The Inferno of Dante, as translated by Robert Pinsky, uses many literary elements such as visual imagery, symbolism, and plot; all of which parallel in most horror films. Any one of the three Saw films would be an example of how Dante and Virgil’s journey can be classified in the genre of horror. Horror instills fear in the audience; it not only puts the audience on an emotional rollercoaster but it leaves a lasting impact deep inside the audience’s mind. Both Saw III and The Inferno of Dante, use specific details and gory images that prove the genre to be horror.
The victims of Jigsaw in Saw III take a similar hell-like journey that can parallel to Dante and Virgil’s actual journey through hell. Both works use imagery to instill their fear within the audience. With Saw III, the vivid detail and gory scenes leave a lasting impact that the viewer wants to forget but it unable to. In one specific scene, where a doctor is performing open brain surgery on Jigsaw, it makes the viewer want to close their eyes, but it is still impossible to get the image out of the viewers mind because the imagery is also located in the sounds of the movie. In The Inferno of Dante, Pinsky uses imagery that makes the reader feel as if they are on the journey through hell them selves. One way Pinsky makes the reader feel as if they were actually there on the journey through hell is the way he describes the sinners in Canto XX. “The head was twisted backwards: some cruel torsion forced face toward kidneys, and the people strode backwards, because deprived of forward vision” (Pinsky 159). The reader almost does not want to read on because of the awful image Pinsky is painting of hell. Along with imagery, another way these two works can be considered horrors is their similarities in plot.
A parallel between the film and the book is the plot and reason why the victims are experiencing the torture that they are. In Saw III, the victims are in the torture devices because a sin...