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Kim Hollis: The Saw franchise will overtake Friday the 13th this week to become the most successful horror franchise of all-time. Why?

Brandon Scott: Sean and Eric were kind of on top of this a few questions back. The blending of realism, good marketing (love that skin mask on this year's poster), and unlike the Sopranos when it was on the air, a steady release pre-Halloween every year has kept this thing going. I have only seen the first one since I always figure once I have seen something once, what more to it is there really going to be? Especially in the case of a horror franchise like this. Now a Bones 2, that would be sweeeeet! Snoop as the devil or whatever he was in that? The comedy in and of itself should have warranted another film or two.

Max Braden: The old horror flicks featuring lumbering hatchet men just aren't enough to do it for today's kids. The Saw series elevated sadism to new heights and developed a villain with sophisticated methods. Add modern studio marketing, and you have yourself a cash cow.





Sean Collier: Well, you have to look at what the franchises had to work with. Friday the 13th needed the killer and the setting to stay the same (mostly - the less said about Jason Takes Manhattan, the better,) so the later films didn't have much to change, so lost audiences. The charm (charm? is that right?) of Nightmare on Elm Street wore off a couple films in. The Halloween series was so all over the place in terms of plot that it couldn't keep an audience. Saw's big advantage is its ability to keep throwing new stuff at you - the star of the series is the game, not the killer, and that keeps audiences coming back wonder what they'll try this time.

David Mumpower: Monosyllabic titles are where it's at in the 2000s. All kidding aside, it's a combination of box office ticket price inflation and a studio's willingness to release a product a year more than anything specific to Saw.

Kim Hollis: I do think that Saw offered something different upon its release "back in the day". Slasher films were old and tired, Saw films brought a fresh approach to scare tactics, and it worked for people due to its gore and legitimately scary situation. The horror genre needs something different every now and again. I'm sure in a few years we'll see some entirely new trend emerge that results as a reaction to the torture porn.

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