Ah, Halloween. The only time of year when people take leave of their senses enough to pay to watch a film about a woman getting her face exploded off by a collar made of shotgun shells – Saw III is top of the US weekend box office.
In fact, Saw III isn't just top of the US weekend box office; Saw III is top of the US weekend box office by a bloody mile, taking over $34 million. To put that in context, more people have paid to see Saw III in its opening weekend this year than Miami Vice, Failure To Launch and Little Man, proving conclusively that seeing a man using a circular saw to slice open someone else's throat in horrific detail is better than seeing Colin Farrell mumble on a speedboat, Sarah Jessica Parker lark around on a sailboat or a baby having sex with an adult woman. Who'd have guessed?
Thank goodness for Saw III – without movies where people have to rip chains through their skin, or rip lumps of frozen flesh from their face, or dip their hand into jars of acid, or snap their necks in harrowing contraptions, or get their faces covered in maggoty pig's blood, Halloween would just be yet another commercialised excused for a holiday. Here's the US weekend box office top five…
1 – Saw III (Saw III is the movie that answers all the questions raised by the first two Saw movies. Questions like "Why in God's name did I pay to see something as disgusting as this?" and "Is this the reason why I started wetting the bed again?") $34,300,000
2 – The Departed (If only The Departed contained a scene where Jack Nicholson's strap-on dildo was surgically implanted in Matt Damon's ribcage and he had to pull it out through his eyeball, maybe it would still be top of the US weekend box office) $9,840,000
3 – The Prestige (If only The Prestige contained a scene where Christian Bale's skin was hooked up under a giant razor-sharp owl that shat acid and broken glass into his eyes, maybe it would still be top of the US weekend box office) $9,626,000
4 – Flags Of Our Fathers (If only Flags Of Our Fathers contained a scene where the soldiers of Iwo Jima had to hoist a flag made of rotating rusty lawnmower blades that were somehow implanted through all of their shins up a hill comprised of frozen acid with sharks swimming it or else all the skin would fall off their faces, maybe it would have been top of the US weekend box office) $6,360,000
5 – Open Season (If only Open Season contained a scene where a man tries to knife a bear, only for the bear to knock the man unconscious with a golf club and then tie him up with a gun, maybe it… what's that? It does?) $6,100,000
Read more:
US Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo
[story by Stuart Heritage]