Inexplicable Sequel Files: Pitching Saw III: Rube Jigsaw

Saw II recently joined the ranks of what this reporter privately files as inexplicable sequels. Didn't everybody hate that? Wasn't that universally panned? Didn't that tank out at the box office? I appear to be living in a fantasy dreamworld concocted from whole cloth by my outraged sense of Basic Decency (my as yet unproduced screenplay for the sequel to Basic Instinct). Saw II joins the ranks of products like Jeepers Creepers and Child's Play (up to number five now).

The Saw series appears to be a member of a sparsely populated and unnamed (as far as I know) horror subgenre, this technical funhouse homicide schtick. The Cube series, and Thirteen Ghosts are the other examples that come to mind. The scenario is, that the star of the movie so to speak is not so much a particular villain or monster as it is the elaborate arrangement, baroque setting, and graphic execution of complicated technical killing scenarios. I also saw it described as "sadistic pornography."

Caligula? See, there's, like, this whole running theme thing.

Anyway. So: I figure, why not, I am a professional writer, after all, and "script treatment I'm shopping" needs still to be ticked off on my "Scribblers Watch" list, so why not: It's Rome, Baby presents: Saw III.

So there's this pencil. No, wait, first there's like this kite, right? Somebody is flying this kite out a window. But what you don't realize is that this kite, nobody is holding its string: it's actually attached to a series of pulleys that cause the kite to open the door on the moth cage.

So the moths escape, and naturally the first thing they see is this shirt, so of course being moths they eat holes in it. But it doesn't stop there. The shirt doesn't hang alone. It is perfectly counterbalanced across another pulley series by the old boot. Join in the audience's tense and horrified expectation as the moths feast on the shirt and the terrible realization dawns that this center cannot hold. The inevitably falling boot depresses the electrical knife switch - which incredibly perpetuates this chain reaction of thrilling events.

The switch feeds juice to an iron that overheats and sets fire to a pair of slacks on the ironing board. The smoke from the slacks fire vents into the tree's bole-hole (that's right, baby. There is a tree inside the room. Did I just blow your mind?). The smoke drives the 'possum out of the tree, into the basket, raising the birdcage, unleashing the woodpecker. And the woodpecker, of course, pecks at the wood pencil. The pencil. The pencil. Ah, yes, you forgot about the pencil, didn't you? And the pecking of the woodpecker pecks the wooden pencil sharp. Which then gets jammed right in their eye. And slashes their throat with the emergency knife.

Happy Halloween, 'Possums.

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