Didn't make a lot of sense, but I didn't want to saw off my limb either.

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2005)

I enjoy a good "buckets of blood" film every now and then, and when the film carries an original concept that makes it a lot easier to watch too. "Saw" isn't the gore fest that I thought it would be, but it's pretty close and lots of the film is disgusting and creepy. The creep factor is high in this one.
The film starts out with two guys chained to a pipe in a seedy bathroom. There is a dead guy in the room with his brains blown off holding a gun on the floor. The two of them are each given a tape to listen to and follow the instructions. Cary Elwes plays one of the guys and he is instructed to kill the other guy by a time deadline or his family will be killed. The men are also given a saw. the saw won't work on the chains, but it's there to cut through their limbs to get loose. The man behind this is a serial killer named Jigsaw and until later in the film, he never actually kills anybody. He carefully picks his victims and sets them up in precarious situations, that would make them want to kill themselves. All the victims are flawed people such as prostitutes and adulterers. This aspect reminded me of the film "Se7en".
The film is very scary at times and you never really know whats going to happen next, most of the time. It's well directed and pretty smart. My complaint is that towards the end of the film, you know whats coming. There is a twist ending that makes little sense and I suppose that most horror movies seem to all have twist endings nowadays. That's fine if they help the film. The movie also stars B-Movie horror queen Dina Meyer, Monica Potter, and in a bizarre role for him, Danny Glover.
I'm recommending "Saw" to people who like their films scary, full of blood, and creepy. If that's not your thing, you'll hate this movie. It kept my interest and I liked it. (***)