Saw has got to be the most creatively bankrupt horror franchise still going. Unfortunately, it's probably also the most profitable horror franchise still going, which means it's going to keep going, and going, and going...

According to the wisdom of the Internet, Lionsgate is planning to make Saw V and Saw VI. They'll be filmed back to back, and will be directed by David Hackl, the guy who was the production designer on Saw II, Saw III and Saw IV. (But the good news is, there might not be a new Saw movie out in 2008.)

My attitude towards the Saw movies is a bit hypocritical, since despite being completely baffled by the box office success of these monstrosities, I've actually seen them all. In cinemas. Saw III was going to be the absolute last one I bothered with, but I loved Feast, and the guys who wrote that also penned Saw IV, which means I'll (reluctantly) give it a go. But we already know I'll watch any old shite - why does the rest of the world bother? Figuring out why Lionsgate keeps making them is easy; they're cheap and they make money. But figuring out why they make money, that's the hard part.

It's not like there's anything remotely original about them any more. The first one, sure, was a bit different, it was at the beginning of the torture movie trend (possibly actually caused that, but it can't be blamed for tapping into a cultural phenomenon) and there was a spark of originality in it. Plus it was kind of scary. But Saw II was bollocks and Saw III was approximately 90% flashback, and ended with the two serial killers seeming for all the world to have been killed off. Death might not have stopped Freddy Kruger, but... wouldn't you expect it to have stopped Jigsaw? And since there were no ideas left in Saw III, how the hell can there be enough juice left in this franchise for ANOTHER THREE MOVIES TO GET MADE? I can't get over that. I just can't.

I'd make up a nonsensical list of stupid ideas for more Saw movies - Jigsaw in space! People drowned in vats of custard! 100% flashback! Idiot movie producers being forced to actually watch the nonsense they've created! - but I'm a bit wary about doing that. Because ... well, did you know that some of the ideas for torture scenes in Saw III were contributed by Internet forum users? Seriously.

Think about that for a second.

Yeah, so putting nutty ideas on the Internet suddenly seems like a bad plan, because they might actually end up in the film. James Wan and Leigh Whannell did, after all, create Dead Silence, a film so disjointed and stupid it might as well have been written by committee. A committee that was playing that children's game where you write a sentence on a piece of paper, then fold it over and hand it on to someone else to write the next bit, without knowing what you wrote. That's how bad that movie was, and they should be ashamed.

But I bet they're not. Just like I bet you're going to go and see Saw IV, aren't you? Yeah, I probably am, too. I might as well just shoot myself in the foot right now.

Official Saw IV website. Wahhhh.