8 Days - November 02, 2017

8 DAYS | 41

BY DOUGLAS TSENG

Always Be WithYou

(NC16)

THE NEEDLE PIT

AS SEEN IN SAW II (2005)

The player has to

retrieve an antidote

to a poison gas he’s

been exposed to.

To get to it, he must

escape from a

locked chamber. The problem is, the key

is hidden in a pit of used syringes. Yikes.

SHOTGUN ROULETTE

AS SEEN IN SAW VI (2009)

Six victims are

tied to a carousel,

each positioned

in front of a shot-

gun. The player

can only save two

of them. To do

so, he must first pierce his hand with a

metal spike. If he doesn’t intervene, all

six victims will die.

10 PINTS OF SACRIFICE

AS SEEN IN SAW V (2008)

To escape a

room filled with

homemade

nail bombs, the

player has to fill

up a beaker with

10 pints of their own blood — by shov-

ing his hand into a circular saw. Oh yes,

he only has 15 minutes to finish the job.

REVERSE BEAR TRAP

AS SEEN IN SAW (2004)

The player has 60

seconds to unlock

Jigsaw’s most

iconic deathtrap

that’s attached to

his head. Failure

to do so will

trigger the trap

to burst open and rip his jaws apart.

Fans don’t get to see its full impact until

2010’s Saw 3-D.

The Mountain

Between Us(M18)

STARRING Louis Koo, Julian Cheung, Charmaine Sheh | DIRECTED BY Herman Yau

You have to hand it to Hongkong

filmmaker Herman Yau — he’s

prolific as hell. This year alone,

he’s given us the mad bomber

thriller Shock Wave, chick flick 77

Heartbreaks, splatter-fest The Sleep

Curse, and now, Always Be With You.

The latter is a hopelessly scattershot

horror omnibus about a bunch of

people who start to see spooky things

after they’re involved in the same

vehicular pile-up. The scares come in

dribs and drabs, while the clumsily-

handled emotional scenes are more

likely to provoke laughter than tears.

On hindsight, Mr Yau should’ve just

skipped this and gone for a vacation.

RATING

STARRING Idris Elba, Kate Winslet | DIRECTED BY Hany Abu-Assad

Idris Elba and

Kate Winslet play

strangers — he’s a

neurosurgeon rushing

to a conference, and

she a photojournalist on

her way to her wedding

— marooned in the

wilderness after their

plane crashes into the

Rockies. The exciting first

half sees the handsome

pair, joined by a yellow Labrador, engaged in an epic Man vs Nature struggle.

The second half, however, is enervating when it shifts gear to a sappy romantic

melodrama. It becomes so dull that I can’t help but wonder: Would this movie

be more interesting if it were told from the dog’s perspective? Hmmm...

RATING

HOUSE OF

Jigsaw made more than 50

deathtraps in the first seven

Saw movies. Here are some of

his notable grisly creations.

PAIN