great premise but a cheap trick horror that disappointed me again.

Rating: 4/10 (13 September 2011)

Last night I rewatched Saw for a re-assessment, I remember going to the cinema to see this one and from what I remember I was luke warm about it back then. I remember being mildly put off by the guy from Robin Hood Men in Tights being the lead, I couldn't take him seriously after that film and he isn't the best serious actor. Comedies maybe. Acting, no.
so i thought id give it another chance, get over the fact robin hood was in it and watch a supposedly horror classic but again was extremely disappointed.
don't get me wrong the premise is great and a new idea for once, the mystery theme was OK and twists at the end good also.
Was surprised to see the budget for the movie, pretty OK job for that budget but at times it did feel a little amateurish, not in look but the use of a lot of cheap tricks, the execution, plot holes and acting of some scenes was poor enough to take the horror right out of the scene and I've seen some cheap ass badly acted horrors in my time.
the gore was none existent, and the horror consisted of mostly loud scare noises and the bad guy/people shown moving around in fast forward quick editing then eventually shaking their head close up in front of the camera in fast forward accompanied by a loud scare noise.
That was the main scare because it looks weird/scary but the technique was used over and over and over again, and its a technique thats been used in many films and even TV shows to project insanity/chaos that its become clichÃ© to me now like Matrix bullet time and its a pretty cheap trick at that, although I'm not sure if James Wan invented this technique or Saw was one of the first films to use the trick so i gave the first 10 uses of it a bye on that reason but after that it became a one trick pony, probably the last straw was the obscene car chase fast forward, i suppose it was used to save money and not filming an actual car chase outside or they thought we'd better throw it in 1 last time because its our thing.
People may rest the horror on psychological and its an "in the mind", what you don't see kind of thing but the execution and cheap tricks ruined that aspect for me. the punchlines were always a loud scare noises or/and a scary face close up to the camera.
again the acting from the robin hood guy was pretty bad which is what the movie rested on, because basically most of the movie was 2 guys in a room, the whole plot centred around them and you feeling emotion for them. the 2 guys in a room story ain't a bad thing if done right, the atmosphere and plot of them in the room was done to good effect, the photographer guy sold it but robin hood(Carl Ewles) really fudged it amateur dramatic style and if a better actor was used who brought more to the table i would've liked it much more and would've blind sided its shortcomings in other areas, man i just cant take him seriously and he even upped the ante of bad acting in the final crucial scene.
Michael Emerson although a great actor and was surprised to see him just came off goofy mostly, i don't think it was his fault. Even Danny Glover was pretty mediocre, maybe it was the way they were directed and what they had to work with, it seemed like Danny phoned it in.
there were a lot of things that just irritated me, why didn't Michael Emerson go straight to hospital and alert cops of the whole thing instead of going ahead with everything like a goof, don't tell me Jigsaw has his crap so tight that there's only 1 cure in Country and hes got it, i wasn't falling for this Jigsaw has everything 110% planned, he just wasn't scary to me, he was just a dude with a ku klux clan robe on who coughed a lot.
When the cops found jigsaw and he sets off the drill mechanism and they let him do his speeches and get away, why didn't they just shoot the drills right away instead of goofing around and playing silly Q&A games with an unscary Jigsaw and listening to his vitriol. any cop would've shot jigsaw to bring him down as soon as he set it off the drills the shot the flimsy little power drills.
also in the hospital at the very start when Michael Emerson said to the doc that the sick guy/jigsaw had a name was he poisoned then? why come off like his brainwashed cohort right back then which is what he was painted to be all movie when he wasn't poisoned at that time. He listens to sick peoples drug induced jabberings and takes it way too seriously.
And Jigsaw being in the room at the end was a good twist but when i thought about it felt a little cheap. And the whole Michael Emerson twist was good till thought about, its not worth another watch to see how he reacts in earlier scenes because there is no reaction, he mainly acts like a brainwashed foot-soldier throughout. its not an inception, shutter island or fight club watch it a 2nd time feeling.
And there were a lot of other minor irritants like the girl with the bear trap mouth making male sounding demonic noises when she was escaping it, presumably to add to the scariness of it and the rest i cant be bothered to list.
my opinion is the reason it was successful was based on premise, and the 2 twists.
anyway thats my thoughts on Saw, great premise but a cheap trick horror that disappointed me again.