JIGSAW PHENOMENON

Saw IV is another masterpiece.

Without getting into a discussion about its merits, there's a curious phenomenon developing here which one can't fail to notice upon visiting imdb.

Saw IV is an anomaly amongst the mainstream (if we can call it such) in that it demands a hell of a lot of work from you; not just the film itself, but the implicit presupposition of your total familiarity with the other three (if not the short). It's the type of referenced complexity usually only found in literature. To be so punishingly exacting, to me, is a pleasure in itself in an era when most movies still treat us like lobotomised imbeciles with constant scripted prompts, unnecessary repetition in the narrative, not to mention the clichéd musical emotional cues.

Therefore, I visited its imdb page to get my head around some of the dense new plotlines and was astonished to see the number of board postings. Hundreds of pages each containing dozens, in addition to each containing comments therein. In merely three days. To put that into perspective, the iconic Star Wars and The Godfather have eleven and twelve pages respectively.

Further to this veritable supernova of artistic feedback (which I highly value), you'll at once see how extremely polarised it is in terms of verdict (which I also highly value). So whatever your own view is, in addition to capturing people's imaginations like nothing else in recent memory, it's apparent we're split into two very clear camps. Trick or treat.