to round the month out by watching a few entries from the previous set of franchises that I didn't get to last time (mostly because they hadn't released yet). Here is the list of movies I'll be reviewing this month: 1. Saw (2004) 2. Saw II (2005) 3. Saw III (2006) 4. Saw IV (2007) 5. Saw V (2008) 6. Saw VI (2009) 7. Saw 3D (2010) 8. Jigsaw (2017) 9. Spiral (2021) 10. Saw X (2023) 11. Paranormal Activity (2007) 12....
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Review #372: Backrooms (2026)

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2026 Supplemental Review #1 - Backrooms (2026) [Disclaimer: This movie is still brand-new (as of this writing it came out less than a week ago) so I will do my best not to spoil anything. Enjoy!] First thing I should mention is that I only found out today ( after viewing the film) that this movie is apparently a direct follow-up to a series of short horror films on YouTube; despite not know this I would still consider myself a self-professed "Backrooms Enthusiast". I have always been a fan of the "Backrooms" meme, as well as the associated boom of liminal-space-based media that has sprung up around it. It's hard to describe (something this movie touches on many times), but the feeling I get when seeing some sort of impossible physical space, or a room that dips into the uncanny valley of almost  realistic, or an image that should evoke feelings of coziness or comfort but I understand that it's a coziness I've never actually seen myself, that feeling is ...
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Review #371: The Running Man (2025)

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End-of-Year Bonus Review - The Running Man (2025) [This movie is fairly new, so as of the end of 2025, it does not appear to be streaming for free anywhere, but is available for purchase or rental on many platforms.] So, obviously this movie isn't horror, but hey, it's my blog and I really wanted to talk about this one. So here we are, to cap out the year! I'm a big fan of the original film adaptation of The Running Man, even though I know it doesn't stick very close to Stephen King's novel at all. It's a cheesy, campy action movie featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. But when the trailer for this one dropped, it immediately hooked me- it looked fun, it looked brutal, and it looked action-packed. (Also, it's written and directed by Edgar Wright- who made two of my favorite movies of all time, The World's End and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World!) But I started to get worried once it released because I was seeing a lot of mixed reviews. So I went in w...
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