Not since The Exorcist in 1973 has there been so much hype surrounding a horror flick. Saw III opened in October 2006 to reports of people fainting at scenes of gruesome torture. Or perhaps they were just bored and nodded off? Critics felt jaded by the "bloody same" plot played out again and, despite the hoopla, it actually made less money at the box office than its predecessor.

Feeling Saw

Not surprisingly, the film arrives on DVD with yet more empty bluster. It's billed as an extended cut, but you'll be hard-pressed to spot the extra footage as it amounts to just under a minute of added gore. A small cluster of trivial featurettes and a surplus of commentaries pad out the bonus menu.

Writer/producer Leigh Whannell gives us brief insight into his creative process in The Traps Of Saw III. "You've gotta make yourself sick," he says, or no one else will be puking up in the aisles (and wouldn't that be a shame?). Production designer David Hackl echoes this, saying, "It's about making sure people are as grossed out as they can be." What they clearly fail to understand is that being 'grossed out' does not equate to 'being scared.' And frankly, director Darren Lynn Bousman is just kidding himself when he says, "It's the emotional aspects that interest me." That's before we get a rundown of the featured torture methods, eg the classroom trap where J LaRose is suspended by hooks through his skin...

Don't expect to see all the tricks of the trade revealed in The Props Of Saw III. Aside from a few loving close-ups of a prosthetic head (complete with pulsating brain), this featurette showcases boring special effects like puke made out of pea soup and water. Apparently porridge was a no-no because it has a tendency to form "clumps" in the mouth. Hardly groundbreaking stuff, is it? The so-called Director's Diary is even duller. Bousman tells us that behind-the-scenes cameras aren't permitted on the set during key set-pieces so this basically amounts to ten minutes of him wandering around between takes, or sitting in his car and moaning about how sleepy he is. Yeah, we feel your pain, Darren...

Zzzzz

Five-and-a-half minutes worth of deleted footage is brought to you in glorious snoozerama. Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) lies in a hospital bed being quietly menacing in one scene and there's a long drawn out version of the (poorly choreographed) fight between Lynn (Bahar Soomekh) and Amanda (Shawnee Smith) in another. A first meeting between Adam (Leigh Whannel) and Amanda is stunningly uneventful.

Bousman contributes to two commentaries; one with Whannell, which deals with concept and development, and the second including notes from the cinematographer and editor, which is more about execution (no pun intended). However, the truth is that there's a lot of repetition. For instance, Whannell ends up talking about the "green tinge" and "crazy style of editing" after briefly touching on the ways that the three films intersect. A third commentary with producers Oren Koules and Mark Burg is the least edifying. They try to encompass everything and ultimately, don't really say much at all.

EXTRA FEATURES

Saw III DVD is released on Monday 26th February 2007.