We Saw it coming...

If there’s one thing that horror movies have taught us, it’s that you can’t keep a good maniac down.

For most people, being dead generally has a negative effect on productivity. But for movie killers like the Saw franchise’s Jigsaw, it’s a veritable boon.

Despite kicking the bucket at the end of round three, the puzzle-loving sadist is back to conduct the fun and grisly games in Saw V while exerting a bone-splintering grip on the Halloween box office.

“You won’t believe how it ends” goes the tagline. Given the preposterous denouements of its predecessors, this is probably true. But substitute “that” for “how” and the line applies to virtually every horror sequel made in the last thirty years.

Ever since Michael Myers was tall enough to reach the cutlery drawer, the first horny teenager pitched up at Lake Crystal and the good folks of Elm Street decided to torch the local kiddie botherer, Hollywood has made a mountain of blood money from the ongoing exploits of its most murderous fiends.

(Un)dead or alive, bogeymen are big business. And good luck to everyone fighting the war on knives, because the most successful have wielded their blades so effectively that they are now considered cultural anti-heroes.

But alongside the traditional butchers, we’ve been serially stalked by zombies, leprechauns, dolls, trolls, sharks, motel clerks, hills with eyes, hellraising Cenobites, children of the corn, and the candyman.

Jeepers creepers, even the son of Satan kept the revelations going for four movies.

As illustrated by the sad cinematic demise of the latter, the problem with horror franchises is that the longer they go on, the less scary they become.

What we fear most is the unknown, but as soon as you see a numeral after a title, you know exactly what to expect.

Freddy, Jason and Michael turn teens into mincemeat. Pinhead tears sinners apart with hooks and chains. Chucky bites yer bum.

Scientists are still trying to discover how George Romero’s shuffling zombies manage to catch able-bodied humans, but at least his ‘Dead’ movies deliver savagery with a satirical bite.

And while the Final Destination series sticks to the same template (Death plays catch-up with the survivors of a horrible accident), it consistently comes up with nastily inventive ways to shuffle its victims off this mortal coil.

As does Saw, though without any perceivable irony. For all their fiendish twists, Jigsaw’s morally questionable and medievally cruel games are simply the 21st century equivalent of gladiator-versus-slave contests and public beheadings.

But dead or alive, Jigsaw looks like he’ll be around for a while yet. Other cinematic death-dealers are not so lucky. Some die of sheer stupidity.

Take the slashtastic fisherman of I Know What You Did Last Summer. He must have been gutted when some genius titled the sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (like he'd forgotten) and the third Jennifer Love Hewitt-less instalment I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (like he'd know what they did every summer)?

Still… as our gallery of grotesques illustrates – and as long as our bloodlust goes unsated - horror franchises will never die. They’ll just make a killing on DVD.

Elliott Noble