Jigsaw: How A Film Franchise Lost Its Magic

As any modern day film scholar or critic might tell you these days, Hollywood seems to be running out of original ideas. That’s not to take away from some of the classics that have been written and released in the modern era of film, but if you look at recent summer blockbusters and recent hits, you’ll find a common trend. These days Hollywood is all about remakes, reboots, prequels and sequels. Once one original idea is brought to the screen and finds success with audiences around the world, studios will then try to build off of that name as much as possible and build off of that original success. Even right now, I just looked at last weekend’s top box office results and the top five films are either based on a book or comic book or a sequel. However, specifically with this blog post, I wanted to take a look at how this “remake/reboot” effect has taken it’s toll on the horror movie genre. Now this isn’t to look at the millions of sequels many of these classic franchi...

         When people ask me what my favorite horror movie is, it’s always a definite tie that can’t seem to break. On one hand, one of my favorites is John Carpenter’s original Halloween film. On the other hand, we have James Wan’s 2001, Saw . The first Saw film was actually one of the first of the genre that I had ever seen and instantly I was hooked. I loved the intensity that the cast and crew brought to the film, the terrifying score and especially the end twist. Plus, who wasn’t terrified of Billy the Puppet? Fast forward almost 16 years after the original film debuted, and even I can’t keep justify the franchise that’s been built.     After the so-called “end” to the franchise back in 2010, the studios decided they weren’t quite done ruining the Jigsaw legacy and decided to grace us with a new film in the saga, appropriately titled Jigsaw . Recently, I viewed this film, going in with very low expectations and I ...