For Those Who Love to Laugh and Puke at the Same Time...

Rating: 7/10 (1 November 2004)

"Saw" is relentlessly grisly. The serial-killer genre has been run into the ground recently, but "Saw" grinds it into mush and churns it out kicking and screaming once again. Here, the killer never really kills anyone, he simply sets up overly elaborate and grotesque scenarios that leave his hapless victims with painful choices, die a horrible death, kill yourself first, or kill someone else to escape. What we get here as viewers, is some of the best hardcore horror gore splattering this side of the latest zombie-fest.
"Saw" has everything a hardcore cult classic of this ilk needs to stand the test of time. The director, James Wan, is a hapless slap-dash hack (the editing is especially horrible) with a lovingly perverse penchant for the grotesque and macabre. Hardcore horror fans will rejoice. The film's set-ups are clever, and its executions are over the top. The film is anchored by a screamingly bad lead performance from Cary Elwes. All the performances here (save for the creepy tape-recorded voice of the Jigsaw killer) are terrible, but Elwes (who always seems to be acting as if he is still in "The Princess Bride") has some of the most howlingly awful sobbing/screaming scenes I have ever seen. Once you get done puking, you will laugh, as most of the audience did. I don't think the laughs are intentional, but by george, they are surely needed, because the last piece of the cult-classic-status puzzle is the stomach-churning ending. The last ten minutes of the film give us such a perverse twist, that it will leave the viewer shell-shocked. Don't expect a nice tidy ending. The film is as sloppy as its director, but the climax is as insanely ingenious as the killer it depicts. I was shocked, and so were the hardcore fans I went with, and that is saying a lot. So, if you are like us, see "Saw", otherwise, I can't recommend this gnarly hack-work to anyone else.