The sixth instalment of the Saw franchise begins with a little game of who can lose the most. Of course in the Saw context, it’s a particularly fiendish contest where the person that can cut off the most flesh from their bodies and drop it on a scale before losing a critical amount of blood wins… their life, that is. It’s worth noting that after five previous consecutive years of this kind of brutality, Saw just can’t make ‘em like they used to. Death traps that is. And as the guy shaves fat from his rotund mid-section and the woman tries valiantly to lob her own arm off with a meat cleaver, you begin to realize just how dull this horror franchise has become.

Case in the point, the film’s reliance on faces of Saws gone by. Returning as if they were never killed off three movies ago in the first place are Tobin Bell as John Kramer and Shawnee Smith as Amanda. Seemingly intricate to the plot again, they appear in flashback as the new(er) Jigsaw, the not-so intrepid Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), runs what’s going to be Jigsaw’s final game, one last time. And because simply being a stark raving psycho isn’t good enough motivation to be a movie serial killer anymore, we get another layer to John Kramer’s motivation in becoming Jigsaw to begin with. Yet I’m still forced to wonder: how does a guy dying of cancer have the time and foresight to leave so many complicated plans and instructions on actions to be taken after his death?

It’s worth noting that this Saw gets political too. As US politicians and pundits debate the merits of healthcare reform, Saw VI takes things to the extreme. Kramer`s insurance company become the vessel for his cats paw’s vengeance and torment in this round. Or more specifically the company vice-president (Peter Outerbridge) that has a team of paper-pushers working overtime to find so-called lies people included or excluded in their applications. In anything-to-make-a-buck healthcare capitalism, these guys are the tops. Or the bottoms. Actually, make that the scum beneath the bottom. Of all the Jigsaw’s victims, taking these guys out makes a lot of sense. And there’s the rub, wasn’t Jigsaw about making people appreciate their lives and not petty revenge?

I’ve got to say though, at this point I doubt even the filmmakers know what they’re doing anymore. The Saw movies are almost paint-by-numbers versions of themselves, a laundry list of assorted blood-lettings, tortures and dismemberments which all lead to some kind of twisted ending where Jigsaw’s (whoever he may be) true intentions are revealed. But six movies have dulled the edge, and although the deaths are more elaborate, the gross out factor that is torture porn’s signature seems horribly diminished. Only one scene truly gets your gross out, and telling you about would ruin the ending. So you have to sit through the games and the machinations of the weirdly squirrelly beefcake Hoffman to see the money.

Plus, the ongoing presumption that with this sixth film we’ve reached some kind finality is a pointless marketing gag because the astute internet observers know that Saw VII is in pre-production to unleash 3-D horror on us next year. A few months ago, the fourth Final Destination movie was released in 3-D to highly limited success. Why? Because it was a cold remake of the first three films, just in 3-D, as if we’re supposed to get excited about that. On the plus side though, it’ll give us something new to chew on rather than the ongoing “finality” of this series that somehow keeps going after all the major characters are killed off. So chill out and drop in Halloween 2010 for Jigsaw’s final, final, final game.