Saw IV Rips Scalp Off Weekend Box Office

"If it's Halloween it must be Saw" goes the trailer for top weekend box office movie Saw IV, a phrase which was presumably shortened down from "If it's Halloween it must be another rubbish Saw sequel that we'll keep chucking out forever."

Because, despite being exactly the same as all the other Saw films right down to the annoying music and plot that makes no sense whatsoever, Saw IV is the highest-earning weekend box office movie for weeks. We're just guessing here, but we'd imagine that 50% of those who watched Saw IV saw it because they want to see the needlessly elaborate death traps and the other 50% were hoping that Saw IV would answer some of the lingering questions left from previous instalments. Questions like "What's going on?", "No, seriously, I don't understand this at all. What's going on?" and "Did I really pay money to see this nonsense again?"

In what's becoming a depressing inevitability, Saw IV has become the newest US weekend box office number one, making Saw one of the most lucrative movie franchises around. And now it's hoped that - following four successful, if increasingly cannibalistic, movies - Saw will copy Harry Potter expand into a multimedia merchandising opportunity. It'd be great - you could eat Saw confectionery that comes with a tiny rusty blade implanted in it, listen to a CD called Now That's What I Call Listening To That Awful Saw Theme-Tune Over And Over Again For 70-Something Minutes and go to a Saw theme park that trades exclusively in human misery. A bit like Alton Towers, really, except easier to get to. Here's this week's weekend box office top five…

1 - Saw IV (So that's hanging, eye-sewing, scalp-ripping, face-based knife impaling, ice-block head-crushing and deliberate eye-gouging. All things we'd do ahead of paying money to see Saw IV) $33,110,000

2 - Dan In Real Life (Steve Carrell falls in love with his brother's girlfriend and hilarity ensues. But not real hilarity, the sort of downbeat, bittersweet hilarity that wins people Oscars) $12,081,000

3 - 30 Days Of Night (30 Days Of Night effectively means 30 Days Of ITV Nightscreen. Oh, the humanity!) $6,700,000

4 - The Game Plan (Now just one short week away from being described in the hecklerspray US weekend box office top five as "blah blah blah blah blah blah") $6,257,000

5 - Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? (Shortened from its original title of Tyler Perry Presents Tyler Perry In A Tyler Perry Production Of Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married, Tyler Perry? Tell Me Why) $5,740,000

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Weekend Box Office - Box Office Mojo