Saw This One Coming......

Well its October and everyone knows what that means. Thats right ladies and gentlemen, its Saw time (Saw IV to be exact). After its intial debut in 2004, the Saw movie franchise has been able to spin off three sequels with rumors of two more in the works.

It amazes me that even after Saw III the multiple industries funding these grotesque pictures continue to spill out money for them. Sure, the first Saw was great. It was a movie that wasn't only full of horror, but also played with your mind. Who knew that at the end the dude in the middle of the floor was the one actually running the show (I called it about 30 minutes into the flick, but I don't want to brag).

The problem with these movies is once you've seen one, you've SAW them all (ahahaha, I had to, it was just to easy). The Saw movies are famous for their huge twist at the end but face the problem of not reoccuring the same climax in each film. The original movie was so great because you didn't expect the major twist at the end. Now when people watch the movies not only are the expecting it, but they are searching for it (who didn't notice that Amanda was the only one not coughing blood in Saw II? Maybe I'm just a smart little detective like that).

The coolest thing about these movies is something many people might not know. Each year Saw teams up with The American Red Cross to sponsor a blood drive. This event in turn has raised over 38,000 pints of blood that has helped to save over 112,500 lives. This event has seen a positive increase each year, going from collecting only 4,200 pints in 2004 to 23,493 in 2006. With the numbers jumping up substantially each year, both the American Red Cross and Saw expect to reach record numbers once again.

Although the American Red Cross is participating in the event with the movies they have attempted to withdraw public knowledge of it. This first occured when the Saw III Blood Drive posters were realased showing gothic nurses with packets of blood. The Red Cross apparently didn't want people to associate them with sexy, scary nurses, so they asked that the Red Cross symbol be withdrawn from all poster ads. You can see examples of both below.


The advertisement on the left is the remodeled version of the Saw III Blood Drives. As you can see, the Red Cross symbol had to be cropped out. Photographs for every years campaign have been snapped by Liongate's Palen. Also watch the tube for PSA featuring Tobin Bell, better known as Jigsaw, advertising the events.