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It’s the final weekend before Halloween and things are looking pretty scary at the box office. Last weekend saw Madea rise from the dead again to star in her first sequel, Boo 2! It opened at number one but it lost a quarter of the first films audience. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. On the good side, it shows that the stupid people of the world that make up Madea’s fanbase aren’t willing to waste their money twice on the same garbage. On the bad side, 2017 is still behind 2016 in the year-over-year comparisons. I’m not ready for the box office to die.

In one hand I want Madea dead and in the other, her death means the platform she shakes her fat suit on is also collapsing by the day. This weekend isn’t much different. Like Boo 2, Jigsaw sees the desperate return of another classic Halloween wannabe begging for scraps. The Saw series dominated the 2000’s with a seven-film run that had all but one make decent money. Long gone are the days of torture porn ruling the most haunted of holidays. Now, it’s 2017 and we are bringing every brand possible back to life. What helped Stephen King’s It back in September was a 27 year gap between updates whereas the last Saw was seven years ago.

There is a lot working against the release of Jigsaw. The biggest problem of the series is that Jigsaw technically died in the third film. It was his legacy that lived on from films four through seven. The first film featured a psychopath that took justice into his own hands by torturing victims into learning from their crimes. If they paid the price by inflicting pain on themselves and solved Jigsaw’s puzzles, they might live. Those that resisted stabbing their eyes out to reveal a hidden key would die. Wash the blood, rinse, repeat.

The second film kicked things up a notch in a haunted house of sorts, the third film ended the trilogy with Jigsaw’s death, the fourth film saw his legacy live on, the fifth film was an extension of the fourth, nobody remembers the sixth film because we all saw Paranormal Activity instead, and the seventh film had a small bump in revenue by adding 3D to the equation. The franchise has technically already revived itself twice, with the fourth film’s legacy plotline and the seventh film’s addition of 3D. I don’t know why Jigsaw’s producers bothered coming up with a name that suggests anything new is about to happen since commercials indicate this is another sequel.

I may not know what to expect from Jigsaw but I do have a few ways to help you possibly enjoy the experience better. As much as I want to trash Hollywood’s endless attempt to milk money from dying brands, I don’t want to see the big screen experience die. So here, my friends, are a few ways to help you prep for the latest franchise to rise from the grave… AGAIN.

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