For those that care about such things, the trailer for Saw III,
which opens October 27, debuted at Comic-Con in San Diego today,
showing an unfortunate gentleman chained up and pierced through his
hands, feet and mouth, most likely not to celebrate his birthday. The clip will drop in theaters on August 4, in front of Lions Gate’s spelunking horror flick The Descent, and not a moment too soon according to the film’s star.

“I’m
looking forward to fans seeing this one, and learning more about Jigsaw
and his role as a mentor,” says Tobin Bell (left), who anchors  the Saw franchise as cancer-riddled, murderous mastermind John Kramer, better known as
Jigsaw. “He’s a civil engineer, a mechanical and architectural
engineer, and he comes from a scientific background,” says Bell of his
character. “He’s a philosopher. He’s interested in Gerte Hofstede, he’s
interested in Gandhi, he’s interested in Jesus, he’s interested in Shakespeare and the poets, and Hermann Hesse. He has a multiplicity of interests
and they dovetail into whatever his project is.” Great! So Saw III is a ruminative disquisition into the nature of reality and the study of the arts, then, right? Well, not quite…

“We’re talking about a scary movie here,”
notes Bell, “so it doesn’t have to be a philosophical tome. But I do
think it’s worthwhile to understand what things motivate and drive
Jigsaw.” Helping on that end is original writer Leigh Whannell, also
back for his third tour of duty with the franchise. “There’s no
question his continued presence” is a help, notes Bell. “Leigh has a
very consistent voice when it comes to the mechanics of how the Saw films work, and that’s a very reassuring thing to have because people like
when things connect and recur. They want to be surprised but they
always like it when there’s some continuity too.”