Saw: Movie, DVD, Blu-ray Disc Review (2004)

(Originally published Oct. 29, 2004)

The new horror movie, “Saw,” is bad, but not in ways that make bad horror movies good. It comes from the appropriately named Twisted Pictures, and it’s one of the more depressing buckets of swill to pour out of Hollywood this year.

The film’s point isn’t to scare us--it only wants to disgust us. That taps into pop culture’s enduring fascination with the gross-out, which can be fun when done well, such as in the new “Dawn of the Dead” movie, 2002’s “28 Days Later,” the “Evil Dead” series and other B-movie classics, from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to “Woodchipper Massacre.” But “Saw” fails to provide what the genre needs for it to work--characters worth rooting for and a seriocomic tone that’s infectious.

As directed by James Wan from a script by Leigh Whannell, the film’s two main characters--Lawrence (Cary Elwes) and Adam (Whannell)--are self-centered, unlikable types.
You can’t invest yourself emotionally in them, so you have to wonder what the filmmakers were hoping would carry us through to the end. Just the graphic scenes of murder, humiliation, torture, degradation, and amputation? It’s not enough.

The film opens with Lawrence, an oncologist, and Adam, a photographer, locked in the bowels of a filthy, abandoned public restroom. Each has one of his ankles shackled to a pipe. Between them on the blood-soaked floor is a man whose head has been partly blown off. In his left hand is a tape recorder; in the other, a gun.

These elements--along with the discovery of a key, two hack saws, two recorded tapes and plenty of flashbacks that reveal how each man was abducted--come together to form a raw, violent movie that doesn’t value imagination or its audience.

Danny Glover and Ken Leung co-star as the detectives working the case; Monica Potter is Lawrence’s glum wife with the stealy nerve. The identity of the madman is revealed at the start, but then the movie inexplicably ignores the revelation and tries to build a mystery out of who he might be. It’s bizarre--and it’s bad writing.

During the few times the film offers traditional suspense, it succeeds. For instance, the scene in which Adam uses his camera’s flash to light his way through his dark apartment, where the madman might be lurking, is effective. Also strong is a scene in which one of the madman’s prior victims struggles to remove an animal trap from her head. If it springs open, so will her skull.

Grade: D-

(Also available on Blu-ray disc)