In 'Saw 3D,' the audience gets hurt the most

Can I look? Is it over? Not the gore, the acting! Please, God, make it stop!

After all these years the torture-obsessed "Saw" movies remain excruciating to watch, mostly because they're cheap, crude and unimaginative. If the filmmakers put even an ounce of energy into creating believable characters and hiring talented actors to play them, the movies might prompt a genuine shudder or two. Instead, they evoke a slight wrinkling of the nose, followed by an enormous yawn.

Last year's "Saw VI" showed signs of intelligent life by literally skewering the health-care industry, which was good for a few topical laughs. This year's gimmick is advertised right in the title of "Saw 3D." It flings some ketchup and sausage at you every now and then. It's worth a chuckle, though not nearly as funny as watching an HMO claims adjuster take a shotgun to the face. (I hope these movies aren't making me jaded.)

At any rate, "Saw 3D" is plotless and themeless, another incremental chapter in the story of the moralizing murderer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell); his wife, Jill (Betsy Russell); and the renegade Agent Hoffman (Costas Mandylor). The main victim this time is Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery), a self-help author whose bespoke dungeon will be scrawled with platitudes like "Define Your Problems." Rather randomly, Jigsaw also forces a racist to tear off his own skin - get it?

"Saw 3D" was reportedly the final episode in the franchise, but my hopes were dashed by the ending, which leaves room for another sequel. What are these people, sadists?