Gets The Job Done

Rating: 8/10 (7 January 2006)

It's not often that we see young Australian film-makers exploding onto the scene with a film as popular as "Saw". The 2004 horror-thriller of choice is the work of two Melbourne-born film graduates, Leigh Whannel and James Wan, whose project was picked up by Lion Gate Films on good faith when they took it to the states. The pair managed to pick up some moderately big names for the picture (Carey Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter) and co-writer Leigh Whannel even landed himself a starring role. However, impressive as their skill and success may be, does the film itself stand up to its hype?
We begin with two men, Lawrence Gordon (Elwes) and Adam (Whannel) waking in a dirty underground bathroom, chained to the walls with leg manacles and supplied with one hacksaw each. They soon learn that they are the latest victims of the notorious serial killer known as Jigsaw, whose methods involve putting his prey into situations in which they must either suffer horribly or die. Given a deadline for their escape, the two must attempt to outwit their psychopathic captor and save Gordon's family, as well as their own lives.
The film is very much in the vein of "Se7en", David Fincher's famous horror-thriller in which a serial killer punishes his victims for being excessive perpetrators of the seven deadly sins. Both films use the same dark, gritty color scheme and both excel in graphically horrific but admirably imaginative torture scenarios. Teenagers will have a ball with "Saw", which is steeped in violence and disturbing imagery. The plot itself has the indefinite quality of ambiguity, the tipping point of which would be what the writers' true intention was. If they were having a bit of fun with the whole "crazed serial-killer who comes up with self-righteous justifications" shtick, then they've done well. If they were serious, then the plot should not and could not be analyzed to any serious degree.
Strong points of the film include a premise and approach that is both more thoughtful and more mature than most films of this genre. Whatever the flaws of the film, it should not be dismissed as a mere blood fest. Rather, it is a genuine and fairly effective attempt to bring the horror genre back to its roots. Take one look at the masters (Edgar Alan Poe, Alfred Hitchcock) and you see that their intention was to deeply disturb their audience, not simply disgust them, and this is something that Saw definitely has over its fellow horror-flicks. Not wanting to lose its teenage demographic, it takes pride in its modernity but still remembers why horror fans go to the movies.
Its success as a horror movie aside, if horror is not your type of movie, then "Saw" is about as far from your cup of tea as you can get. Obviously it's nice to see Australians getting out there and making it happen, so good on Wan and Whannel for their efforts and success, but have no illusions about their vision: they want to make the bottoms drop out of their audience's stomachs, so if you'd rather have a few laughs, either develop a pretty warped sense of humor or go see something else.