A surprisingly effective, visceral experience

Rating: Null/10 (24 October 2008)

With only around two scenes of extreme gore, "Saw" deserves a bit more recognition than dismissal as 'torture porn'. Although it's not hard to see why this was originally going to be released to DVD before test screenings, right down to James Wan's directorial style (which would be pushed to its limits with Darren Lyn Bousman's "Saw IV", which somehow manages to look cheaper than all the rest of the movies in the series in spite of having a much bigger budget), which is to put it mildly not to my taste. Still, I credit Wan for creating a really claustrophobic atmosphere here, and the one or two action scenes are quite well-done. The cast is fairly good thanks to the several better-known actors here, Danny Glover, Ken Leung, and Michael Emerson (the latter two ended up on "Lost" eventually), but the two leads trapped in the room are quite poor unfortunately. Jigsaw is a wicked villain, the film ultimately creates a visceral experience without resorting to unnecessary gore, and the end product is an entertaining and effective thriller.
7/10