As another October nears its end, yet another Saw movie makes its way into theaters.

If this was say, 2006, you might have given a shit. But the Junior Varsity Saw trilogy has more than succeeded in turning a halfway decent horror series into a punchline. Hey, I guess we all have to laugh sometime until another Scary Movie comes out, but at least that series has the decency to stop at 5.

Yes, the Saw series sucks now but I can’t bring myself to hate it because there’s something entertainingly interesting watching how awful the Saw franchise has become as the series tries and new and dim-witted ways to breathe life into itself. Saw has become the Muhammad Ali of Horror: You sorta feel sorry for it as it stumbles its way about like a retard, stuttering and stammering trying to recapture whatever scintilla of former greatness it ever had until you realize that it did it to itself, overstaying its welcome, not leaving when it was on top, and seeing it now only reminds of you of how far down it’s fallen.

You know, I could rewrite that to make more of a boxing parallel…but it’s a Saw review, so I’ll save rereading and revising for a review that matters. The nice and easy thing about writing these Saw reviews is that I can just pull up another review I wrote years ago and change about 3 words, like Mad Libs, because there’s nothing much different from one sequel to the next.

Anyway, it’s actually kinda fun to watch what the Saw producers will come up next to Shark Jump/ Fridge Nuke/Animal Cracker Across Liv Tyler’s Stomach some life into its comatose patient. Unlike most people who want it to end or who hadn’t realized there were that many Saw movies, I don’t advocate pulling the plug because they at least guarantees some laughs (and even more snoozes) during the Halloween Season.

Wait a second…there seems to be something in this garbage next to me…Let me pick it up…

Yes, it’s the napkin in which the writers and the directors of the Saw have plotted out the next several chapters.

Nope, I think these aren’t notes but actual scripts.

On the bottom of the napkin there’s also a way that YOU can be the director of the next Saw movie, as they seem to be taking Saw directors out of homeless shelters because no real directors will touch it anymore…

Roman Polanski was asked if he’d rather stay in prison or be given a full pardon. The condition of the pardon being that he had to direct a Saw movie. After about a moment’s worth of contemplation, Polanski answered by putting his handcuffs back on and tossing the Interviewer’s salad. He has apparently gone accustomed to prison life and its many colorful forms of barter. And this is a man who was in Rush Hour 3…

Lionsgate and the makers of Saw ask you to apply for the job of the “director” of the next Saw by just filling out an application at your local temp agency. They’ll call you in about 20 minutes. It really doesn’t matter if you have no directing experience or think that “blocking” is something an O line does for Adrian Peterson. Judging from Saw IV, V, and VI…you really don’t need experience or even basic competence. Don’t worry about working with actual actors, because post Danny Glover and Cary Elwes, Saw doesn’t have anymore of those. Hey, it pays at least $9 an hour, and judging by the production value of Saw VI, you can have all the Fortune Cookies you can eat while you work. Even if you try it and don’t like it, that’s okay too because after you direct a Saw movie you can rest assured of never, ever being taken seriously as a director.

This year’s loser of the pool is Kevin Gruebert, who was the editor for last year’s comatose Saw V. It was directed by David Hackl (perfectly named), who was the production designer for some of the previous Saws. If you are currently on the production team of any future Saws, you might want to quit now or else you might be forced to direct… Then your family will laugh at you if they even acknowledge your existence

Future installments of the Saw series include-

Saw IVVIXIV- Someone in the Saw series gets pregnant as usually happens when a series gets obsolete. We learn that Jigsaw’s new apprentice Candace (Heather Langenkamp) has been with child for 3 months. On top of all that we get a flashback episode with swirly screen recollection from the previous Saws. It’s cheaply produced because you already have existing footage which defrays the lack of actual box office.

Saw VIVIVIVIVIII- Jigsaw and his newest apprentice Ralph (Chace Crawford) take in a homeless black orphan named Lawrence (that kid from Role Models) and hilarious hijinx ensue as Jig and Ralph realize it’s not so easy taking care of a kid while trying to hold down day jobs torturing people in overly elaborate ways.

Saw XPMELS- Lawrence, the black homeless orphan kid (that kid from Role Models), gets killed in a drive-by cross fire in this Very Special Episode of Saw. Jigsaw and his new apprentice Bryce (Jon Heder) teach everybody about the dangers of gang warfare. Stay tuned for the moving closing Credits song dedicated to Lawrence, sung by Jig and Bryce called “Bullets can’t Kill my Love for You.”

Saw RNDMC- After torturing a high school teacher Mr. Snackwell (Wallace Shawn) from our nation’s Inner City, Jigsaw and his new apprentice Rocco (Seth Green) are compelled to take that teacher’s place while the district waits for Mr. Snackwell’s severed head to heal. Jigsaw teaches the Inner City minority kids about physics and machinery and they teach him to dance and how to wear a baseball cap sideways while his pants hang low.

While you eagerly await those, the most recent Saw opens…

…Right after the last one left off, with that ending advertised last years as “one you can’t believe,” but which turned out to be the most retarded one yet. Agent Strahm (some guy picked off the acting truck) is dead, while JV Jigsaw Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor, projecting Frank Stalloneish anti-charisma) is still around to be the real Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell, nice to see him earning a steady paycheck, but let’s hope he got paid up front instead of points off the back end because it’s embarrassing to try to cash a royalty check for 0.78) little Bitch. This time Jig’s got a “master plan” and it involves that box that his wife Jill (Betsy Russell- think Private School, think Topless) got near the end of Saw V. We really want to see what’s inside Jill’s box…

Within the folds of Jill’s box contains 6 manila envelopes bequeathed to her after Jig got cut up 3 movies ago. They are numbered 1 through 6 so the audience can follow. They contain people that Hoffman will torture in order to fulfill Jig’s will. Jig is like Tupac, in that even though he’s been dead for years, he still does more work dead than most people do alive. Sure, half of it now belongs to the second shitty Saw trilogy, but you take work when you can it.

One of those people is an actuary named William (Peter Outerbridge, whose last name is automatically more interesting than any of the characters in this movie), who had the audacity of denying Jigsaw an insurance claim when he was alive…

Don’t know why Jig’s so pissed, because I think anybody in insurance would deny him after looking at the grosses for Saw IV and V combined. It’s just good business.

Yes, this is how dismal and pathetic the Saw series has become: Jigsaw is actually torturing a guy because he’s in insurance. Meter maids better begin looking over their shoulders, along with those student loan people.

Anyway, Will the actuary has to run through a series of torturous games that you’ve seen in all the other Saw movies. Except this time, they’re not as good as it seems they’re using the rejects from the first 2 Saw movies because they’ve run out of decent ideas. All Hoffman has to do is press “Play” and have that constant look of constipation. I guess he’s suffering through his own kind of torture…

While we’re bored as shit just waiting for someone to get torn apart, we get to hear some eye-roll worthy bon mots like “Once you see death up close can you know what life is” and “Until a Person is faced with death it’s impossible to tell whether he has the will to survive.” Goody, not only are the Saw flicks deathly dull but they’ve also turned into MESSAGE movies with platitudes as empty as theaters in this movie’s second week of release. Odd how certain scenes in Where the Wild Things Are are scarier than anything in this or any of the previous 3 Saws.

In the next Saw you will hear such inspiring self-help lines like “In order to go left…you must make your way right” and “In order to go up, you must accept that you will go down.” You may have a moment to let the deepness of that sink in.

Will Will, make it through the Gorelympic Games without losing too many limbs? It’s Saw 6, does it matter? But rest assured, if he does die it’ll be in a manner that’ll prove just how stupid these characters are because all of them somehow got taken in and drugged by a guy wearing a horse’s head.

And what is Jigsaw’s master plan, and how does it involve the monotonous Detective Hoffman? It’s Saw 6, so you stopped caring about years ago. If you’re wondering why the theater you’re in is so barren, it’s because Paranormal Activity’s playing one screen down.

What works in this latest Saw failure-

1) Amanda (Shawnee Smith) returns from the dead and in a couple of scenes shows why Hoffman is such a pussy. It’s sad how the dead characters are infinitely more interesting that the live ones as this series limps along. Hell, bring back Donnie Wahlberg just because. Sure, he got his head mushed in IV, but I’m sure they could write some really idiotic way to bring him back. I mean, they got a whole 90 minutes of stupidity out of Saw V.

2) Saw 6 is an entrail-length better than Saw V. Which is kind of like saying you’d rather die getting gored by boars than botulism.

What doesn’t work-

1) If Tobin Bell is the Connery of the Jigsaws and Shawnee Smith is the Daniel Craig, then Costas Mandylor is the Timothy Dalton because he’s about as charismatic as Betamax. Did the casting call for another Jigsaw stipulate the most uninteresting actor possible, with the unique ability to add no inflection to line readings other than the fact that you can get the words out with what sounds like boxes of raisins in your mouth? It’s like being tortured by your High School Guidance counselor as you’re liable just to jump into the fence of razor blades just so he’ll stop boring you.

2) As the series snails on, the overused term torture porn seems more and more apropos because, like actual porn, no one sees these movies anymore for the “plot” or the “acting” (I think you need real actors for that), but for the splatter money shots involving the traps, which even in Saw’s very lax terms have gotten feebler as the series gets more and more flaccid. Soon we’ll be seeing shoelaces tied together or Chinese finger traps. Or someone will go to sleep and Jig will put their hand in warm water.

Only one trap really stands out, the one involving the merry-go-round (yes, you read that right, and yes, it’s as stupid as it sounds), not because it’s any great shakes as a trap but because it just gets more and more ridiculous as the minutes pass. I mean that in a good way. Good for a Saw movie anyway.

3) As you probably guessed, there is an opening for Saw 7. This applies to the 5 people that still care. If those 5 people see this movie twice, it will more than have covered the budget for Saw 6 because I think we’ve all seen Webisodes with better production value.

4) Derisively funny Saw prop- a switch is actually labeled “Live” and “Die.” You wish there was one labeled “Boring” and “Not Boring”, though the “Not Boring” switch might just get you back to the first Saw.

Overall. You know to skip this as the Saw producers know not to screen this for the mainstream press. Somebody you know will have a download in a couple of days so you can see what nobody’s been missing. But as Jigsaw might say “Only when you’ve seen the gory goodness of the first Saw can you be truly repelled by how awful these movies have become and just see Vampire Assistant like I did.” Heed the advice, and be grateful you have another year before you can ignore Saw 7…