New pitch: a serial killer stalking serial killers

Rating: 1/10 (1 November 2004)

I realize that the movie was not intended as camp, but clearly that is the result. You can complain about the writing or the acting or the directing, but they are all equal parts horrible. Beyond that though, the whole serial killer genre is fading out like the Westerns did in the 70's. We've been watching this for, what, three decades now? It has become an exercise in ratcheting up the gore to get someone into the theaters. It is dead, a victim whose corpse has been hacked and mutilated by dozens of directors, and the good ones (Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, Jonathan Demme, David Fincher) only serve to give the bad ones a new template to follow. You can add or subtract from that list of directors, but the litmus test is simple: were they followed by a flock of imitators? TCM, Halloween, SOTL, Seven all showed this lasting influence. Can we consider Saw to be anything more than a typical B movie, popcorn required? Did it break any conventions other than adding a new serial killer MO? A 10? If this is a perfect movie (and I am assuming that these disturbingly positive reviews are genuine, not just cast and crew and their relatives) then what does Silence of the Lambs, or TCM or whatever rate? Are those all 10s too, making them all of equal quality? C'mon, the movie is big steamy pile. Don't worry, Princess Bride fanboys - I'm sure people are going to see your secret love Cary Elwes, either in this movie or in the unemployment line. The way I see it, (1) Danny Glover should have stayed down after first blood and let his character die early on, (2) Elwes should have used the cellular to call Aaron Eckhart and thank him for passing on the script, (3) the whiny writer/co-star - he nearly captures the most annoying performance of the movie until Elwes realizes he's being one-upped - should switch to copyrighting for Proctor & Gamble or something equally harmless to society, (4) Monica Potter needs to swear off any further garbage before the same thing happens to her career as those around her, (5) the dummy needs to be sent back to the Brothers Quay museum, (6) Shawnee Smith should be congratulated for finding some flotsam to cling on to in her never-was acting career, and (7) director Wan should be condemned to watching this film for eternity.