By Tay Yek Keak

THE twisted psycho in Saw VI offers one screaming female victim a stark choice - lose her arm or lose her life.

Sounds horrible, right? Relax. It's only a movie. People are just acting. In actual terms, that decision is as harmless as choosing between mee pok tah and wonton mee.

Know how I can take gruesome horror gore like this so lightly?

No. 1: I close my eyes.
No. 2: It's not real.
No. 3: I think of the insurance premiums and lawsuits.

Let me tell you this - we don't see them, but behind all that fake mutilation onscreen, lots of lawyers and insurance people were probably standing by off-screen to make sure nobody in the movie even scratched a pinky.

In fact, with Saw VI, "behind the scenes" takes on extra significance, because I've been following a reality TV series called Scream Queens, in which a bunch of screeching babes compete to be that aforementioned gal who chops her arm off.

Man, while I'm afraid to see people die, those girls were dying to do the dying in the movie.

I've got friends who ask me why I see flicks like this. Am I some kind of sick freak? Well, yes, if you count my scary phone bill. But I do have a good reason as to why I enjoy watching Saw I to, possibly, Saw XXIII.

I watch movies like them with merriment because they have absolutely nothing to do with me. Let the maniac - Jigsaw, Chainsaw, Seesaw, whatever - exterminate as many people as he wants.

I don't know those people, they don't owe me money, I don't hang out with them, so I don't give two hoots about them.

In fact, it's easier for me to watch sadistic horror shows such as Saw, Halloween, Friday The 13th, and Nicole Kidman's next sadistically boring movie, because I invest zero, nada, zilch emotions in them.

I repeat: They have nothing to do with me. Unlike King Kong or Spider-Man, where I might yet meet a giant monkey or be bitten by a radioactive spider.

To me, horror movies are the ultimate equivalent of a black hole. When you see them, you're sucked into a vacuum of utter detachment, or what Hokkiens refer to as "boh chap".

And the Saw series is the ultimate vacuum cleaner of boh chap. I'm so numbed by the goings- on of six Saw flicks that I don't know who's killing who for what, for whom, for Forrest Gump?

What started out as a sick  game about imprisoning people in insane traps to make them mutilate themselves has mutated into such a soap opera that the prop guy must be the only fella having a wild time making all those crazy, phony contraptions.

And yet, I persevere until I get the Complete Saw DVD box set because it might come with a cutesy miniature torture machine that slices body parts off.

You know, that would be a great gag in the office when my boss sits on it.

myp@sph.com.sg

For more my paper stories click here.