THE MOVIE MASOCHIST: Autopsy a go-go

By JAMES FRANKLIN - McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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The Movie Masochist: Autopsy a go-go

By James Franklin

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

(MCT)

A die-hard horror fan probably shouldn't object to movie gore _ blood and guts go with the territory. Some of the most enjoyable horror films are filled with wall-to-wall viscera. But there's a blurry line between tasteless fun and blood porn.

"Saw IV" vaults across that line, kicking off with a long, long autopsy scene that begins with a medical examiner peeling the skin back from a man's head, sawing open the skull, pulling out the man's brain and brusquely yanking it from the connective tissue with an wet-sounding snap. The camera lingers on the man's chest as it is sliced open, then pulls back to take a full measure of his insides. The stomach is taken out and sliced open to reveal a gooey mass, inside of which is a tiny audiotape.

If you bought a $5 hot dog at the concession stand before the show, set it gently aside.

The autopsy scene is meant to introduce us to a key plot point. The man on the table is a nasty guy who goes by the moniker "Jigsaw," and he's the recurring villain in all four "Saw" movies despite having died in the third one. The tape has a recording of Jigsaw taunting one of the fourth film's main characters about a crime in progress, thus setting the plot (such as it is) into motion. Fair enough, but did we need that drawn-out, grimly re-created autopsy? Apparently deciding that the fourth film had to live up to the "Saw" franchise's reputation for over-the-top gore, director Darren Lynn Bousman abandons whatever tiny particle of restraint he may have possessed and immediately shoves the hard stuff right into people's faces.

The movie's cursory attempt to tell a story is rendered incomprehensible by its flailing, hyperkinetic style. As the story gets more and more bewildering, "Saw IV" reveals that it's really just a gore delivery system.

A crazed, sweaty cop and some dim-bulb FBI agents try to save some poor souls marked for death by Jigsaw's mysterious new acolyte, who is building sadistic machine traps in the manner of his mentor so he can deal fatal punishment to sinners (fornicators, wife beaters, etc.). A prostitute has her scalp pulled halfway off. A tubby rapist has to pierce his eyeballs to save his life. And so on.

In a "surprise" ending/setup for the next movie, one of the movie's interchangeable white guys is revealed to be the apprentice who has taken up Jigsaw's killing habits. Since this is barely (if it all) foreshadowed, this revelation underscores the fact that in "Saw" films, story, suspense and logic aren't the point. It's about the blood.

By giving the audience what he thinks they want, Bousman shows real contempt for them. It's as if he's saying to horror fans "Like gore? Here you go, sickos _ gore by the bucketful. You meatballs don't even need a story. Lots of blood will keep your little brains numb and happy."

What made the original "Saw" film reasonably interesting was its suggestion that people could quickly be made to do hideous things to save their own lives. The franchise also has raspy-voiced actor Tobin Bell as the villain Jigsaw, and he's a riveting, reliable source of menace. In "Saw IV" he appears in flashbacks, apparently so the filmmakers could assure everyone that the series didn't chuck its only valuable asset.

Bell aside, the "Saw" films have gone down the same path as the old "Friday the 13th" movies. Having exhausted whatever novelty the original had, the movies became a series of staged death scenes with state-of-the-art makeup effects, each film trying to top its predecessor with more outrageous, stomach-churning images. Both series are nearly devoid of humor, robbing them of any kind of transgressive fun.

"Saw IV" was the highest-grossing (so to speak) film on its opening weekend, earning three times more than its closest competitor. That means there will be a "Saw V," and it'll be dumber, gorier and more nonsensical. Expect it in theaters next fall. And stay home.

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SAW IV

Rated R for long, loving depictions of how the human body can be rent by sharp instruments.

3 stars: Painful.

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The rating system:

1 star: Lousy

2 stars: Horrible

3 stars: Painful

4 stars: Traumatic

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The Movie Masochist is an emotionally wounded cinephile who lives in the United States. He watches bad movies so you don't have to. Discuss movies, argue with or simply flatter him at jfranklin@mcclatchy.com.