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Director: James Wan
Rating: R for grisly violence and language
Release Date: October 29, 2004
See it on Amazon
 I originally caught this movie last year in the theater. I rented it to refresh myself on the terror in preparation for Saw 2.
The movie is low-budget with a mere $1.5 million in production costs. That's pretty good considering the movie had some washed-up actors like Danny Glover and Cary Elwes.
From the start of the film, I was unimpressed. The acting was sub-par and the plotline seemed contrived. It was just your average kidnap film where the kidnapper was demented along the lines of the serial killer from Se7en.
Some unknown guy is abducting random people, putting them in impossible situations, and giving them horrendous options of escape. The options involve doing bodily hard to one's self or to another victim. All of the people attempt to escape, but most of them end up dying.
The scenarios are unique, but the concept is not. The majority of the movie is spent watching Danny Glover attempt to figure out who is the man behind all this. At the same time, Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell, the writer of the film, sit chained up in a bathroom that looks more unsanitary than a back-alley abortion room.
Just when you thought the movie sucked...
In the end, the unoriginality and bad acting are blown away by one of the most shocking endings to be viewed on the screen.
What I didn't realize until the very end of Saw is that it is a genius of a movie. In fact, it's almost as though the movie-makers were attempting trick us into thinking the movie was lame so that when they hit us with the unfathomable ending, it would leave us screaming.
Yes, screaming. When I first caught Saw in the theaters, the ending was so unbelievably shocking that my friend and I, two grown men, were screaming.
Go ahead. Laugh. Then see the movie and try laughing at me.
The interesting part is that if you see the movie knowing what I've just told you, the ending will still shock the hell out of you.
The filming techniques are basic, but very effective. One technique that adds to the tension is a quick overview of the whole film. M. Night Shyamalan has used this technique in films like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. When the viewer finally realizes what is going on, a series of quick shots from earlier scenes are shown so that the viewer sees all the clues they missed throughout the entire film.
This is the film-makers' way of saying, "Hey idiot. The answer was in front of your face the whole time."
Blockbuster by proportional standards
Even with such a low-budget, the film was able to gross more than $55 million domestically and get an immediate go for Saw II.
When you break it down, this little film was able to create profits 37-times its original costs. Just think of some if these $100 million dollar flicks could boast of such an accomplishment.
I highly recommend renting Saw and watching it in a dark room. It'll freak the hell out of you and make you want to catch the sequel.
Related links
Official Saw Website
Box Office Stats |
