Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. October 27th, 2017 will see Lionsgate's reboot of their successful Saw franchise. They made the announcement today, releasing the above title treatment.
I'm a pretty big fan of the first Saw. As a standalone horror movie it's pretty great. There's a good mystery, iconic imagery, a great set-up and a twist ending that actually felt earned. The other ones are fine, but got repetative, convoluted and shocking for the sake of shock instead of the more character-driven first film.
Funnily enough the originator of this series has potentially made it hard for a reboot to thrive. James Wan has pushed the horror pendulum into the classier ghost story direction. We went from J-horror to "torture porn" around the time Saw hit it big, but the torture stuff went out of fashion in favor of found footage, which itself is dead as disco as proven by the pretty decent Blair Witch sequel/reboot flopping.
Audiences want higher production value stuff now. The genre making money is stuff like Split and Conjuring. IT is generating a ton of buzz, setting records for trailer views. I think the pendulum has swung in that bigger, supernatural realm.
I just don't know if the audience is there for Saw anymore. That subgenre will come back eventually (they all do), but I don't think the mood is right for it. I could see slashers coming back into favor before the torture stuff.
That's my instinct anyway. What do you folks think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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