How far would you go to survive?

Rating: Null/10 (24 October 2004)

James Wan's debut feature film Saw is an unnerving psychological horror film that will leave the viewer with countless of emotions.
Imagine waking up in a room without any recollection of how you got there, with a dead man in the center of the room, and a complete stranger in the other end. Your leg is chained. You cannot escape. How far would you go to survive? This is the main element of Saw, and the situtation we kick off from. Cary Elwes plays Dr. Lawrence, a man with marital problems and a mistress, now he must survive to save himself and his family. Leigh Wannel plays Adam, a voyeur who hasn't thought of his life to be anything special until today. Danny Glover plays Detective Tapp, a character not-unlike his previous role as Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon series, he too hunts the killer.
From the first frames, Saw provides plenty of thrills and shocks for the unsuspecting viewer. The mood is constantly suspenseful, with a controlled color, creating a bleak Sevenish view of the room and world the characters inhabit.
Saw is not a violent movie. It's disturbing yes, but the violence level is surprisingly low, with very little blood or gore. A untypical decision to make in the current world with teen slasher movies creating the mass market of horror movies. The main power of SAW is it's atmosphere, constantly troubling and deeply twisted, it manages to create scares and genuine shocks without fancy cgi or blood splattering effects. Not since Seven has there been a movie with a atmoshpere like this, one can almost touch it.
Saw is a brilliant debut from first time director/writer James Wan, and hopefully we'll see more movies from this talented new filmmaker.
*****