 SAW Review
The original SAW was an excellent suspense-thriller that, if treated better with sequels, could have brought back the Hitchcockian form of film.
Review by Kenny Farino
"If it's Halloween, it must be SAW". Truer words have never been spoken, as SAW has quickly become the tradition of the season of the witch. You see, a sequel to this franchise, which began in 2004, has been released every year since then, the sixth coming out this Halloween. What I fail to understand is why they keep making sequels. You see, I am new to the SAW franchise. Not brand new, because I actually saw the third movie with my then-11 year old brother when it came out. He watched, while I covered my eyes most of the time. I'm a terrible older brother, but I thought it would be a good bonding experience. Because nothing says bonding like taking your brother to see what is known as a torture-porn! "But Kenny, what is a torture-porn?"
Torture-porn is a newer sub-genre of horror that has gone far beyond the other extreme sub-genres, like the exploitation of the 1970's and the slasher of the 1980's. What is the main trait? As opposed to other horror movies, which have a moral to their story (they do, trust me), the torture-porn is not interested in any of that morality nonsense. Instead, the selling point is seeing people die horrible deaths, mostly when in a tortuous device. The movies best known in this sub-genre are the latest SAW movies, and Eli Roth's Hostel saga.
Don't chew me out, this is from SAW 3!
However, there is something very interesting to consider: while the SAW sequels have gotten gorier and gorier, while the story has become more and more convoluted, the first SAW movie actually had very little, if any, shown violence... wait, what? Yeah, SAW actually started off extremely tame in the way of gore. "But Kenny," you ask, this joke obviously stolen from Zero Punctuation ohgoddonthuntmedown, "how was the movie interesting without the GORE?" Well, SAW was actually very deeply rooted in a much older sub-genre of horror, suspense. The first SAW had much less gore, and much more suspense, and as a result I could actually watch this movie without covering my eyes! I watched the first film last night, and I thought it would be appropriate to review it, seeing as Halloween, and another sequel, draw closer.
Synopsis
The story begins with Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam (Leigh Wannell) finding themselves locked in a dingy dungeon/bathroom, chained to pipes with no way out. They discover that they are in a trap crafted by a mad genius the world knows as the Jigsaw Killer. As events unfold, Gordon discovers that Jigsaw has his daughter and wife. Will he be able to save them, and his own life? Meanwhile, Detective Tapp (Danny Glover) is obsessed with finding the Jigsaw killer because of the death of his partner. Will he be able to solve the case and save lives?
The Good
One of the strongest points that immediately came to look me in the face in this movie was the overwhelming suspense that makes this an actual classic. While the sequels are filled with gratuitous amounts of gore, and the characters are about as flat as a cardboard cutout (much akin to the victims in slasher films), the few characters presented here are given gut-wrenching tasks that either lets them live or die. The tension builds up nicely between Dr. Gordon and Adam as their collective histories are revealed to the audience, the two characters all the while trying to desperately escape the trap they are in before the time runs out.
All the while, Detective Tapp's exploits in finding Jigsaw, while short-lived in terms of screen time, also add to that tasty suspense. For instance, when he and his partner encounter Jigsaw in a flashback, you think that they are able to capture him while they are thrown into a massive confrontation. However, just as you think the two detectives are about to get Jigsaw, BOOM. The partner sadly meets his maker. All of these scenes with Gordon and Tapp help to build up to the final climax, where the killer has a showdown with the detective.
You know what also helps build suspense? The off-screen violence that occurs. With the sequels, you have every little detail shown in the torture-porn money shots so nothing is left to the imagination. That's a huge mistake, because leaving more to the mind actually intensifies the thrill of the situation due to the fact that people can imagine far more horrifying things happening if they don't SEE what's happening. Even the part with Tapp's partner dying, while horrible in itself, was off-screen, so the impact was also greater than if you saw his brains get blown out.
Another thing I found appealing was the clever and inventive story. As opposed to its sequels and other horror brethren that came out during that time, SAW was actually different because it didn't treat the audience like idiots. To the contrary, it was like a harrowing yet intricate detective movie, leaving the audience clues to try and make their own conclusions. There were also little bits and pieces in the movie that made you go "Ooooooooh, it was HIM!" For instance, when you go into a flashback of Dr. Gordon's history as a doctor, you meet one of his patients, John Kramer. If you aren't familiar with who he is from the sequels, you'll find out what he does best at the very end of the movie. All in all, this made me very appreciative as a whole because it was fresh and exciting to be treated my age by a movie's plot.
This is the usual feeling in a modern horror flick that has the brain of a kid.
The last good thing I can really think of is the very ending of the film. It has a huge twist... which, in Horror Corner tradition, I will not give away. Yay!
The Bad
One of the things that really threw me off about SAW was some of the editing in some sequences, particularly when lives were at risk. For instance, you see Amanda Young, a heroin addict, strapped to the infamous Reverse Beartrap. As she struggles to get out of it, the editing is very similar to either a Rob Zombie dream sequence, or an MTV music video; it's extremely fast, extremely twitchy, and extremely confusing. However, to the editor's credit, it could have been put this way to give the viewer a sense of panic, utilizing the mechanism of the Soviet Montage and using the momentum of the cutting to create that feeling of confusion in the audience.
A nitpick was that the acting wasn't the best in the world. While some did a good job, like Cary Elwes, others were rather lackluster. For instance, Danny Glover may be a good actor in other films that he was in, but I just didn't feel like he did a very good job. It felt, to me, like he was just phoning in. He seemed like he was just randomly wandering around the place saying his lines without any real motivation behind his performance. Leigh Wannell was an actor I had mixed feelings about, so I really can't say much on his behalf.
Dr. Gordon before his first divorce.
The Verdict
SAW has created a legacy for itself in the horror world. While I can't say that it left a positive impact with what would eventually become the new sub-genre of horror, torture porn, I can gladly say that the original film was an excellent suspense-thriller that, if treated better with sequels, could have brought back the Hitchcockian form of film. With that said, SAW was probably one of the best horror films to come out in this decade, most likely to be remembered alongside Drag Me To Hell as an example that the genre is not dead, but is still alive and kicking.
Sam Raimi's 'Drag me to Hell'
With the various factors giving this film a great sense of suspense, the subtlety of the violence and deaths, the great twist ending, and the immersible story that treats you like an adult, and the only debatable flaws being the acting and the editing in some portions, which may or may not be an actual fault at all, this film receives:
4/5
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Leave a Comment
neuromancer
08 Dec 2009, 12:53
Saw 1 is definitely the best out of the series. I think it sucks that
people dismiss Saw 1 as torture porn and never see the suspense and clever
writing in the movie. Saw 1 doesn't even have that much onscreen violence
and it uses frantic camera angles to keep the audience in suspense.
Every movie afterward is a freaking mess that puts Days of Our Lives to
shame with its own knot of a storyline.
POYOLOCO
15 Dec 2009, 13:10
Any news on a SAW VII?
Belphegor-Fan
16 Dec 2009, 09:08
Your SAW 1 review is much better. It is a step up from the Call of Cthulhu
review because of the pictures and the plot synopsis. I will check in from
time to time and see what else you are cooking up.
Kenny Farino
18 Dec 2009, 15:13
@ Belphegor-Fan: Haha yeah, my Call of Cthulhu review could have been
better in many respects :P. Thanks much for the feedback, I'll kick it
into overtime, work-wise!
@ POYOLOCO: Unfortunately not XD. No Saw 7 from what I can tell. Yet.
Although if Twilight can advertise its 3rd movie when the 2nd one is still
in theatres (ffffuck, a 3rd one?!), then I'm sure Saw 7 isn't too far
away.
tektonik
21 Nov 2010, 10:36
The original SAW was a great thriller that had me nervously on the edge of
my seat, and even SAW II and III were decent but I hate all of the new ones
because they make Jigsaw look like a humanitarian but he still hooks people
up to these evil devices. Just like in Saw VI where the new apprentice was
dumping the black victim from the twister machine from SAW III on the
ground right after he was kidnapped and Jigsaw said ''That is a human
being'' as if he should treat the victim with some gentleness before he
gets strapped into a death trap. WHAT HYPOCRISY! But out of all the movies
in the series I liked the message of SAW VI where the health insurance
industry is put on trial. But the series is still a mess that always has to
go backwards and reexamine things instead of just going forward. And along
the way SAW lost the horror and brilliance of the first movie.
kelvin
25 Jan 2011, 18:02
wow its so very entitristing
John Kramer
31 Jan 2011, 12:39
It is my speculation that the fall of the SAW franchise rests in not the a
weakness in the writing or a contrived story that spans 7 movies to date,
but the shift in the focus of the innocent and the guilty being punished
simultaneously.
The victims of the traps from the first movie guilty of squandering their
lives in one form or another be it ruining the lives of others, or failing
to appreciate their own existence, and each trial is constructed in a way
to better illustrate their follies. In later movies, most noticeably in SAW
VI and 3D, relatively innocent people are placed in the game in no-win
situations. An example is in Saw VI where the primary victim must choose to
kill one of his two employees whom are both innocent of any true crime, in
contrast to the roulette wheel of the six underlings who make it their job
to deny health insurance money to 4 out of 6 of their customers.
Even SAW III, likely where the series began to decline in quality, featured
innocent people being tortured in order to prove a point to the primary
sinner being tried. The judge, the lawyer, and the man who accidentally
killed the primary victim's son are not evil people except in the eyes of
the father passing these trials, so why were they being tortured to prove a
point to the father? If the same scenario were to have been thematically
closer to SAW I, then the father would himself be the victim in a ditch
effort to save his own life, not to save the lives of people he thinks he
hates.
SAW went from a psychological thriller where a person who commits evil
deeds or wastes their lives is put in a life or death situation in an
attempt to redeem themselves through survival, and it became a violent
free-for-all where anyone could be involved in a death trap, regardless of
their involvement in evils, or their own appreciation for their lives.
After SAW III a perfectly good person who loves life to its fullest could
be involved in a death trap even if he or she is loosely affiliated with a
person who doesn't, and that is what truly killed the series.
Thank you for appreciating SAW I.
Do you appreciate life?
Do you want to play a game?
darcy
02 Apr 2011, 09:49
esa pelicula es muy sanginaria pero me gusta todas la partes
zakaria
07 Apr 2011, 12:35
ilvoe you saw 5
fatima
12 Aug 2011, 20:51
I like this film a lot He was my favorite It is a masterpiece
killingmachine
31 Aug 2011, 07:52
i love saw because brutality & pain what i really enjoy after giving pain
to other is ultimate entertainment & blood oya i love to play with blood
Kenny F.
31 Aug 2011, 11:57
You mean the sequels? Unfortunately, the first movie has almost none of
that :P.
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