Review #375: Saw III (2006)

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 rating right here: I didn't care for this entry, and I think I'm going to give it 3/10 Liquified Pig Carcasses. Tune in next time for Saw IV (2007).

I saw this movie back when it came out, and was quite disappointed with it then. I've seen it once or twice in the years since, and my opinion on it has never improved (even though I've heard lots of people say they love this one, its worldwide box office gross was higher than Saw II if I'm not mistaken). I'm going to talk about what I didn't like about it back then, what I don't like about it now, and why I really think this movie started the series in a direction that I think was the wrong choice.

My main issue, which has been my main issue since 2006, is that the person in this film who is subjected to the most Saw-like experience (Jeff) doesn't have to do anything to make it through this film. What I mean is, he has three obstacles to face, and literally all three of them can be overcome by him just not doing anything and letting it happen. Kind of like how in Saw II, Detective Matthews was told to sit and talk with Jigsaw and if he had, everything would have turned out fine- but in that case Jigsaw had cleverly tricked him. In this case, Jeff knows right from the start that he doesn't have to do anything. He is in no danger unless he puts himself in danger to try and save the people he previously wanted to kill. Jigsaw's whole deal so far has been to see if his victims have the drive to preserve their own lives- he had a whole speech about it in the previous movie- and then in this one Jeff's survival is literally never in jeopardy. He could choose not to change his ways, he could choose to remain the same person, and absolutely no harm would befall him. He does have some (small) changes of heart and in doing so makes a couple sacrifices, but ultimately it amounts to the same thing as if he did nothing, because all of the people he tries to save end up dying anyway. (And I don't know if the actor was told to act this way or not, but it REALLY seems like he doesn't care if these people live or die because he is dragging his heels the entire time, and not in a "I'm conflicted" way, but in a "I really don't care" kind of way.) So, the entire Saw experience of this film (which is what I'm calling the deathtrap storyline) goes 100% contrary to the ethos that both of the previous movies seem to have been promoting.

So, that's something that's bothered me since the first time I saw it. On today's rewatch, I had another, more general thought that also applies: I just don't care about anything that happens in this film. I don't care about serial killer Jigsaw getting life-saving surgery. I don't care about the drama between him and Amanda (more on that in a moment). I don't care about whether Jeff (a person I am just now being introduced to for the first time) forgives any of these people (all three of whom I am also just now being introduced to for the first time). I cared about the police investigation, but that was over like fifteen minutes into the film. I cared about Detective Matthews attempts to escape, but that was over in the first scene (it gets revisited later, though not with much consequence for this film). Basically none of the driving forces of this movie were interesting to me, and ALL of them go on for WAY TOO LONG. (This is one of the longest Saw movies, it's just shy of two hours, and SO MUCH of that is spent on long boring shots and long boring arguments that don't go anywhere.) This one really dragged for most of its ample runtime, and I was just waiting for it to be over.

The biggest issue, though, is that this movie clearly marks a point where the series made a shift. I'm pretty sure that, after the success of the second film the filmmakers had a long sit-down and tried to come up with some kind of a framework for what the series was going to be moving forward. In doing so, they looked at what they had done in the past two films, and decided which elements were going to be the focus, and which weren't. I mentioned yesterday that I really liked the second movie- in particular, the ending was fantastic. It set up an amazing trajectory that even now I get excited about: Jigsaw has an apprentice in the form of Amanda, the girl who survived one of his traps and helped orchestrate another as an active participant. The end of that movie sets her up as being the new Jigsaw once John dies (and I feel they subtly imply that John dies at the end of the second movie, but if that was the case, it immediately got retconned at the start of Saw III). Amanda is shown to be confident, competent, and most importantly, a true believer in Jigsaw's worldview. You really get the impression that she's going to carry on his work, and possibly even improve on it. It's such an amazing moment at the end of two amazing movies.

But then, this movie comes around, and if you're paying enough attention you'll get whiplash from how suddenly and completely it changes direction. Amanda is no longer confident, she's needy and scared. She's no longer competent, she's just barely following instructions. And most importantly, she no longer believes in John's worldview- in fact, she's already started disobeying him, sabotaging his traps by making them unwinnable, following her own goals by going behind John's back and killing people he thought should be spared. And then, by the end of the movie, both Amanda and John are killed, so any setup about Amanda being his protege has effectively been rendered moot one movie later. (John, on the other hand, will continue having an active presence in these movies for the rest of their existence.) A long time ago I reviewed all of the Resident Evil movies, and I lamented time and time again how each movie seems to set up something really cool in the last five minutes, and then the immediate next movie spends ten minutes completely undoing everything that was set up, as if each movie was made by two annoyed co-writers who couldn't agree on what to do and who each needed to take out their frustrations on-screen. This feels like the exact kind of interaction- one movie sets up a really cool future in its last few minutes, and then the next movie says "Nuh-uh, let's do the exact opposite of that".

The rest of the series continues on this trajectory, but no longer needs to undo anything that was set up (to my knowledge, anyway)- so I'm not saying the rest of the movies are going to disappoint me, but I really do wonder what the series could have become if they paid off on the direction that Saw II promised.

Anyway, like I said, I just really don't care for this movie. I don't think much of its actual content really matters in the long run (to my recollection most of what gets dealt with in the next couple entries have to do with the cops we saw at the beginning of the film) so in my mind this entry is almost entirely forgettable.

Overall Rating: 3/10 Liquified Pig Carcasses

Lemme Borrow That: While I'm a bit unclear on the timeline of events, it seems that the bathroom where the original Saw was filmed had been demolished at some point either right before or right after Saw II was made, so an entire new one would have needed to be built to include it in this film. However, the filmmakers found out that the creators of Scary Movie IV- which includes a Saw parody segment- had made a recreation of the famous bathroom set that was so accurate, they got permission to use it in Saw III!

Up Next: Saw IV (2007)!