Nothing new here

Rating: Null/10 (30 August 2011)

For a film that supposedly spawned the entire 'torture-porn' sub-genre, 'SAW' turns out to be surprisingly conventional and lacking in gore . After an ingenious set-up, the plot quickly unravels into a mess of implausible plot twists and horror clichés. Any horror film that shows heroes that are too stupid to put away the bad guy when they have him cornered, or bad guys that just get up like nothing happened after being shot, or serial killers that are permitted to operate in a vacuum with no effort by the city authorities at a man-hunt, runs the risk in this post Scream world of being viewed as a mere rehash rather than a reinvention of the genre.