The Puzzle of Jigsaw

I believe that any Idea could be made into a great Story. Not just "kind of good", and not just "technically a story, by some definitions", but something truly great, which can excite, intrigue or amaze.
For some stories, this is easier than others, as some ideas have a great deal more potential than others, and for others it would require a very talented writer to make it work.

I am saying all of this right at the beginning because I want to say that I don't think that the concept of writing yet another Saw movie was necessarily going to suck. I do believe that it is a "bad idea", in the sense that there is a lot of risk involved, especially in a series which has already come to a slow, painful conclusion.
But, as much as I never wanted another Saw movie, the reason I inevitably watched Jigsaw (I mean, the other reason, not just "so I could blog about it"), is because I felt like, if it was done right, they could reboot the series to recapture the style and intrigue of Saw, whilst telling a great story.

So, the idea behind Jigsaw could be have been a great movie. However, one of the reasons I know this for a fact is because the best way to turn it into a great movie already exists, and that movie is called Saw II.

Several people, locked in a building both owned and engineered by a famous serial killer, with personalized traps for each player, with specific rules of play and the promise of freedom for those who successfully complete their game, whilst the police in the adjacent storyline are piecing together evidence and trying to find out where the game is taking place - all the while not realizing that the actual killer is toying with them - and in the end, the twist is that the killer wasn't working alone.

Yeah . . . that's Saw II, and that's also the exact storyline of Jigsaw. The traps are different, because . . . "duh", a staple of this series is having new and different traps each time. Otherwise, this is that same idea but done much, much worse. And maybe you disagree that Saw II is "a great movie", but it's definitely a greater movie than Jigsaw.

But, the reason it sucked isn't just because the idea is unoriginal - a lot of ideas are unoriginal. Making a sandwich is not an original idea, that doesn't mean that you can't make an amazing sandwich.
It ruins this movie because using the exact same idea in the same movie series gets old much faster. In fact, that twist I talked about has already been done three times before. This is the fourth time they've used that "twist", in a movie that is now eight movies long, half of them now have had the exact same twist ending.

The second major reason why this sucked is because rather than rebooting this series, and trying to recapture the greatness of the first few films, instead this movie just picked up right where it left off, warts and all.
So, instead of writing great characters, and basing traps off of the ironic way in which the trap is going to test them, it just creates random traps for random people that will hurt or kill them in the most spectacular way possible. So, yes, this is yet more torture porn, without any of the psychological aspects previously explored in the first few movies. But, rather than create believable people with believable flaws, we have yet more "Acceptable Targets" for our killer to eviscerate.

But, this film added a third aspect which totally destroyed the fun for me, and that aspect is science-fiction. A major flaw in the Saw franchise is the foresight of the Jigsaw killer, because in several of the movies he creates traps with multiple stages, as well as complex mind-games, many of which rely upon the killer knowing the outcome of the trap beforehand. This is present in several of the movies, and this one as well, but in this one it's even worse - one of the later traps relies on there being only two people left to take part in it - which means that he had to know for a fact that right people would survive twice, in order for the trap to work. So, we know that the killer must be psychic, that's the only explanation.
But, that aside, several of the new traps in this series work by magic. The film doesn't say that it's magic, but some traps would be impossible otherwise. In several of the traps, the only way to free yourself is by doing as you're told - spilling your blood, or stabbing yourself. However, once the characters cut themselves, their locks magically come undone. They don't "find a key", "activate a mechanism", the locks just snap open, because the plot needed them to.
In one scene, a character needs to reach between some incredibly sharp wires to retrieve something, but when he attempts to use a long stick to do so, the trap is triggered and snaps it in half. Yet, when he reaches in with his hand, it doesn't trigger, and he retrieves it safely.
And worst of all . . . and it always annoys me when films do this. The filmmakers seem to have forgotten that medical laser beams don't exist, sure, we have technology which suggests that it may be possible in the future, maybe a few decades down the track, but as it stands it's currently impossible. The same thing happened for the creators of Now You See Me, when they somehow "forgot" that hyper-realistic, three-dimensional holograms don't exist. And the film doesn't even need it. Remember how I mentioned that scene, where a character nearly gets his hand cut by sharp wires? You could recreate the effect with the laser cutters just by using the super-sharp wires from that trap.
Oh, and did I mention that some of the traps are inescapable? Because, yes, more of the traps are inescapable, making them completely pointless as any kind of "test". So much of this film could have been better with some minor tweaks . . .

And this film kept on doing that. It had some ideas that were really cool, but then rendered them lame by the way that it was executed. Usually, the people who are in these traps are chosen because they are "wasting their life" in some way; in earlier Saw movies, people were chosen for things like: cheating on their wife; drug addiction; lying; self-harm; insurance fraud; self-destruction due to grief; obsession with work & kidnapping.
This film begins by hinting at the concept that, maybe, this is still the case. One person was a thief, one person was a dishonest businessman, one was a drunk . . . but throughout the film, we learn that every single person is a killer - by directly or indirectly leading to the death of an innocent person. That's NOT good storytelling!
As well as this, there was a trap which I actually thought was kind of interesting. These films have frozen, burned, cut, drowned, melted, crushed & eviscerated people before, but I think that this was the first one threatening to bury someone alive. Sure, the mechanism for escape is contrived and not well done, but at least it was new . . . but, this film ruins it by stopping half-way through the trap to throw knives at them. WHY?! You finally came up with an original idea, something I hadn't seen before, and you stop so that you can go back to throwing sharp things?
Oh, and the part of this film that bothered me the most - even though it wasn't the worst thing, it was present through the whole movie - everything was too clean. The first trap has shiny, metal walls. The sharp wire trap I mentioned before looked like it had been polished. The scene where the characters are being buried alive, had them being buried by clean, pure, fresh-looking grain. Even the set-piece trap of the film, the trap that they were clearly the most proud of - the spiralizer - looked like it had been painted.
Have none of the set designers or prop masters in this industry ever heard of "ambience"? Personally, I thought that part of the reason why the Jigsaw killer liked setting his traps in dingy factories, run-down houses and dark rooms is because he saw these tests as punishments, he wanted to bring them to the darkest, lowest point in their life, so that they could return to the world and see how bright it is. But, either way, the reality is that these films are set in grimy, dark, broken and run-down places is because these are horror movies, and places like that evoke an atmosphere of isolation, sickness, crime, danger and mystery. When you sweep the floors, polish the set and turn up the lights, your movie doesn't feel like a Saw movie.
And that's why this film fails so miserably. Yes, it has some of the minor thematic elements like the Billy puppet, the tapes, the traps, the twist . . . but, this feels like the cheap knock-off that it is. I mean, I say "cheap", even though the budget was bigger than the first two Saw movies combined (and remember, those were the best of the series), but that's because I'm talking more about what it's worth, not what it cost.

But, I'm not just here to be negative. After all, I don't think this film is as bad as the last Saw movie. I think this is about the same level as "Saw V" - not the worst, but still not good enough to recommend others see it.
So, rather than continue complaining and deconstructing the film, I'm going to do something constructive. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I honestly believe that you can turn any idea into a great movie - yes, even the idea of "let's continue the Saw franchise". So, let's keep the same title, same basic idea of people scared that Jigsaw is still alive & I'll even keep the characters similar, and borrow some of the ideas, just for fun. So, here is . . .

THE AWN'S STORY OUTLINE FOR A BETTER JIGSAW MOVIE

So, here is how I would do my movie. One of the aspects that this film brought up is the idea of "Jigsaw Worship Sites". So, what if we start the film with someone trapped in a dark room, tied to a chair in someone's garage. He starts screaming, the light comes on, and and in front of them is a man wearing a black hood with red highlights (Saw's usual get-up). The person then plays the tape, in Jigsaw's voice, and it says the usual spiel "I'd like the play a game. you are a terrible person, because you slept with my wife. You have two minutes to admit the truth, or you will burn."
Then as the trapped man protests, the guy in the hood pours gasoline on him.
After less than a minute of this, the police burst in, and arrest the guy, releasing his victim. As they drag him away, he screams "I am Jigsaw! This is Game Over for you!" nonsense like that.

Then we can go title screen, or whatever. Then we go to the police as they interview this guy, he basically makes it clear that he's a whackjob. Meanwhile, in the observation room, our main police character people are talking about how despite the fact that he killed so many people and resulted in one of the greatest manhunts for the police department, ever since John Kramer died, there have been a number of attempted copycat killers like the new guy here. We can reference stuff like, people who worship school shooters and other realworld drama, and how five or so people have died now, because of these copy-cats.

We flick back to the interview, and we learn that the tape he used had John Kramer's voice on it. The copycat admits that he downloaded it from a worship site, it's basically a "text-to-speech" program that reads out any text in John Kramer's voice. The police check out this website, we can do some character development, then they see a link to someone saying "real jigsaw murder" or something, and they they discover a video livestream of what looks like a standing coffin in a small, empty pool, and then we can get to our traps.

The Coffin Trap
A coffin-shaped box, with wide slats so that the person inside can see out, and light gets through. Inside stands a woman with grey hair, not too old, but not young. Her left hand is bent up so that it's near her face, and held in place on the side of the "coffin" with three screws through the palm - each one held in place with a washer. Around her neck is a mechanized "lobotomy collar" (it is designed to slowly stab a skewer under her chin and up through her brain). As well, there is a tape recorder, hanging on a screw near her face, and a screw driver hangs on a chain above her, poking through the slats.
When she awakens, the tape explains that the woman, Carla, is homeless and a thief. [dialogue: "You have been living in a box, but tonight you might just die in one."]. When she grabs the screwdriver, it will pull the chain, opening the hopper and slowly burying the box with dirt.

The Tractor Trap
A man is tied by thick ropes to the seat of a heavily modified tractor, which has the seat turned and raised so that he is facing the large wheels, which have nails and staples all over them. There is also a noose around his neck on a very long rope, that loops down and ties to wind around the axel. He, like the other person has a special collar around his neck, the "crusher collar" (essentially, a sort of vice, with clamps either side of his jaw, designed to slowly close together, and crush his head). In the seat cushion, between his legs, a kitchen knife has been stabbed He awakens to the sound of the tractor when it suddenly starts up, and a loud speaker attached to the wall tells him his fate. The character, Mitch, is a mechanic who sold a bike with faulty brakes, [dialogue: "You will need to cut yourself free before you reach the end of your rope. But, I'm afraid this vehicle doesn't have any brakes either . . ."]. He is forced to use his feet to stop the spinning wheels, and then cut the rope.

The Drink Trap
A man awakens in a room with several smashed beer and wine bottles all over the ground, he has nothing but a thin t-shirt and shorts on, and his hands secured behind him with handcuffs, and on the floor near him is a tape recorder. He, also, has a collar on, the "knife collar" (A collar with several knives sitting up like teeth around the edge. They are designed to bend downwards over time, to stab into the neck). On one side of the room, at eye-level there is a tap, pouring dirty water into a sink at foot-level. On the other side of the room is a very thick, clear glass pipe, at least a metre tall, secured to the wall with thick, metal brackets - in this pipe is a key attached to a ping-pong ball.
When he finally plays the tape, Ryan is told that because he is an alcoholic, he needs to walk over the broken bottles to retrieve the key from the bottom of the glass [dialogue: "Will you be able to fill the glass with liquid, before the room fills with your blood?"] Ryan will be forced to use his mouth to hold the water. The first time he tries it, he should spit the water out, and gag, to show that it does taste gross.

The Smoke Trap
In this room, there is simply a woman lying on the floor, with a cast-iron fireplace burning away, and the pipe leaking smoke throughout the room; the room has one locked door, with a 6-figure combination lock. She also has a collar, the "noose collar" (this one is essentially a steel-wire noose, which is designed to slowly tighten over time). As well as the noose, a tape recorder hangs on a chain around her neck. Anna awakens, coughing, due to the smoke. Her tape says that she suffocated her child, and so now she must suffer through choking smoke in order to escape. It explains that the code to unlock the door is written on the walls (it is in relatively small writing), and she must find them and enter the numbers before she chokes on the smoke.
She at first tries to stop the chimney, and burns herself as a result.

The Finger Locks
Once these people all break free of their traps, they leave them and enter a long corridor. It simply has four doors along one side, where they enter the room from their respective traps, one table on one side which has a hammer, a chisel (and maybe some other sharp tools) all chained to the table, as well as one tape recorder. There is a door marked exit, which is very heavily reinforced, and locked with an electronic lock.
On the free, long wall, there are four devices. Basically clear boxes, so that they can see inside. Each is designed with four holes, each close together and wide enough to fit one finger of one hand. but some of the finger-holes aren't long enough to fit an entire finger, and at the end of each finger-hole is a button.
The tape explains that each one of them is wearing a collar, which is slowly killing them, but there are keys to remove them on the other side of the door. Since they have all been so selfish in their lives, they must work together to collectively sacrifice something in order to leave the room. So, they simply need to activate each finger-lock, by reaching their hands into the box, through the holes, and pressing the buttons, but they will need to remove portions of their fingers, in order to fit each lock, using the tools on the table [dialogue: "Like any lock, you will need a key that fits. Which is why I have given you the tools to create your own."].

I might also steal that Shotgun trap, since that was kind of clever. Since, in my head, the killer will be upset because, the way they escape the finger traps is that all but one of the people involved will cut off their fingers - in several gutwrenching scenes of people measuring the shape of their hand, and putting the chisel against their finger . . . then raising the hammer - but the final person will decide they're not going to cut off their fingers, after seeing how painful it was. So, the others . . . do it for them. This upsets the new Jigsaw, so they decide to force them into another trap.

Also, in the background, we will have the police tracing the signal, and trying to hunt down this place where the livestream is taking place. But, my thinking is - to hell with the reveal in the show. I want the Jigsaw Killer to be a female, this time. The last time he had a girl helper, she was killed off for being too emotional. That's total bull. So, have a mature woman who is a fan of his because her father was in one of Jigsaw's traps, and that changed her life.
I haven't planned out the full scope of this because, well, this is just for fun. You could easily throw in more references to copy-cat killers, and the like. But, the idea is basically the horror that Jigsaw isn't a person, but an idea - the idea of inflicting traumatic growth upon people who are wasting their lives. So, the cops aren't battling a person, but an idea. Kinda like V for Vendetta . . . actually that movie had him torture someone in order to force them to learn something too, so yeah, a lot like that movie. Also, this is kind of reminiscent towards Untraceable as well.
The thing is, I haven't got a big plan for the ending, however if you want to go full on twisty-twisty woo, and play around with the timeline, you could make the girl - the one who decides to carry out these new traps - Corbett Denlon. Don't worry, I didn't know that name either until I looked it up, but that's the name of the girl whose father, Jeff, was the main character in Saw III; she was captured by Jigsaw for the purposes of that trap, and later rescued by the police. What if her experiences then, lead to her deciding to continue the legacy, in the name of both Jigsaw and her parents? Does that sound like a cool idea? I think so.
But, this is just for the sake of continuity fun-times . . . not necessary at all, but could be a fun continuity nod for geeks, like myself, and it's a fun, little twist. Oh, and the most important part of all - no lasers!


Anyway, that's how I would have written Jigsaw . . . if I had to. Or, alternatively, if someone paid me a lot of money to. If you think it's good, bad, crazy or something in between, feel free to comment below.
I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, I'm going to take a break from the Saw franchise for a while. Because at this point, watching these movies is starting to really hurt.

The Wrong Hands - Part 2: Cold Hard Science

At approximately five o'clock in the morning, on July 16, 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Kenneth Bainbridge stood at the top of Compania Hill, wearing gloves, welding goggles and sunscreen. They were at the USAAF Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in the Jornada del Muerto desert, overseeing the first test of a Y-1561 implosion-type nuclear weapon with a solid plutonium core, as part of the Manhattan Project.
At precisely 5:29 am, the bomb (known simply as "The Gadget" exploded in a foul and awesome display, which appeared to glow brighter than the sun, in brilliant yellow, red, purple and white. At the sight of this, Oppenheimer was reminded of two separate verses from Chapter Eleven of the Bhagavad Gita, which he had translated from Sanskrit to mean:

"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. [Verse 12] I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. [Verse 32]"

As the light began to subside, Bainbridge turned to him and remarked:

"Now we are all sons of bitches . . ."

This is the power, the beauty and the horror of science. It is a tool that can achieve great things, and things which we, perhaps, considered impossible. I have talked about religion and science, and this was once seen as the collision of religion and science - men who attempt to usurp gods, by achieving power equivalent to that of a god.
Whilst I consider this notion regressive, the moral implication of this still lingers. When we have the power to reshape the world, literally, with the power of science and in the blink of an eye, the caution necessary to avoid chaotic consequences is of the utmost importance.

Today, I am presenting a list of five times that we failed to take that caution . . .

Before I begin, however, I am prefacing this by saying that I have excluded all human experiments conducted during World War 2. This is for two unfortunate reasons . . . first of all, if I were to do that, then practically every item on this list would be Nazi experiments. Secondly, this list is exactly five items long, but there are over 20 separate, torturous experiments which utilized unwilling human subjects just from two of the wartime research facilities that I investigated whilst researching this list. This is not a discovery which I take lightly, but for now I am leaving this particular stone unturned, so as to focus on some of the more international ways that science has tortured the innocent . . .

5. The Speech Therapy Monster Study
What? In 1939, the University of Iowa conducted a speech therapy research study, in an attempt to understand the phenomenon of stuttering in children, and the best way to treat it.
How? Johnson selected 22 children from local orphanages, some as young as five, and some as old as fifteen. 10 of them were specifically chosen because they were determined (by their tutors and orphanage guardians) to be stutterers, and the other 12 were selected randomly from the orphanage population. First, their I.Q. was tested, as was whether they were right-handed or left-handed. Then, each group was split into two groups. The stutterers were split into IA & IB, two groups of five each. The non-stutterers were split into IIA & IIB, two groups of six each.
Half of the stutterers were told that they spoke very well, and that despite people who critiqued their stuttering, it was merely a phase. The other half were told the truth, that their stuttering was quite noticeable and poor, and that they needed to work on it. Half of the non-stutterers were also told that they spoke very well, and were to be complimented on their enunciation. The other half were told that their speech was deteriorating quite noticeably, and that if they did not work to prevent it, then they would develop a stutter.
The reason this is considered the monster study is because it lead to worse grades, withdrawal, diminished social activity and - in many cases - silence from practically all of the children who were told that their speech was poor. Although this study only lasted for five or six months, not only is there evidence that several of the negatively-reinforced childrens' ability to speak "deteriorated significantly" as a result of the study; but also, several of the children involved were left with persistent negative psychological effects as a result of their treatment during the study.
Why? The purpose of the test was to determine whether positive or negative reinforcement could affect one's ability to speak without stuttering. I guess in one sense, the study succeeded . . . but, in a much more potent sense, I feel that we all failed these children.

4. The Guatemalan Syphilis Experiment
What? From 1946 to 1948, the Pan American Sanitary Bureau conducted experiments on unaware Guatemalan soldiers, prisoners, mental patients & orphans by infecting them with sexually-transmitted diseases, so as to monitor the results and attempt to develop a vaccine.

How? With funding granted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Sanitary Bureau sent John Charles Cutler M.D. and a research team to Guatemala, where they selected test subjects from the Guatemala state penitentiary, and later the army barracks, hospitals and local towns. They began by organizing for prostitutes infected with syphilis to sleep with them Guatemalan prisoners, then monitored the progress of the disease and treated those who contracted it with penicillin (although, according to reports, they were all underdosed). As the infection rate of sexual transmission was too low for the purposes of research, they later made abrasions on their test subjects' arms, faces and genitals and directly applied syphilis bacteria to their skin, or in some cases by injecting it into the spine. Over the years that this experiment took place, they used methods such as this, to infect 1,500 soldiers, prisoners, mental patients and even orphans.

Why? Because the researchers wanted to test if penicillin could prevent someone from contracting syphilis. They conducted these experiments in Guatemala because they knew full well that what they were doing was a human rights violation, and they even kept the experiment strictly off-the-books because this occurred during the Nuremberg trials, a highly publicized case condemning unethical Nazi experiments. In fact, alongside the unsuccessful results of the experiments. it is believed that the study was shut down after just two years because gossip was beginning to spread regarding the large number of sick people that were being sent to hospital as a direct result of this experiment. So, the records were kept secret and as his own tests had failed to garner any useful data, the lead researcher later helped to take part in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

3. The Rawalpindi Gas Experiments
What? From 1916 to 1989, the British Military Service conducted several chemical weapon tests on Indian soldiers, who were unaware of the nature of these tests, in an effort to determine the affects of certain chemical weapons on different subjects.
How? Scientists from the Porton Down science park, travelled to India and set up several gas chambers, for the purposes of their experiments - but, as the records were buried, the exact location of these gas chambers is unknown. It is also unknown if the participation was voluntary . . . if they were treated like the British soldiers, they would have volunteered for "experiments" without being informed as to the specifics of these experiments, but due to the way the British tended to treat Indians, many doubt that this was voluntary.
These men were then sent into gas chambers filled with mustard gas - sometimes with very little clothing, sometimes with nothing but a respirator.
All of these men sustained burns, but some were serious enough to have men hospitalized, which we know due to hospital records from the Military Hospital Rawalpindi. These men had severe burns on their skin, genitals, faces and in their eyes due to exposure to the gas.
More than 500 Indian soldiers were exposed to mustard gas during the course of these experiments, and experienced severe discomfort and upset as a result. The scientists were well aware of the torment these patients underwent, as one scientist commented upon this in their report by saying: "Severely burned patients are often very miserable and depressed and in considerable discomfort, which must be experienced to be properly realised."
Why? Because the researchers wanted to know how the gas affected its victims - in particular, they wanted to know if the gas reacted differently to non-white skin compared with the white skin of their British test subjects.

2. The Apartheid Africa's Aversion Project
What? From 1971 to 1989, the South African Defence Forces conducted medical torture on unwilling homosexual conscripts in the form of compulsion shock therapy, drugs and other "therapies", in an effort to "cure" them of their homosexuality.
How? Due to a deliberate loophole in the law, homosexuals in South Africa could not join the military at the time, but they could be conscripted into it. However, as there was still a heavy degree of prejudice against homosexuality at the time, it was seen as a deviant and mental illness. To "solve" this, any drafted men which were identified as homosexual by the SADF were sent to Ward 22 at the Pretorian Voortrekkerhoogte Military Hospital. There, under the administration of Aubrey Levin, they were forced to undergo conversion therapies, to "cure" them of their homosexuality. Some of these "therapies" included compulsion shock therapy, whereby subjects were shown pictures of naked men, and when they became aroused were electrocuted; then they were shown images of naked women and told to fantasize. As well, some subjects were given testosterone, and (according to some reports) forced to have sex with women, and some subjects were even chemically castrated.
When these conversion therapies failed, as they inevitably would, these homosexual men were forced to undergo genital reassignment surgeries, and had their identities legally changed to female. According to reports, almost 900 homosexual men were forced to undergo genital reassignment surgery - without their consent - some resulting in incomplete surgeries and even death. Many of the gay men who were tortured, mutilated or medicated in this project committed suicide due to the trauma and disfigurements they sustained.
Why? HOMOPHOBIA. Clearly, these doctors didn't know what they were dealing with, didn't understand and didn't want to understand. Thankfully, at time of writing, Aubrey Levin is in prison because of the role he played in these crimes, but he is due for release in 2019.

1. The Soviet Poison Laboratories
What? From 1921 to 1953 (and apparently, reactivated in the 90s), the Soviet Secret Services tested a variety of deadly poisons on unwilling participants from forced-labour camps, in an effort to discover an undetectable poison which left no trace.
How? According to records, in 1939, the "Special Office" laboratory had been renamed Laboratory 1, and head researcher Grigory Mairanovsky - with the direct supervision of NKVD director Lavrenty Beria - initiated the secret poison program. The facility tested a variety of poisons on unwilling political prisoners which they had taken from Russian gulags. The poisons they tested included curare, cyanide, digitoxin, mustard gas, ricin, sarin gas, and many others including radioactive and biochemical poisons. They often either released the gas into sealed rooms with the subjects inside, or were given to the victims, with a meal or drink, as "medication". Once the subject died from the poison, they were then taken away and autopsied, so that more data could be collected. If the subjects survived the poisonings, they were executed and then autopsied so that more data could be collected.
Why? Poisons can be implemented in a number of different ways, they can be inhaled by poisoning the air we breath, ingested by poisoning the food we eat & even injected by harming someone with a poison-laced weapon. It is incredibly useful, especially in assassination. The Soviet Secret Service was testing the viability of several different poisons, as well as their effects on a people of different ages, races and physical conditions, to determine the best ways they could be utilized. But, the ultimate goal of these laboratories was to create the perfect, undetectable poison. Not only a poison that could not be tasted or smelled, but one which did not present during autopsy - perfect for political assassinations.
The scariest part of this is that, unlike some of these cruel experiments, apparently the Poison Laboratories succeeded. Carbylamine Choline Chloride, more commonly referred to as C-2 or K-2, is a poison that is near-undetectable, and kills a victim in just 15 minutes after poisoning.


Science is not free from sin. I believe that curiosity is a powerful force, and that learning should be celebrated; however, each one of these projects - even the attempts at "curing" a non-existent illness, for they too tested theories, and rejected failures - all of them came from a desire for knowledge, to broaden the reaches of science.
I deeply wish that I could say this were completely unnecessary, but even I am a skeptic of this optimistic view. How can we know what is safe without risking being unsafe? How can we draw the boundaries, unless we are willing to step over them?
I don't know the answers to these questions, and the fact that I do not know is both sobering and worrying . . . and I fear what I would need to do to find out.
I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I am sorry that ignorance must come before knowledge, just as religion came before science, but as someone who values both truth and well-being, I am anxious to think that they, at times like these, come into conflict. Until next time . . . please, get consent before you experiment.

The Wrong Hands - Part 1: Blind, Dumb Faith

I am not a fan of religion, for various different reasons, mostly regarding my personal values, morality, skepticism and philosophies. Because of this, in the past I have had a tendency to criticize religion quite heavily.
I wanted to continue that for my Halloween Countdown, and list the myriad ways in which religion has been used to cause, exacerbate or even justify torture.
So, I was creating a very long list of religious tortures, and it was getting very long, but after reading Hunter Jeremiah's latest post about angels, I started to feel like religion has already had it's fair share of knocks, lately.
So, not only did I decide to limit the scope of my list, I also felt it would be fair to include a list of ways in which something I am a fan of - science - has also been used to cause, exacerbate or justify torture.

I consider this list very sobering, since it goes to show that no matter how noble the intentions, how valuable the results or powerful the tool . . . in the wrong hands, it can be used for both good and evil.

So, we're going to look at religion and science, and the harms they have managed to cause. As for religion, technically we've covered some of the ways that religion has been used to torture, simply by referring to ancient torture devices. So, today, I was most interested in listing ways which religion has been used to encourage self-torture. Specifically, pain, suffering and death, in which the victim is also the cause . . .

5. Self-flagellation
What? This is a form of self-harm, whereby a person deliberately inflicts pain upon themselves via superficial damage to their skin.
How? This can be done via cutting or whipping one's own skin, usually the skin of their back with a specialized whip such as a zanzerjani, or a set of chained knives. Some even practice using a cilice, a personal garment such as an abrasive shirt or a spiked belt worn around the thigh or even shoes with soles covered with nails and lemon juice, which causes irritation and pain throughout the day.

Why? For Catholics such as those in Opus Dei [Dan Brown didn't make them up], this is a mortification of the flesh a personal penance to god as a form of redemption for incalculable sin. In Islam, tatbir (cutting one's forehead, scalp or back with blades), is a ritual of mourning for the murder of one of Muhammad's descendants, and seen as devotion to Islam.

4. Genital Mutilation
What? This is a form of body modification which involves damaging the genitals, to either alter or remove portions of the genitalia.
How? In cases where this is not forced upon infants, the person sometimes, but not always, has anaesthesia administered (generally, or locally), and a traditional circumciser then quickly cuts the genitals using a knife, but in some circumstances they have been recorded using razors, scissors, glass, sharpened rocks and fingernails.
Why? In some Animist tribes in Africa, women also undergo genital mutilation before puberty, as a rite of passage for entering into womanhood, and preparing for marriage. In Islam, almost every male undergoes Khitan (male circumcision), but unlike Judaism this is not always forced on children and can be done as late as twelve years old, and it is seen as a practice of devotion. As well, some Muslim females undergo khifaḍ (female circumcision), but this is not as widely practiced.

3. Self-impalementWhat? This is a form of self-mutilation that involves the penetrating one's body with sharp objects, to puncture a hole through the skin.
How? This can be done by piercing through the cheeks, and/or tongue with syringes, skewers or needles, or by pinching skin on the chest, limbs or back and puncturing it with hooks or skewers. In some extreme cases, people have impaled their own eyes. Some cut the wound large enough so that myriad large objects, from umbrellas to flutes, can impale the hole.
Why? Hindus perform kavadi attam as a physical representation of a personal or family burden, and this "debt bondage" is an appeal to their god (Murugan) to relieve this burden. Taoists during Thetsakan Kin Che, will impale their cheeks with various objects, ranging from the diameter of a pea to the diameter of a tennis ball, as a form of reverence to their gods and ancestors, as well as a kind of meditation. Some also take part in acupuncture, an alternative medicine based upon inserting thin needles in the body to alter the flow of qi (a spiritual energy from Chinese Folk Religions), as they believe it is a form of pain relief.

2. Self-Immolation
What? This is setting oneself on fire, often as a form of suicide, but it can be done as a form of non-fatal sacrifice.
How? This often involves wrapping oneself in a cloth soaked in flammable liquid, then setting it alight, often whilst praying or meditating. But, it can involve setting a wood-fire, then jumping into it, or simply dousing oneself in some form of fuel. In non-fatal self-immolations, this can involve burning off fingers or an entire arm.
Why? In Chinese Buddhism, the practice of yishen (abandoning the body), involves many forms of self-mutilation and suicide, from burning off body parts, up to and including setting one's own body alight; this is done to show devotion to the spirit and achieve enlightenment, as well as a form of religious protest. In Hinduism, when a married man died, sometimes their bride chose to perform sati, by leaping onto the funeral pyre (although, in some cases she is thrown).

1. Self-Mummification
What? Self-mummification is a form of suicide via starvation and isolation, in an attempt to preserve one's body after death,
How? Usually this is done by following a strict diet so as to reduce fat content, and slowly reducing fluid intake until the body is weakened. Then, once they stop eating altogether, they do nothing but wait until they die of starvation.
Why? In Shugendō Buddhism, an extreme form of ascetism (rejection of worldly pleasure) was Sokushinbutsu, which involved monks dying from malnutrition over several years, in the hopes of achieving buddhadhātu. In Hinduism, when someone has no worldly obligations, and no desire to live, they can perform Prayopavesa, which is a religious suicide by fasting which is considered to be a form of euthanasia and is meant to stop worldly suffering. In Jainism, one can also choose fast to death in a practice called Sallekhanā, where it is seen as a form of sacred body "thinning", or cleansing, so as to unburden the soul, and destroy negative karma.


Religion has lead to a lot of harm in the world, but one of its greatest sins is the harm that it causes to those that follow it. Today I have listed its most prominent physical self-sufferings, but the list does not stop there. I wish that more people would turn away from religion, and towards reason and science . . .
However, even science is not free from evil.
I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, I will be creating a list of some of the worst abuses and tortures that have come about, from science.

The Hunter's Guide to Monsters - Chapter Ten

There is a common and persistent desire amongst mankind to take to the skies and fly, to soar like the birds. As well as this, many of us are enamoured by the extraordinary beauty of the human form. So, what person could resist the allure of a beautiful, naked human body with a set of wings? This is why one of the more dangerous monsters is the 'ANGEL':

Angel /aynjəl/ n. 1. Theology One of a group of spiritual beings, attendants and messengers of God. 2. The usual representation of such a being, in human form, with wings. 3. A person, especially a woman, who is thought to be like an angel in beauty, kindliness, etc. 4. A protecting or guardian spirit.

10. Angels
  by Hunter Jeremiah

If you are currently imagining the kind and generous messenger of a powerful and loving god, then you are going to be very mistaken. God does not need monsters to deliver His message, and I despise such blasphemy. There are even some who try to call these creatures as "avians", "birdmen" or even "icarians" to help dispel this confusion. I don't do this however, as it has lead to the further confusion that, perhaps, these creatures are  like the werewolf or ape-man, creatures that are thought to be a corrupted form of mankind. However, angels are not human at all, they are merely animals which take the human form as kind of defense mechanism and camouflage. There is actually a theory that most angels take the form of naked women, due to a kind of natural selection, as the more beautiful and human they looked, the less we were inclined to hunt or kill them. They tend to be harmless, and easily spooked, and don't usually get close to humans. However, if you stand before those glorious wings, and hear the chorus as it sings, and wonder what glory the angel brings - you will learn why the angel has such sharp claws.

These creatures can be found worldwide, as their wings have allowed them to fly long and far, and they have been discovered nesting in almost every country, but these nests are few and far between. Due to a lack of feathers or hair on the majority of their body, and fair skin, they tend to prefer tropical climates, with a fair amount of sunlight, year-round, but they have been found in the subtropics, and as far North as China. Due to the majority of them being fair-skinned, angels usually avoid arid deserts and dry zones. Also, since they tend to prefer secluded areas, they prefer to nest on the outcrops of cliff, sheer mountainsides or in very tall trees. In Japan, they are known as tengu; in Spain, Vikings who discovered angels referred to them as valkyries & in Greece, they call them harpies or sirens. These myriad stories all see a portion of the truth, but the reality of angels is scattered in between all of these stories.
To begin with, angels are omnivores. They tend to forage for fruit, vegetables and fungus, but as they are not very strong and their claws not very long, the majority of the meat in their diet comes from scavenging. They tend to prey on very small and or weakened animals, or they will feed on fresh carrion.
This is why they have a connection with battlefields and sickness, because they feed on the dead. It's also the reason why some think of them as "heavenly" - angels have been seen "watching over" people who are close to death, but this is due to them waiting for a free meal, rather than some form of blessing.

The main reason why people think that angels are so beautiful and sacred is because they, like us, are made in God's image. But, they just use their looks as a way of luring in prey, it's nothing more than a trick. Angels, in general, look like slim, tall, naked women with wings, but they have several characteristics which are inhuman. Both males and females have long decorative feathers on their head which look much like human hair, as they are bristly and long, but up close one can clearly see the quill of these feathers in their scalp and small eyebrow feathers. They tend to look fair-skinned, although angels with tan, brown, red and grey skin have been seen. They have a feminine humanoid face and eyes, but their eye-colours have been recorded as different shades of brown, yellow, orange, red or blue. They have long, white claws on their fingers, and on their toes, just one or two inches long. Their wings are very large, often extruding from their shoulders to their lower back, with a wingspan of eight to ten metres.
As well, have four long toes and a fifth rear-facing opposable toe near their "heel", designed for grasping, and this arrangement makes it appear as though they are always standing on their tiptoes or in high-heeled shoes.
It is usually difficult to differentiate between male and female angels, as both sexes look like naked human women. Both males and females have soft faces and an "hourglass figure", as they both have large upper-body muscles for flight around their chest and back, but lightweight internal organs making their stomachs look very flat and lean, and store fat around their hips and backside. As well, both the males and the females do not have external genitalia, but rather a cloaca. The only way to differentiate them, on sight, is that males tend to look more flat-chested, and are usually taller, and only the females can lay eggs.
In colder climates, or during winter, they have been seen with thick, downy "pubic feathers" protecting their nether regions as well as their chest.

Other differences include the fact that they are incredibly light, in order to achieve flight. They have hollow bones, low muscle density and compact organs, which means that they are lighter than they look. They also are incapable of language, as they do not have vocal chords and are not especially intelligent, although they can mimic human speech. They tend to be quite social creatures, nesting in large family groups of at least a dozen adult angels - with the largest discovered nest being a family of over two-hundred, nesting in a cave system atop a mountain in North Africa.
Angels have a very mild temperament, and although they are easily spooked and prefer to stay away from humans, they can be very dangerous when they are hunting, feeding, nesting or carrying their young. When angels are hungry, but there is not enough carrion or small prey available, they will hunt for food in a group which is collectively referred to as a choir; this name comes from the fact that their preferred method of hunting is to lure in curious prey by singing in harmony, and this siren song draws prey (often humans) in close, so that they can attack.
They have a few methods of attack. For small-enough prey, several angels will grab them to restrain them, then fly as high as they can and drop them, so that the fall will kill or incapacitate them. They can also simply attack with teeth and claws, although this is less common as they are not very strong.
One of the other kind of attack, which is rare but devastating, is that they can vomit acid on their prey. This can only be done when an angel is very hungry, as angels have very strong stomach acid developed from eating carrion, and this acid accumulates in their stomach if they have not eaten in a while. Once expelled, this acidic bile can blind, weaken or begin the digestion of prey.

So, whilst for the most part, we have little to fear from angels, they still do present a threat under certain contexts. For this reason, Hunting authorities like to catalogue active angel nests, and put in efforts to keep these from growing, or to stop new nests from appearing in areas near to human populations. But, stray angels do sometimes go out exploring, often looking for a neighbouring nest or hunting, and sometimes a new nest will crop up. When this happens, it's up to a Hunter to make sure that nobody gets hurt.

Protection
If you see an angel, either alone or in a group, or if you believe that you are near a choir or a nest of angels, there are some ways you can make sure you stay safe:

Birds of a Feather - A lone angel may be harmless, but as angels hunt in large groups, others may be nearby. Don't be scared, but make sure you stay aware.
Don't be a Birdbrain - An angel's siren song does sound beautiful to most listeners. But, it's merely bait so that you can walk into an ambush. Don't follow the music.
Don't Run - If you run, some angels assume that you are a prey animal, and so give chase. You can't outrun them, but you can easily outthink them.

Let There Be Light - Angels are simple creatures, they're scared of fire and torchlight, as it blinds them, and feathers burn. A torch can save your life.

The More the Merrier - Angels are weak and fearful, so if you are in a larger group, angels are less likely to attack you, the larger your group, the safer you are.
Run on Eggshells - If there is any evidence that an angel either has an egg, or new-hatched cherub, get out of there. Mother birds are very dangerous.
Take a Sick Day - Angels prey on the weak and the sick. If they can see you bleeding, coughing, groaning, limping, sneezing or whincing, they're likely to attack. So, if you're unwell, stay safe.
Walk Tall and Carry a Big Stick - Angels prefer smaller prey. So if you're sitting in a car, holding a rock, or even just wearing a backpack, they will tend to wait for an easier target.
Wet Your Beak - Angels are too lightweight to swim, and wet clothes are heavy, meaning that it is much harder for them to pick you up and fly off.

Hunting

Most angels just want to be left alone, and most people just want to leave them alone. As well, because angels are somewhat rare, the Hunting authorities considers them to be at a high risk of extinction. They're relatively populous within their nests, but because of the way that they mate by having large families, with males flying to new nests, they have a relatively small gene pool. As well, although vampire politics can be incredibly complicated and underhanded, it's nothing compared to vampire religion, and because of this angels are considered a "protected species". This all means that killing angels is heavily restricted in many countries, so, it's very unlikely that you will ever need to "Hunt" an angel.
But, because of these laws, when you are required to stop an angel which is harming people, it can be very difficult to do so, but your goal is always just to move them along.

Find
Usually, you will be called in either because someone has sighted an angel in town, or because someone has gone missing under unusual circumstances. In rare instances there may be a dead body, but this only happens when an angel is interrupted after it kills its prey, but before it can take the body back to its nest.
In either case, you should investigate the surrounding area. Question your witnesses, angels don't exactly blend into a crowd with those enormous wings, and this can give you an easy lead. Ask about any signs of inhuman singing or chanting, or the appearance of any large feathers. Feathers are a Hunter's best friend, since angels do shed feathers like other birds, and in a struggle, they rip out very easily, most angels are found because they've left feathers behind.
If you have a body, then your victim will have scratches on them - possibly vomit - and show signs of being dropped from a great height (several broken bones, often a cracked or shattered skull, post-mortem bruising from internal injuries & severe trauma to the points of impact on the underside of the body). However, since they tend not to leave tracks, a victim isn't much help.
As for your suspects, there are only two possibilities which may force a Hunter to cross paths with an angel. Either it will be a lone angel which is lost far from a nest, or it is a young stray mother, attempting to create her own, new nest in an area which is too close to human-inhabited areas. These are known informally as Penguins or Pigeons, respectively (like that old joke, "what do you call a penguin in the desert?", and because pigeons are urban pests). Penguins are easier to handle, and if you're dealing with a case of a sighting, not a kidnapping, then it's more likely that you're dealing with a lost penguin. One of the best ways to tell is the presence or absence of very tall trees, hills, mountains, buildings or structures - I'm talking over ten metres tall. Angels only nest high and dry, and will only nest in low-lying areas temporarily. If there is nowhere available for an angel to comfortably build a permanent nest, then you know you're dealing with a penguin. However, if permanent nesting opportunities are available, the other tell-tale sign is the amount that your angel is killing. On average, an angel requires on average, three kilos of food per day, and only half of that is meat, meaning that, without the bones, blood and non-consumables, your average person can give an angel two weeks worth of food. However, an angel which is about to lay an egg, or which is travelling with a mate, will consume much more, so, if your angel is feeding more erratically, that guarantees you're dealing with a pigeon.
Last, but definitely not least, your location is their nest, and finding that is how you stop an angel. On the one hand, it's easier to deal with a penguin angel, since you just need to move them along, either by scaring them off, or finding their nest and destroying it. However, on the other hand, it is a harder to find a temporary nest, as travelling angels have been known to sleep just about anywhere which is high and dry. In either case, you should look for the highest point in town, and if your angel is not there, then investigate in descending order. They prefer natural structures, as angels recognize them more easily, but high-tension wire towers are quite popular, as are water towers; if your angel is nesting lower, you should check anywhere taller than you can reach, so the tallest trees in the area, the multi-storey houses & even the roofs of semi-trailers are popular with some penguins.

Capture
You are not supposed to kill angels. If you had to, it would be really easy, they're fragile and their ability to fly is their only advantage - just clip its wings, either up close or at a distance, and you've practically already killed it. But, this actually makes it very hard to scare off an angel without hurting it. You don't want to get into a physical altercation, because most Hunters already carry their weapon of choice, meaning that you'll probably kill the poor thing. So, if you are in danger, not only must you capture this creature, but need to do so in a way that does not result in its death. To do this safely, you will need

"Knocker" - This is a non-lethal weapon, which you have on yourself, for safety purposes. This can be a tazer, a blade without its cover removed, a whip or a makeshift baton. Personally, I like to use a baseball bat with tea-towels bound to it with rubber bands. It's cheap, and the padding reduces bruising and pain, but it's also easy to handle and can make a loud noise when you bang it on the ground. This weapon is mostly for intimidation and close-quarters defence.
"Net" - You need something to bind your angel's wings. I prefer to use a large tarp with edges weighted with steel chain (shackled to the grommets using carabiners), but you can use a literal net, or even a large, wet blanket - since the goal is just to wrap them up so that they can't use their wings, and are restrained. Just make sure that it's strong enough to withstand their claws, but light enough not to crush them, and make sure it's big enough that you can throw it over them
"Nightcap" - Even if the net restrains them, they can be a danger to themselves by trying to free themselves. For this reason, you need a way of putting them to sleep. Depending on how you plan on binding them, you can inject a sedative or a tranquilizer, or even use some form of incapacitating gas. If you have some kind of spellcraft, you could use that to put them to sleep. But, at short notice, you can use a taser or - as I prefer, for safety reasons - you can just bind their hands and feet with rope, securely, but not tightly. It's not the easiest method, and goes against what most Hunters will teach you, but there's no risk of overdose.

Your goal is to enter the nest, with your Knocker in hand, so that you can protect yourself if necessary, and intimidate them, and have your Net either at the ready, or nearby. You should provoke the angel into attacking you, as they are not very strong fighters, and cast the Net over them as soon as they near you. Once they're safely secured by the Net, you should then put them to sleep with your Nightcap.

Some other equipment you might consider would be armour, in case your Net or Nightcap don't work as well as you hoped; a second net, in case there is more than one angel in the nest; a distraction, such as fire, colourful lights, or some kind of loud noisemaker can scare your angel into submission & perhaps an anchor, such as a heavy chain or gym weights, or even just a rope tied to your car, which you can use to literally keep yourself grounded, to prevent an angel from flying off with you. Once you've captured your angel, some food, particularly meat, fungus and sweet fruits comes in handy, in case you have to restrain your angel for a while & music, can calm a captive angel that is stressed, if you can't get a recording of angel music, classical music, birdsong and a capella songs are the most effective.
Warning: Please, keep in mind that blunt objects don't have a "stun" setting, so don't go thinking that you can combine your "nightcap" with your "knocker" just by giving an angel a blow to the head. You're will either kill them or seriously injure them by attempting this, it is impossible to "harmlessly" knock something unconscious.

Once your angel is captured, you should destroy their nest. This guarantees that they will not return, and also that no other angel will attempt to nest there. If you can, you should burn the area, and leave the place scorched, as this both destroys the nesting materials, and gives the place a strong smell that scares off most angels. If this is impossible, you can scatter ash and salt in the area, or even just pour alcohol or other strong-smelling liquids onto the floor of the nest. In some cases, where the angels have nested in a tree or abandoned building, simply by knocking down the offending structure you'll effectively destroy the nest.

Once it is destroyed, you should head towards the nearest active nest and release your angel back into the wild.

Final Notes
Angels are beautiful, with perfect, naked bodies and a heavenly song. However, when I see them, I see a pestilent, bile-spewing, savage vulture - and so should you. They aren't human, they aren't sacred, they aren't kind & they aren't safe. But, I see them as little more than wild animals because I see how some have been lead down a dark path by treating them as something more than they are. I've even heard stomach-turning stories of people who capture angels to be their "brides" - it's sick. These aren't people, they're just animals that want to be left alone to scavenge and nest, on their own terms.

Enhanced Interrogation Critiques

There are many ways to inflict excruciating pain upon people. As a form of violence against children, as a means of execution, as a form of discrimination, or even as some kind of entertainment. All of these are forms of torture, but, I haven’t really spoken about one of the most common forms that torture takes in the popular zeitgeist: as a form of extracting information.

I don’t like violence, I have even written about how I think violence goes against human nature, and either makes people who commit it unwell, or requires an unwell person to commit it in the first place. In general, I am a pacifist, and I honestly believe that there is not a single form of violence that could not have been avoided with greater communication, healthcare or education. However, I am also a cynic and a realist, and I understand that sometimes people make mistakes, and when they do, not every situation can be defused without violence. Once communications have broken down, they cannot be rebuilt with more words . . . I understand this.
And, I think we all do. When we are dealing with violence, in order to maintain human life and liberty we sometimes need to respond with violence. It’s not pretty, but when things take a turn for the worse, we sometimes need to act a little worse ourselves, as “dying for your principles” isn’t actually an effective method of proliferating those principles amongst people who disagree.

So, when things get really bad, when the threat is so large and the opponent is so stubborn that they refuse to co-operate, how can we possibly get information from them? Information can turn the tides of war, since you can prepare for your opponent if you have accurate information as to how they are planning to fight you, or what strategies they are going to use.
How can we possibly get information from a stubborn enemy? If they want us to die, what could possibly convince them that talking to us is the best option? I suppose, what I’m really asking is . . . isn’t it logical that, when innocent people are at a severe threat to life and liberty, isn’t it reasonable that we can use torture against captured enemies, in order to gain valuable information? Doesn’t the information gained from torture justify the torture itself?
Well, I’m afraid that the answer is No . . . The Word of the Day is: ‘INTERROGATE’

Interrogate /in'terəgayt/ v.t. 1. To ask a series of questions of (a person), especially in a close or formal way; question. ♦v.i. 2. To ask questions.

So, to begin with, let’s look at what I mean when I am talking about “torture”. How exactly is this meant to help get information? Well, the following “enhanced interrogation techniques” listed in the leaked legal documents such as the Torture Memos, & “coercive interrogation tactics” described in the Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading treatment of Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba have been used as forms of torture:
Abdominal Slap: Slapping the detainee’s stomach with the back of the hand, from a foot away.
Attention Grasp: Grabbing a detainee by the collar, and roughly pulling them closer to you.
Cold Showers: Drenching a naked detainee with cold water (10 °C), for up to twenty minutes.
Confinement: Trapping detainees in a box just large enough to stand in, for up to 18 hours.
Facial Hold: Restraining the detainee’s head by firmly grasping either side of their face.
Insult Slap: An open-palm facial slap, so as to “disabuse of the notion they won’t be harmed”.
Rectal Rehydration: Forcing pureed food into a detainee’s digestive system, via the rectum.
Short-shackling: Chaining a detainee’s arms and legs together, for days on end.
Sleep Deprivation: Keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours (7½ days), often through pain.
Stress Positions: Sitting detainees in positions designed to cause muscle exhaustion, for several days.
Walling: Grabbing a detainee by a collar or towel around the neck, and slamming them into a wall.

If you wonder why I am calling these people “detainees” is because prisoners are granted certain rights under the Geneva Convention. It is illegal to torture prisoners, but neither the convention nor any domestic law said anything about using “enhanced interrogation” against “detainees”.

The theory behind these techniques is that a program of systemic torture will make the subject more forthcoming, by making them less resistant to questioning, more suggestible and less likely to provide misinformation. They based this on the Learned Helplessness theory, developed by Martin Seligman, a rather cruel experiment which showed that if you randomly cause discomfort in a dog (with electric shocks), and do not give it a way to prevent it, then the dog will learn not to try stop the discomfort, when later given the opportunity to do so. Essentially, if you make a dog feel helpless, it will act helpless. However, not only does this not apply to humans as we have a greater capacity to problem-solve, but helplessness is not - and has never been - a characteristic of a reliable informant. There is no science supporting the theory that torture makes a person more reliable, suggestible or intellectually subservient; but on the other hand there is an abundance of research which supports the opposite.
To begin with, despite the systematic torture programs implemented at Guantanamo Bay, exactly zero of the detainees provided useful information, and all of the information provided was completely false - according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture:

“The CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.”

According to this report, of the 39 detainees known to have been subject to torture, nine provided no information whatsoever, several only provided accurate information prior to being tortured, not after; and “multiple” detainees provided fabricated information, leading to faulty intelligence and wasted resources.
But, these are just the statistics we know about, what about the science behind it? Well, in his book Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Investigation, Professor Shane O’Mara - a professor of experimental brain research at the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College - explains the science of how brains react to stressors, pain, anxiety and trauma in the following way (bold added for emphasis, tangents redacted):

“There is overwhelming evidence (detailed in my new book [...]) that the extreme stressors employed during torture force the brain away from the relatively narrow, adaptive range that it operates within. Furthermore, these stressors attack the fabric of the brain, causing tissue loss in brain regions concerned with memory (especially in the temporal lobes, adjacent the temples) [. . .]
[. . .] Sleep deprivation is a most effective method for causing deficits in cognition, mood and memory, and it does so in direct proportion to the dose of sleep deprivation imposed. The sleep deprived show large decrements in psychomotor and general cognitive function, as well as profound deficits in declarative memory. Studies of persons in severe chronic pain, and studies of the interaction between supervening states of pain, cognition, and memory demonstrate reliably that pain impairs cognition, memory, and mood. Deliberate suffocation or near-drowning is a form of predator threat, involving the repeated imposition of a near-death experience. However, oxygen restriction reliably draws activity away from brain regions concerned with higher cognitive function and memory in favor of brainstem regions concerned with reflexive responses supporting immediate survival — militating against detailed recall.
Chronic and severe stress compromises integrated psychological functioning, impairing recall, and facilitating the incorporation of information contained in leading questions, and the captive and interrogator both might not know this subtle process of incorporation has occurred. Torture fails during interrogation because torture is an assault on our core integrated, social, psychological, and neural functioning. Given what we know of the brain, memory, mood and cognition, it is little surprise that the signal-to-noise ratio from torture is so poor.”

O’Mara, S. (2016), Why Torture Doesn’t Work. Retrieved from PsychologyToday.com

But that’s not all . . . the logic behind torture is inherently flawed. It requires you to not have the solution to a problem, yet want to know it badly enough to consider torture viable. If the options were limited enough that you could just explore all options - you would do that, since we’ve established that you’re desperate enough to attempt torture, surely you’re desperate enough to expend a few resources.
So, the only reason why you would be forced to use torture is if you’re in a situation where you have either absolutely no information about the solution for you problem, or the potential solutions are so numerous that torture is somehow less of a burden than exploring the potential solutions to try to solve the problem.
This granted, it means that you must, therefore, lack any ability to verify the viability of the solutions given to you, unless you attempt them. So, already, you’re flying completely blind.

Now, even if you know that a person has the solution to your problem - which is a logical paradox in and of itself, but let’s skip that for a moment - even if you did somehow, some way, find a person who has the solution, but does not want to tell you (and they must not, as if they did then you would not need to resort to torture), how could you possibly know that the information they give you is viable?
Worse, what if the information given isn’t the kind of thing that you can “test”? What if, rather than an abundance of options, you have a problem whereby attempting the wrong solution would lead to catastrophe?
I can’t see a single situation whereby your desperation to find an answer leads to the person you are torturing somehow needing to give you the answer more than you could possibly want it. And if that person does not like you, then either not giving you the answer - or giving you a false answer - would become the most attractive options.
Basically, it’s an issue of a self-aggravating problem. If your victim doesn’t want to reveal the information to you, then as your desire for torture grows (alongside your desire for the solution), so too does your victim's desire to keep their secrets. But, if your victim does want to give you the answer, but doesn’t have one, then they have the greatest possible reason to give you an answer - any answer - to stop you from hurting them, since there is no possible way of telling the difference between a person who knows and is lying, and someone who is honest but telling the truth.

And that’s where it gets truly horrifying.. Personally, I don’t think that anyone deserves to be tortured, but just in case you do, keep in mind that not only is there a high chance that innocent people could be tortured, there is proof that innocent people have been tortured, by these kinds of cruel, barbaric, unconstitutional programs.

But, do you want to know the craziest part about all this? A lot of the reasoning behind this, whilst it originates from a misapplication of common sense, at the end of the day most people mistakenly believe that torture is effective because of television. Shows were the hero resorts to torture often show that, whilst the act is gruesome, it is always effective, and therefore always justifiable in fiction.
So, shows like The Punisher, Homeland, The Shield & especially 24, always showing torture in this way are helping to deceive people. You may think that I’m overreacting, but members of the American government have been quoted citing shows like 24, and characters like Jack Bauer, as justification for torture. Just let that rattle around in your head for a while . . .

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about torture as a form of coercive interrogation - basically, it isn’t one. But, it gets even worse when you consider the other costs involved - the psychological costs, the economic costs, the political costs & the social costs of being a country that commits human rights violations. The only possible benefit of torture as a form of interrogation is that it sometimes makes anti-heroes seem more dramatic . . .
Anyway, until next time, I’m the Absurd Word Nerd, and I approve this message.

Stuck Out Like a Saw Movie

For the most part, I am a fan of the Saw movies. This shouldn’t be surprising, as worldwide it is the highest-grossing horror franchise. Not to mention, I like to promote Australian artists, and both James Wan (the director) and Leigh Whannell (the writer, and initial actor), the people who started this franchise, and created the first movie, are Australian filmmakers.
However, I have said that I prefer psychological horror to physical torture and pain, so it probably seems weird that I like a series whose defining feature is “torture porn”. Well, that’s what I want to talk about today . . .
This series began with a short film in 2003, which was called “Saw” until they were hired by Twisted Pictures to create a full-length movie based on the concept which they also called "Saw", so they renamed the short Saw 0.5.
Then in 2004, they released Saw, a low-budget horror film about the victims of a twisted serial killer. What makes this film so good, to me, is the writing. Wan & Whannell based the themes and style off their own fears and nightmares. They had a few gore effects, some props, and a small number of shooting locations. But, dialogue is cheap, so this film focussed on characters, mystery and twists. The characters themselves were flawed, but realistic. Best of all, I love the way they characterized the killer.

The villain, the serial killer, justifies his crimes to himself by placing people in elaborate, deadly traps which they technically can survive, albeit after some medical treatment and permanent scars. So, he doesn't think of himself as a killer, but rather a kind of teacher. He sees this torment as having a positive influence, as he believes that people value their life more, “cherish” their life, if they witness firsthand their own fragile mortality.

As a writer, I adore this kind of character. Jigsaw is the villain, he's a sick and cruel monster, but he sees himself as the hero. He even has his own twisted sense of morality, based around giving everyone a chance, forgiveness and proactivity.
I like it because, although twisted, it's realistic. Most people think they are good, or doing the right thing - or the best they can, even bad people - it makes sense that the Jigsaw killer would find some way to justify his actions.
As well, although his methods are cruel, he isn't exactly “wrong”. Some people who have gone through a traumatic experience, say afterwards that they feel “lucky”, and that their life has greater meaning to them. It's not just hearsay, it's a phenomenon known as “Post-traumatic Growth”, and the Jigsaw Killer is essentially trying to induce post-traumatic growth in his victims.
It is a contrivance for the sake of the plot, but it's a clever contrivance since Jigsaw tends to select victims who he feels aren't living their life to the fullest, or living an honest life. This means that every character that is a victim of Jigsaw has to come with a flaw pre-baked into their backstory just to appear in the movie.
As well, some of the traps were designed to be somewhat “ironic”. Two men who were never supposed to meet are forced into a room together; A man who cut his wrists is forced to crawl through sharp razor wire; a man who faked an illness must find an antidote locked in a safe, by finding the right combination, despite several fake combinations written on the walls.
It meant that, as well as being cruel and gruesome, which is a big part of the horror, there was also a kind of sick “punishment” going on, making people reflect on exactly what lead them to their trap.

So, when the second movie started, and the major setpiece is a house full of criminals, all struggling to survive, I was intrigued.
Apparently this film was based on a prior script, called The Desperate, which was failing to find a studio as it was too similar to Saw. So, writer Leigh Whannell fixed the script to make it fit in the Saw franchise, and they filmed it. This film, like the last, had some traps designed for specific victims, like a pit full of hypodermic needles, designed to punish a drug dealer; a spy who is forced to cut into his eye to retrieve a key & a kidnapper who is trapped in a furnace and can only be let go by his victims.
It was a fun… but, this is where the trouble starts. Yes, Wan and Whannell did have a big idea on their hands, they wanted to explore the Saw Universe they had created. But, by turning “The Desperate” into a Saw movie, they created some issues. Some of the plot elements, especially the twist, relied on contrived preparations, and chance elements that would have been impossible to predict, and I feel like it was caused by them trying to end with a twist, but also whilst working with the plot machinations from the original script. But, it's okay, because although there were one or two contrivances, the story was still interesting and had a similar feel to the first one.

Then, we had the third film, Saw III and it was clear that the series was coming to an end. This was created by Wan and Whannell once again, but only as tribute to Gregg Hoffman, the Producer of Saw & Saw II. They had originally turned down the offer to work on the Saw franchise again, but Hoffman died shortly after the sequel was released, so they made it in dedication to him.
So, this film really was the swansong of the franchise. Not only was Jigsaw on his deathbed, but his supposed “killer apprentice” was under threat as well. Also, some of the traps had been changed to make them unsurvivable - a classroom trap had the escape door welded shut, and an angel trap was changed so that the key to escape couldn't fit in the padlock.
It was exciting, at first, that they were adding a new twist, but as a watcher it really bothered me. The whole idea of the traps is that you can escape them, so even if it was “part of the story”, by including traps you couldn't escape from, the film series really was turning into torture porn - bloody murder for bloody murder’s sake. But, I think that this film knew this, which is why doing so is portrayed as despicable by every single character.
Now, you may be saying, “But, Absurd Word Nerd, there are eight movies in this franchise.”
To which I would respond, “actually, there are only seven, the short film doesn't count.”
And so you may reply, “actually, I was referring  to ‘Jigsaw’, the twenty-seventeen film that continues the story.”
So, I would heartily respond, “that's a soft reboot, I don't think that really counts. Number seven is called the final chapter’, for goodness sake, I don't need to accept Jigsaw as canon.”
Therefore you might say, “whatever, look, this rhetorical device has been hijacked by your complaints about the new film. I just want to know how can you say this was the swansong when four more movies followed, and this film clearly hinted at a second killer apprentice!”
Okay, that is a fair point. But, the reason why is because this was the last time that, in my eyes, the series was unquestionably good. It had that same style as the first film, just with a higher budget. And, it was the last time that either Wan or Whannell took part in the franchise. Yes they added in elements hinting at more films down the line, probably because they either knew or were told that the films would carry on without them. But, little did they know that the films would just go downhill from there…

I like Saw IV, I freely admit that it's not perfect and there are many more issues with this film than with any previous. In particular, the traps are more contrived, as are the coincidences. Certain people in the film needed to behave in a certain way, or have certain skills in order for the whole setup to work, but the chances of that happening in real life are so slim that it's ridiculous. As well, some of the traps and tests were more contrived, such as a chair that scalps you, and a bed with arms which supposedly generated enough force to rip your limbs off.
But, this was still heavily a character piece all about both the methodologies of Jigsaw, and the mindset of the detectives chasing him down. It was a fun ride, and I still really enjoyed it, even though I could see the flaws. This new writer was actually doing a good job at recreating the series… or so I thought.

It was while watching Saw V, the one and only instalment of this franchise that I saw in theatres, that I started to feel like it was running out. I was excited for it, because the twist at the end of Saw IV had promised a new Jigsaw Killer, that's why I saw it in the cinemas. But, I left feeling kind of disappointed.
To begin with, the big “twist”, was pretty obvious. I assume I'm not alone in this, but when I watch a film like this I tend to wonder how I would attempt to solve the trap myself. So, because the twist was based around alternate solutions to the traps, it was pretty obvious how it would end since I'd already considered those solutions, especially given how each trap was constructed.
And there were more contrivances. Five people had to go through four traps, and although all five of them were at risk every time, exactly one person dies in each room, to make sure the story can continue. Maybe this was more obvious because this wasn't the first time the series had done something like this (Saw III liked killing off extra characters one-by-one as well), but the twist forces you to reconsider how everyone died, which brings these flaws front and centre.
This film also has  two more unsurvivable traps, a drowning cube, and a blade pendulum, and I won't waste time explaining, again, why that sucks.

Plus, this film in particular added a new element to the series which I despise… the victims of the traps were now not only incredibly keen to “play” these games - ready to cut, maim & murder with very little influence - but also, all of them became murderous arseholes. Several characters in Saw V put their fellow man in imminent danger, often nearly killing them, just to attempt to survive.
I'm writing this all in a new paragraph because this is a major aspect which made me hate the next two films in this series.
Consider this, for a moment: In the first film, it was about character and psychological horror. Two characters are locked in a room trying to find a way out, and each is given a saw that can cut through their feet. How do they respond? Both of them reject this option, as it is blatantly horrifying, and work together to try to escape; but more and more complicated things happen, as they learn more about their predicament and each other, and they are forced to make choices they wouldn't otherwise have made.
Now, consider the opening trap of Saw VI…
Two people are locked in a room, and given several sharp tools and a scale in the middle, and told that to survive they must cut off the most flesh from their own body, and drop it in the scales. How do they respond?
The fat guy says: “I'm not dying for you, bitch” and immediately starts cutting into his stomach.
This is bad writing. People don't act like this.
Okay, yes, maybe some people… I'd consider them sociopaths, but it's possible.
However, not only does almost EVERY character act like this from here on out (except the protagonist), but certain traps only work because of it.

Saw VI is infamously “the political one”. It is pretty obvious that this is meant to be a message movie, since the main character is the CEO of a health insurance provider. He is punished for the crime of being part of America's corrupt healthcare system, and is forced to see what it is like to decide who lives and who dies, face-to-face. The whole message is pretty on-the-nose, and when they include flashbacks showing Jigsaw reprimanding him for his actions, it starts to feel like a Very Special Episode.
But it's also very well acted, and although some of these traps felt a bit contrived, more about the spectacle than any kind of irony, I still enjoyed this story… for the most part.
What I didn't enjoy was the “Jigsaw Killer” framing story. I will try to be vague, so this isn't too spoilery, but as the cops close in on the new killer, and tension is rising as you wonder how he could possibly escape… he just kills the witnesses. Not in a clever way, or with a jigsaw trap, he just stabs them in the throat.
I'm sorry, but that just isn't Jigsaw. Jigsaw himself hated murder, he never saw himself as a killer and he despised murderers. And although this person isn't the same person as Jigsaw, the reason this bothers me is because it's boring. Killing people to get away with your crime is something you do when you've done something bad and you're about to get caught. Jigsaw never thought he was doing the wrong thing, which is why he never tried to stop the police from catching him, but rather he would trap them and try to teach them to think like he did. That was the whole premise of Saw IV after all. So, now everyone is a psycho killer. Great… I wonder what the last movie has in store.

In Australia, the movie was called Saw: The Final Chapter, although I usually just refer to it was Saw VII. But, when it was released, the film was called Saw 3D, and a lot of the film was shot in a way that put the gore front and centre, so that people could see it fly at them through their stereoscopic glasses. See, 3D glasses are really good at making things jump out of the screen at you, but one thing they can’t do is make the movie any better.
In my experience, 3D always makes movies worse, because if something jumps out at you too quickly, you won’t see it, so movies often linger on the biggest 3D effects to make sure you see how impressive the effect is. Also, if you move the camera too much, it can make the viewer feel sick This is really distracting because if, like me, you watch the two-dimensional versions of 3D movies, then the long, lingering shots of things flying towards the screen just feels awkward.
It doesn’t improve the plot, but I wish it had because this movie is really bad. One of the traps is not only inescapable, but it’s a dream sequence. Who wrote this movie? R.L. Stine?
Then, there was the garage trap, which is when I knew this movie had devolved into nothing more than torture porn. One person must rip his skin off in order to save himself and his three racist friends, and based on the way the trap is composed - so that the fates of four people are resting on one person’s ability to mutilate himself - it is obvious that this is going to end with blood. They’re racists, for goodness sake. Remember what I was talking about yesterday, with “Acceptable Targets”? It was obvious as soon as the word ‘racist’ was mentioned that these people were all going to die, horribly. But not only do they die, but when they do, the music flares as their bodies are crushed, splattered, ripped apart and thrown around. It is pretty blatantly just splattergore for its own sake.
The main story is about a small-time celebrity who is famous for having written a self-help book called "S.U.R.V.I.V.E. - My Story of Overcoming Jigsaw" all about how he survived a Jigsaw Killer trap, but it turns out that this is all a lie. He made up the whole story, to get money and fame. That alone would be an interesting story, but they wreck it by not focussing on that aspect for the majority of the traps. The main traps start by being based around the “three wise monkeys”: The “Speak No Evil” trap would stab you in the neck if you screamed whilst the main character tries to pull the key out of your throat. The “See No Evil” trap would stab you in the eyes unless the main character . . . lifted weights that also stabbed him in the side of his stomach? Look, just go with it. Then the “Hear No Evil” trap blinded you, and wrapped a noose around your neck, and you escape by listening to the main character guide you across. Huh . . . it seems like maybe they should have called this one “see no evil” and had the other one stab you in the ears, since this isn’t about “not hearing”, but whatever.
Then it abandons this entirely, forcing him to rip his wisdom teeth out with pliers, because we’ve given up on metaphors at this point. Sure, there is a “code” written on his teeth for the door, but they just dropped the “X No Evil” thing entirely. And finally, he has to recreate the trap he “claims” to have done in his stories, in order to save his wife, by piercing his chest with hooks, and winching himself up the chains, and of course that fails because of course it does, it’s about time this movie decided to accept physics.
But this isn’t the majority of the movie. We spend most of the movie with more framing story regarding the new Jigsaw killer as he taunts the police, and Jigsaw’s old wife as she tries and fails to act convincingly, and finally there is a big twist at the end that the original Jigsaw Killer . . . had an accomplice. Now, if you’re keeping track, this is the third time that they’ve used this exact same twist. To top it all off, the story ends with the accomplice locking the new guy in a room, then throwing a handsaw at the camera in slow-motion in a way that would have looked just as awkward, even if you added another dimension, and saying the iconic line of the movie: “Game Over”.


Look these movies had been slowly sinking in quality ever since the first one. And, I mean really slowly, because although I still like the first few, I accept that they were getting progressively worse. In fact, if I were to review them, I would give the first movie maybe an 8 out of 10, then remove 0.5 for every progressive movie.

So, what ruined these movies? Well, it started out with a low budget, mild gore, a few twists and high-quality writing, and later it turned into a high-budget, splattergore, over-complicated story with low-quality writing. But the reason why, as far as I can tell, is because they kept switching directors and writers around, and when they ran out of ideas, they decided to rely on special effects and spectacle to draw in viewers, eventually scraping the bottom of the barrel and picking up a pair of 3D glasses.
This was a series that began with torture being used as a tool to tell a particular story about a deranged serial killer, which played on the minds of viewers by making us think about these horrific acts and wondering how far the characters would go to survive. It ended with torture being used as a way of spraying blood across the screen, smearing our eyes with gore to try to hide the fact that the writers didn’t know how to recapture the essence of the first few films.

For this reason, I have decided not to watch the Jigsaw reboot movie up until now. I have no interest in returning to a series that I have watched slowly die - somewhat ironically, like an old cancer patient. By the seventh film, it almost feels like they were torturing the story by forcing it to continue. But then, seven years after the fact, they’re going to try to revive it?
Sounds like a bad idea . . .

But, since this year my theme is “torture”, I figured that I might punish myself by watching the new movie, and seeing if it is anywhere near as bad as I think it will be. If it is, well, I’ll keep you posted.
I’m the Absurd Word, and until next time . . . I’m going to go watch a movie.

1000 Ways to Punish a Sinner

“Death is everywhere. Most of us try to avoid it, others can’t get out of its way. Every day, we fight a new WAR against FOREIGNERS, HOMOSEXUALS, CRIMINALS, WOMEN & DEGENERATES . . . There’s a lot of ways to wind up dead, the fact that we survive at all is a god-given miracle.
Because, every day they live… Sinners face 1000 WAYS TO DIE.”

If you don’t know what I’m on about, allow me to tell to you about a television show called 1000 Ways to Die. As someone who occasionally enjoys dark humour and unusual trivia, when I saw this television show on Netflix, I was intrigued.
Now, the basis of the show is that they “report on” deaths that have actually occured, by changing the names of the victims, then recreating the events of their death in the slasher movie style, with fake blood, special effects, prosthetics and computer graphics. There are usually six deaths per episode, and they start by explaining the circumstances which lead up to the death, then show the graphic results with a narrator joking along the whole time. It’s dumb, cheesy fun, but after watching a few episodes, I noticed an unusual trend in these stories.
First of all, like I said, I find this kind of trivia interesting - so, I recognized some of the deaths that they were “recreating”, and I quickly realized just how unfaithful these “reports” were. I knew about the deaths by explosive decompression aboard the Byford Dolphin Diving Bell - which was recreated in Death #710 “Tanked Girl” - so, I knew that the actual victims weren’t a bikini-clad young woman in a decompression tank. Although I wasn’t aware of his name at the time, I knew about Lee Seung Seop’s unfortunate death due to a gaming addiction - recreated in Death #126 “Game Stopped” - so I knew that he died in an internet cafe while playing Star Craft, not alone and smelly in his bedroom whilst losing an FPS game to a girl. And, I knew about the senseless death of Garry Hoy - recreated in Death #64 “Habeas Corpse” - so, I know that he died whilst attempting to demonstrate the “safety” of highrise windows when one broke, not whilst pulling a prank to try to impress a female co-worker.

Now, this in and of itself would be perfectly okay, since many of these deaths are senseless, embarassing, tragic or gruesome, and so immortalizing the names of the people involved has the potential to be disrespectful to the people involved and their families. The show even starts by saying “The stories portrayed in this show are based on real deaths, and are extremely graphic. Names have been changed to protect the identities of the deceased”. This alone is fine.

However, what is less fine is that this is a lie. The writers use creative license to change not just the names, but also the gender, age, ethnicity, location, personality & circumstances surrounding the death, often leaving little more than the “cause of death”, and some minor details intact. So, the “protecting the deceased” thing doesn’t work when you can easily see how the show represented them, especially when they turn an innocent 6-year old boy into a drug-addicted rapist or turn an innocent Ukranian chemistry student into a drug dealer and meth cook.
Now, I understand that part of this is based on trying to appeal to the audience. See, a 6-year old child in hospital being killed in a tragic accident isn’t exactly “fun”, and knowing that a young college student made a mistake that ended his life isn’t exactly “exciting”; it’s just horrifying and tragic to see that the cosmos is random and unfair and sometimes kills innocent people for no reason when they not only don’t deserve it, but have no real way to avoid it . . . this show is designed to have a dark sense of humour, and flaunt gore the same way that a slasher movie does. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy the gore and special effects if it was being used to kill innocent children or defenseless victims. Rather than just portraying these deaths in an honest “tragic accidents” way that the majority of them occured in real life, it changes the story of these deaths, often to make the victims older, more capable and more guilty - demonizing the victim and moralizing to the audience about how certain attributes and life choices will often kill. So, like a slasher movie, it also tends to fall into the trope of the “Acceptable Target”, and that’s okay too.

However . . . what is definitely not okay is the kind of person that this show portrays as “acceptable targets”. The way that this show chooses to characterize the victims of these fictionalized deaths reveals the writers to be conservative, homophobic, sexist, racist, elitist & bigoted.
This show has four kinds of victims - bullies, criminals, perverts or minorities. Now, bullies and criminals are one thing, sure. I can understand wanting to moralize that “crime doesn’t pay”, it’s a bit sunday-school hopeful, but okay. And bullies, whilst I don’t think they deserve to be murdered, I get why this show enjoys “punching back”. But what about the perverts and minorities?
This show was produced by Spike TV, a channel that was supposedly all about “man things”, which means sex, cars, ladies, robots, boobs & sex - because apparently by “men”, we mean what a 13-year old boy thinks that men do. Yet, this show often victimizes horny men, horny women & people who experiment, sexually. Now, necrophilia, bestiality and paedophilia are sometimes portrayed, and those are paraphilias which we have good reason to be wary of. But, alongside these perversions, the show also kills people who engage in sexual experimentation which includes prostitution, cross-dressing, BDSM, self-pleasure, large women, fetish roleplay, bi-curiosity & stripping. I also want to point out that this show tends to kill lesbians - I consider homosexuality more of a “minority”, not a perversion, but lesbians in this show are always portrayed as sexually experimental or nymphomaniacal, without fail, so female homosexuals are basically “perverts” in the eyes of this show’s writers.
Then, there are the minorities. There are ethnic minorities, such as Hispanics, African-Americans, French & Asians who are killed in this show, and it is kind of disturbing that whenever the killed character isn’t a criminal or a pervert, they are either non-white or a girl. But, amongst these ethnic minorities, they also include social minorities like the mentally ill, nerds, rednecks, gamers, fat people, heavy metal fans, &, as I mentioned before, homosexuals.

I thought that Spike TV was supposed to be for men, not conservative, old grandmothers. Yet, the kinds of people that are killed are the exact kind that make regressive traditionalists pop a monocle. Maybe that's why Spike TV rebranded itself to "The Paramount Network" . . .
But, all of this is nothing new - the people who are dying come right out of the Slasher Movie playbook, the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality. People have been killing gay, black, overweight, horny and poor people in fiction for a very long time; I don’t know why, but the kinds of people that write fiction with a lot of death, tended to be weirdly conservative.
But that doesn’t justify this kind of thing, and whilst I equally condemn slasher and horror movies that demonize people like this, the reason why this show bothers me so much is because it has a much higher body count, and also the way that it is judging these people is that much more obvious. Often the narrator, poor Ron Perlman, has to read out this garbage which is often calling people freaks, sluts, jerks, morons, perverts and degenerates, for the crime of not being a boring, white man.

I decided to look at Seasons 1 & 2 of this show, to really divulge how serious this is . . .
[Due to boring, television production reasons, Season 1 of this show was 2 episodes long, and had a different narrator, style & tone. However, most seasons were twelve-episodes long, so I combined these two to get the following details.]
There are usually 6 deaths per episode, but episode 2 only had five, and there were 12 episodes total, meaning we have 71 deaths to consider. I took note of the cause of death, the ethnicity, gender and body type of the victims and what I listed as their “sins”: crime, bullying, stupidity, sexuality, deviancy, etc.

At the top of the pile, Lust was the leading sin, as thirteen characters were killed due to being lustful (18.3% of deaths). Close behind, was Stupidity with twelve characters killed by their foolish actions (16.9% of deaths); then Drug Abuse, with 11 characters who were under the influence when they died (15.4% of deaths). However, drug abuse numbers were boosted by the inclusion of alcohol, as eight of the characters involved were killed due to Alcoholism or their actions whilst drunk (9.8% of deaths) meaning only four were using other substances (Psilocybin, Steroids, Marijuana & Nicotine each caused one death). Following this were criminals - there were three murderers, five thieves & two drug dealers; and lastly there were also six people who died due to Bullying, or being disrespectful to other people.

Keep in mind that some of these numbers overlap as some characters were both “alcoholic & stupid” or “lustful & criminal”. But, when you consider the characters who are completely innocent of these sins, you start to notice a pattern. Several innocent men are killed, through no fault of their own and having committed no crime or disrespect, and all of them are minorities:
In #422: Constriction Accident -  A Czech man suffocates when a dump truck driver buries him.
In #640: Tumble Die - A Hispanic man boils to death while cleaning an industrial tumble-dryer
In #091: De-Coffinated - A Haitian man suffocates after being buried alive by a cruel witchdoctor.
In #001: Ichiboned - A Japanese couple dies from a heart attack due to overexertion during sex.
In #518: Jake N’ Baked - A narcoleptic Black man burns to death after falling asleep in a curing oven.
In #066: Guitar Zeros - A Chinese man accidentally dances out a window whilst listening to music.
In #072: Bowed Out - A Japanese man dies from a ruptured aneurysm whilst bowing respectfully.


Now, some white people died, despite having no “sin”, but when an innocent white person died, they were almost always a woman:
In #832: Lesbocution - A woman is electrocuted by accidentally standing near a broken lightpole
In #674: Killdo - A woman dies by an “internal cut” caused by masturbating with a carrot.
In #818: Frightmare - A woman randomly dies of Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome
In #892: Gorgeous Gorge - A woman dies from sepsis due to complications from bulimia.
In #770: Face Offed - a woman dies due to cutting her legs while shaving, causing necrosis.
In #963: Fin-ished - a woman dies while fishing when a jumping fish gets lodged in her throat.
In #196: Radium Girls - Four women die of cancer due to accidentally ingesting radium.
In #710: Tanked Girl - A woman explodes when someone opens her decompression chamber.

Now, I’m not just ignoring the innocent, white men. There just aren’t that many. Once you look at the numbers, there are exactly four.
In #208: Semi-cide - A man bleeds to death after being cut in half by a semi-trailer truck.
In #713: Dive-Bombed - Two men and their pilot die in a crash when they all collapse from the Bends.
In #171: Nite-capped - A man is killed by a stray bullet, from a gun fired during New Year’s Eve.

But, keep in mind, three of those deaths are from Season 1, which had a very different tone. For starters, the first victim, Frank Soriani, is not fictionalized - apparently that is the real name of the victim, and this is really how he died - this was the first episode and first death depicted in the show. The next two men appeared in Episode 2, the last episode of Season 1, and they died as the result of the pilot not following protocol in regards to avoiding the Bends.
This means that in Season 2, of the sixty people killed, only one was an innocent, white man.
So, what does this tell you? Well, it means that in the eyes of the writers, being a minority or a woman is the same as being a criminal, a drug addict, a bully or an alcoholic. In the eyes of these writers, you are more deserving of being killed. Actually, not just killed, but to die slowly, often from choking to death or suffocating; burning alive or bleeding to death. You deserve a torturous, slow, painful death, because you are a sinner in their eyes.

I still enjoy this show, because it is very silly, and you occasionally learn some things about biology. I eveb enjoy trying to psychoanalyze which particular bigotry influenced the writer’s murderous desires. But, it is a terrible show, and incredibly bigoted. I’m not even going to beat around the bush here - there are few different writers involved, but the head writer is called Tom McMahon, he is credited as a writer on seventy-five episodes in this series, and so I consider him at fault for the hatred within this show. So, fuck you Tom, you bigoted asshole. I don’t know why you like killing women, minorities, gays, sexual minorities & people with mental illnesses, but you’re such a piece of shit for considering them more worthy of killing.

I’m the Absurd Word Nerd. And please, keep in mind, the deaths portrayed within this show are extremely bigoted. Do not attempt to recreate the hatred within . . . because if karma is anything like the way it’s depicted within the show - You Will Die.
Or, if you’re in the real world, you’ll probably just piss people off with your stupidity. Until Next Time . . . I’m going to watch more of this stupid, cheesy, fun, stupid show.