Just in time for Halloween, Saw 3D is hitting our screens. For supposedly (hopefully) the last instalment of the Saw saga, director Kevin Kreutert brings us what promises to be a goretastic Halloween treat.

If you were left frustrated at the incomplete nature of the first six films, by popular public request the film’s production team spend the ninety minutes of running time of Saw 3D tying up any loose ends. The main story line for the film is set around an urban shopping area where a crowd of people gather around a storefront window to find two men, Ryan and Brad, tied to a worktable, each with a saw in front of them and their lover, Dina, suspended above. As she is being lowered onto another saw, each of the men must choose to either kill the other in order to save her, or allow her to die, resulting in their freedom. Meanwhile, survivors from Jigsaw’s previous traps gather to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen.

And if the promise of a expertly shot ‘saw-off’ doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps the prospect of a cameo from a mediocre celebrity? Linkin Park fans the world over will be queuing up to see their main man, Chester Bennington, take up his minor role in the film (some might use the word ‘extra’). On interview, Chester confessed, “It was actually a little more difficult than I expected because it took a lot for me to figure out how to portray this guy and what exactly his motives were going to be throughout. I thought maybe I was overthinking it, and I met with this really great acting coach who helped me walk through and make sense of the ‘motivation’…..”
It will be interesting to see how 3D imaging works for Saw: whether it serves to exaggerate or lessen the thrill. Much of the $17 million budget (the film was the most expensive Saw film yet) went on special camera equipment and 3D compatible props. One of the film’s producers, Marcus Dunstan, commented, “[3D] adds a whole new layer of discipline and criteria to creating these moments. Before, we had a very flat surface to try to get a reaction from [the audience]. Now, we get to push out a bit and envelop the viewer’. He later added that another reason for going 3D was ‘so that you can, per se, see blood coming directly at you’. Brilliant.

The Proposition

The technique of ‘found footage’ is far from a novelty in horror cinema. Long before The Blair Witch Project (1999), audiences were being terrified by Cannibal Holocaust (1980), a film so dedicated to its premise of being factual that the director was arrested on suspicion of having killed his actors. But that was thirty years ago, and audiences have since become far savvier about exactly what is real. With this in mind, it is impressive that with 2009’s Paranormal Activity, director Oren Peli managed at least to raise the possibility that what the audience was seeing might be genuine. However, with this hurried and repetitious sequel, the minds behind Paranormal Activity 2 seem to have done their utmost to dispel any lingering sense of terror.

The plot centres on the Rey family, whose step-mother, Kristie, is the sister of Katie from the original. It opens with the parents bringing their new baby, Hunter, back from the hospital, and it is at this point that things take a turn for the spooky. Yet from the very first night in the house – helpfully signposted as ‘Night 1’ – events take a predictable and increasingly boring turn. An indispensible weapon in the arsenal of any great horror film is the gradual build-up of tension, as well as strongly established location and characters, yet here, the cameras manage to establish the physical layout and nothing more. It is a bland location utterly lacking any discernable identity, a far cry from the iconic house of The Amityville Horror (1979). Worse still, the characters themselves lack any depth whatsoever, instead being reduced to stereotypes that fail to elicit any sympathy from the audience.

Even without depth or strong characterisation, it is still possible to make an effectively frightening horror film, but this possibility seems to have escaped director Tod Williams. The first half hour seems to gesture towards developing the characters and building tension, but it achieves neither, instead eliciting only boredom from the audience.

Yet even once the film gets going, things hardly improve; each scare is reduced to a loud noise intended to make the audience jump, a cheap and utterly superficial tactic. It also swiftly becomes dull – once you’ve seen a door slam several times, it quickly begins to lose its ominous significance. The gradual development of the spooky goings-on in the house is also achingly predictable, getting bigger and, inevitably, less effective as the film develops; they progress from the familiar creepiness of vague noises to a laughable repetition of the first film, with a woman being dragged around the house by an invisible force.

Much of the first film’s strength lay in its coherent execution of the ‘found footage’ technique, yet here, as Williams strains to maintain a sense of realism – who records their banal phone conversations and most intimate moments and arguments with a camcorder? – it becomes clear that Paranormal Activity 2 is a monotonous failure on almost every level. It is a witless, hurried and painfully predictable mess, and worth avoiding at all costs.

Ben Kirby

The Opposition

Ben is right. The technique of ‘found footage’ is far from original. It is, however, far from an exhausted genre. While CGI slowly overmasters virtual blood and guts, the simple hand-held camera approach refreshes the thriller film industry. More importantly, though, this style of ‘back to basics’ filmmaking can be far cleverer than any technology could ever be.

The film’s director, Tod Williams, is acutely aware of how to exploit an audience’s potential sensitivities: the cinematic equivalent of rocket-science. Paranormal Activity 2 does just this. The phenomena in the film take place largely at night, tapping into one’s most vulnerable state of being asleep.

The film is based on extensive research into paranormal phenomena and demonology, concluding that ‘demons’ are perceived as the most malevolent and violent entities. The actors themselves are not given a script, instead just the basic outline of the story – a process known as ‘retroscripting’. Their performances are, as a result, raw reactions to the scenes set up by the director: Williams had rightly observed that genuine fear is something that cannot be scripted.

In terms of the characters, they deliver: the audience is lulled into tentative comfort by Hunter’s warm baby gurgles and Kristie’s soft temperament. The audience’s heavy investment in the characters is abused night after night as the strange goings-on unnerve and terrorise them.

As Kirby astutely observes, Williams dedicates an hour of reel to atmospheric build up, creating an almost nauseating tension. The low and persistent buzzing of the camera is very quickly associated with impending, inescapable fear. The documentation of their experience through the use of ‘Night #1’, and so on, intensifies the unbearable anticipation of the inevitable: a count-down, if you will.
Even the harrowing ending is slow-paced, drawn out and overwrought: a comforting sign that Williams resisted the popular temptation of taking ‘gore’ and running with it. Paranormal Activity is clever, structured, meticulously timed and, without a lurking shadow of a doubt, bloody scary.

Evie Deavall

For a play performed on a badminton court, this production boasts some serious firepower. Conceived in the fertile theatrical breeding-grounds of St Catz, The Graduate brings a cast of established actors and outstanding debutantes to one of the most artfully awkward scripts in cinema. Add a live soundtrack from Oxford indie band Spring Offensive and a publicity campaign managed by media juggernaut Marta Szczerba, and you have a potent mixture on your hands. A mixture that might just blow up in your face.

Luckily, most of the explosive force is directed at the audience. Directors David Ralf and Holly Harris have borrowed extensively from the 1967 film, and as a result this play brings much of the tension of the original to the stage. The script may have been ‘silently modernised,’ as the directors put it, but the plot and the feel are still very much of the sixties.

Benjamin is an immaculately accomplished student who returns home for the summer after graduating. He finds himself catatonic with boredom. Surrounded by braying models of the American Dream – ‘let me say just one word to you, Ben my boy… plastics’ – he struggles against his own all-American heroism and rebels without purpose, without energy, and without direction.

He is easy meat for Mrs Robinson, the lithe cougar wife of a friend of his father’s, and the two embark on what might just be the most infamously graceless affair in cinematic history. ‘You are the most attractive of all my parents’ friends. You are more than adequately desirable,’ etc. Things get more complicated. Benjamin is compelled to date Mrs Robinson’s daughter Elaine, and in spite of a false start in a strip joint they hit it off. Cue the inevitable round of discoveries, and then a wildly unpredictable race across America.
This production delights in subverting your expectations. Ralf has mastered the art of making it very clear that a cringe moment is approaching, and then delaying and delaying it until you’ve ground away what little remains of your tooth enamel. Benjamin is played with a wild charisma by Jeremy Neumark Jones, who adds an assertiveness that was missing in the film.

Opposite him, Erica Conway shines on her Oxford debut as a very British Mrs Robinson, in spite of the comedy Californian twang. Understated and distrait, she manages to give the impression that she is completely in control although her mind might be temporarily absent somewhere out beyond the asteroid belt. She doesn’t quite own the space as much as she might, but her character is both inscrutable and utterly convincing.

The rest of the cast are drawn in bold stereotypes. Felix Legge plays Mrs Robinson’s avuncular husband to a tee, while Rebecca Adams makes her Elaine even more girlish than the Elaine of the film. There are no real weak links here. The production puts its limited space to good use, although it is more than a little disconcerting to see the inactive actors flopping vacantly against the walls like discarded puppets. Dare I say this feels pointless?
But while you can fight this play’s charm – and plenty will – you won’t win. Just lie back and let this slick production seduce you. Enjoy the ride.

In tackling Edmond Rostand’s iconic play, first staged in 1897, SF Productions have pulled out all of the stops in sprucing up Cyrano ‘that old chestnut’ De Bergerac in their dynamic and engaging adaptation, jazzing up the original script with Derek Mahon’s 2004 translation. Five actors tackle a staggering sixty roles, chopping and changing between aged peasant, self-parodic thesp, love interest and villain faster than you can say Jack Robinson. The versatility of the talented cast is thoroughly watchable, and just as well too – don’t take your eyes off of the stage for one moment, and keep your wits about you as an audience member… You snooze, you lose the plot in this dizzyingly fast-paced production.

Wisely sticking close to the wonderful original story, the choice of modern day vernacular lingo revitalises the bubbling humour central to Cyrano’s success, with a classy touch of twentieth century va va voom. The comedy of the play is enhanced by some slick and inventive choreography directed by Sarah Perry: the cast embrace the chance to stretch their physicality claws, slipping from atmospheric tableau in choral synchronicity to humorous routines with glee.

As the frenetic energy of multi-characterised, busy scenes can begin to grate, however, nuanced and emotionally honest performances, in particular from Joe Eyre as Cyrano and Anna Maguire as Ragueneau, are well-placed and well delivered. Eyre’s Cyrano blends a cheeky humour with emotional poignancy, physicalised with stage-filling enthusiasm.

Playing with the idea of ‘an obvious theatricality, and a reality created through pretence and play’, the simple design lays the burden of generating the sparkle squarely on the shoulders of the cast, as they engage only with the most evocative and symbolic of props. The simple costume seeks to distinguish the parade of make-believe characters who people world of the play as separate from the five principal characters, humanized and emotionally-driven.

Staged in the intimate Burton Taylor studio, the audience may well be overwhelmed by the density and flamboyance of Cyrano De Bergerac: one feels very much a spectator, and in need of a little more connection and inclusion, especially in the quieter scenes of emotional potency, to really enjoy the show. The promise of a sombre second half will, one hopes, balance well with the frivolities of the first.

With the stellar structure of a favourite story though, a confident cast and a thoroughly thought-out agenda of metatheatre mingled with irreverent fun, I don’t have a doubt that Cyrano De Bergerac knose perfectly well, and rightly so, that it’s worth far more than a scratch.