A Celebration of Excess

Rating: 2/10 (17 July 2017)

I saw this movie premier night at the local theater when I was 14. I was beyond thrilled to watch this movie. I was prepared for a visceral jaw-dropping experience, a middle finger waving anti-hero to Hollywood, a punishing Tour de Force that would kick my butt. Instead, what I got, was a 100 minute Nine Inch Nails music video with a "THEN WHO WAS PHONE?" twist every 10-or-so minutes.
Saw is an infernal editing fiasco imitating Chris Cunningham with jump cuts every 5 seconds, but with that it already has the gory visuals and gross subject matter, so it becomes way too excessive, like someone adding 3 packets of sugar to their Mountain Dew. To insult the senses even further, I'm being punished with a strobe-light flashback and audio clip of every single little twist that unfolds; and at that point I'm thinking that I really don't care what kind of twist gets thrown at me. The actor/co-writer Leigh Whannel does a solid job playing Adam. Carey Elwes, the man playing Dr. Gordon couldn't decide if he was a
blacksmith from the Old West, a Brit or a property manager from upstate New York; his acting was awful. The setup in the beginning is promising, but it's just a constant strobe light of gore, screams of agony, and loud noises.
The thing that had me excited for the film, was the scene with Amanda. They show a small part of Amanda's bear trap scene in the teaser, and I was sold. What I didn't realize was that abrasive ultraviolence industrial-music ridden strobe light style editing would take up almost the entire movie.
And to think I was a gorehound 14 year old who loved horror, I would hate this movie. I still do, and am ashamed that this become such a hit that it would spawn another half a dozen movies and a video game; tragic!