For the Price characters the crimes are a matter of revenge. Phibes lost his wife on the operating table so he targets the doctors who were there. Lionheart is a Shakespearian actor who didn't win an award so he goes after the critics circle. (The pettiness of his motive is part of why the movie is great.) For Jigsaw I would argue that it's less personal. He's just showing off. He does go after a cop he says screwed him over, but most of his victims he just chose because he thinks their lives are empty and he can teach them lessons. This sanctimonious moralizing side makes him just seem like a prick, instead of a lovable prick like Phibes or Lionheart. I think he got that from Seven's John Doe.

Jigsaw and Phibes are both ailing. Well, Jigsaw was ailing, then he died. He used his frailty like jujitsu, throwing enemies off their game when they find out the guy tormenting them is this pathetic, dying old man. Phibes shows off more, wearing a mask over his burnt face and speaking through a tube. Both of them also play with dolls, Jigsaw sometimes speaking through a puppet, Phibes playing music with a life-sized animatronics' band called The Clockwork Wizards. Of the two, Phibes clearly chose the most legitimate form of artistic expression and the more impressive feat of engineering. Come on Jigsaw, puppetry? Why not magic tricks next time? Or prop comedy? Grow up.

All three killers have an air of superiority that, while not as bad as them being killers, is a pretty bad characteristic for a dude to have. They think they're better and smarter than everybody else and since their "games" are so hard to beat they might be right about that second one, and that makes it all the more infuriating.

But the Price characters seem like they're having more fun with it. They're amused with themselves. Jigsaw, and the Saw movies themselves, are deadly serious. Abominable Dr. Phibes and Theatre of Blood invite you to laugh and to root for the killers. Part of the difference is in the class of their victims. Jigsaw goes largely after the poor and working class: cops, junkies, petty criminals. One judge, I guess. Phibes and Lionheart go almost exclusively after the upper crust: doctors and theater critics, often rich, often with accents. You don't really feel horrified or put yourself in their shoes like with a normal horror movie. You actually laugh at their fear sometimes.

So you'd think the Price movies should be much more offensive to our sensibilities than the Saw movies, but they're not. They're way more enjoyable, and nobody cares that they're cruel and sadistic. Only new horror movies are a threat to the fabric of society. Once they're more than 10 or 15 years old they get grandfathered into American acceptability.

Acceptable or not, I recommend Jigsaw and his heirs study the Price movies and learn how to loosen up a little. Where's the fun in a horror movie where the killer's not only killing and torturing, but he's always trying to bum everybody out? To me Jigsaw was at his best when he was most absurd: in Saw III he made a woman use power tools to do brain surgery on him, while wearing a hilariously oversized explosive collar set to go off if his heart rate stopped. That's a scheme that would make Phibes and Lionheart high-five each other, and nobody even had to get hurt.

Think about it, pig mask lady. With Jigsaw dead you got a whole new regime there, you might as well make some changes. Three Halloweens from now do you still want to be doing the same sequel over and over, with the messed-up traps and the twist ending with the montage lifted from The Usual Suspects? Or do you want to be doing Bride of Chucky? I think you know what to do. Thanks pig mask lady.

*************
Vern is the author of the new book SEAGALOGY available here.

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