‘Saw’ (2004) Review

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“I want to play a game.”

My viewing of Saw this time around is rooted in disappointment and a New Year’s resolution. The disappointment comes from Duke, who set up a SAW (that’s ScreenAge Wasteland) ranks the Saw (film) franchise back in October. When I let him know I wouldn’t be participating (because I’d only seen one of the films), he expressed disappointment. “I was counting on you,” was how it went, I think. I felt bad about that – not just because I’d let Duke down, but also because the Saw franchise is a major part of the 2000s horror landscape and I, as a professed and practicing horror fan, had kinda skipped it. So when I saw a collection of the first seven Saw films for cheap I went ahead and picked it up. Then I shelved it and forgot about it.

Fast forward to this month and one of my resolutions for the year is that I’m gonna try and watch all the films in the various box sets/collections I have. I’ve got a bunch where I’ve only watched one or two films, and it seems like I should at least TRY to watch things like Curse of the Fly and Phantasm V. Or any of the films in that Saw collection.

So here we are. It’s been long enough since I watched the original that I felt like I needed to revisit it (my understanding is the rest of the series follows a rough sort of continuity). This review is a mix of my first impressions and current ones.

I didn’t watch the original Saw for a long time after it came out. I avoided it as a representative (if not the progenitor) of the modern wave of so-called ‘torture porn’ movies. I just had no interest in watching a film that was essentially two guys having to cut their feet off and other people in similar situations being horrifically mangled. (Which was the entirety of the film, as I understood it.)

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a good splatter picture. Romero’s zombie films, any given Cronenberg picture, Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, Dead Alive, Fulci films, Ricky Oh, the Story of Ricky – you get the gist. But I’ve never been able to enjoy normal people being, well, tortured. I can watch the head exploding scene in Scanners over and over again, but the dentist drill sequence in Marathon Man makes me squirm every time.

On the other hand, Saw is kind of a seminal horror film at this point. Also the start of one of the most popular horror franchise series of the current century. That I had never seen it became more and more of a glaring omission in my horror curriculum vitae. I finally watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a few years back after decades of avoiding it – and that turned out to be an amazing film that I wish I’d enjoyed earlier. Could I be misunderstanding the film? Could Saw turn out to be just as much of a classic as TTCM?

The Medium

I have the aforementioned Saw “Complete” Collection Blu-ray release by Lions Gate in 2014. There have been three films released since then, with another on the way later this year. This collection has three discs, with three films each on the first two and the last two films on the third disc. I imagine the compression isn’t great, but for the first film at least, I don’t think a higher bit rate would do much to improve the picture. It’s a low budget film with most of the action taking place under fluorescent lights. It’s been released in 4k, though, so maybe an upgrade is worth it. I’ll never know.

For streaming options, Saw is currently only available for free on Plex. You can rent or buy it from Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango and Microsoft.

The Movie

A man, Adam (Leigh Whannell, who also wrote the screenplay), wakes up in a large, dilapidated bathroom. Freeing himself from a bathtub (he wakes under water) he finds himself chained to large pipes coming out of the wall. Also chained on the opposite side of the room is Lawrence (Cary Elwes), a doctor. In between them is the corpse of a man who has apparently shot himself in the head (a pistol lies near his hand, in addition to a microcassette recorder). They each find tapes in their pockets and, using the recorder, listen to them to discover that someone has imprisoned them and given them instructions. Adam must escape. Lawrence must kill Adam – or his wife and daughter will die.

I remember that the first time I watched the film, I spent a good chunk of the first 10-15 minutes reflexively wincing at imagined horrors. Waiting for the hammer to drop (or the saw to cut, as it were). Nothing much happens, though, gore-wise, that is. Seeing the hacksaws come out was something I expected, and weighed on my mind as the film progressed.

Lawrence thinks he knows who has done this to them. A serial killer named Jigsaw, who doesn’t directly kill his victims. Instead, he places them in positions where they have to struggle to save themselves. All but one of them has failed his games. And Lawrence was once a suspect in the killings.

I like Cary Elwes, but he’s really not very good here. He’s a bit too broad for the subject matter and the cadence of his speech is a bit off – slipping occasionally into his native English accent. Whannell is a bit better, but doesn’t have a huge range. In general the acting is simply passable, with Monica Potter (as Lawrence’s wife, Alison), Danny Glover and Michael Emerson being standouts.

The pacing of the film is a bit uneven. The procedural segments, with Glover’s Detective Tapp and Ken Leung‘s Detective Sing, are slow and – except for a confrontation with the Jigsaw killer – puncture the mood built up by the scenes in the bathroom. There’s a scene with the only survivor – a subdued Shawnee Smith – that’s really good, however (and that particular contraption is freakishly cool/awful).

As the movie progresses, we learn more about Lawrence and Adam – and their secrets. Flashbacks reveal that neither of them is telling the other the real truth about themselves. Meanwhile, Detective Trapp keeps an eye on Lawrence’s house – because he still believes that the good Doctor is actually the killer.

Things pick up speed quickly as time runs out for Lawrence and Adam, setting in motion several violent confrontations and making sure that a hacksaw is finally used for its intended purpose. I’ve read a few articles about Saw, but the first time I watched the film the ending was a complete surprise for me (even knowing the actor who plays Jigsaw), so I won’t spoil it. It was almost worth it just for that reveal.

The movie is pretty well shot and directed, no mean feat given it’s James Wan’s first. (I note that he also gets migraines, as I do, and that this informed some of the concept. I wish my own were as productive.) The film feels very claustrophobic – which was probably on purpose – but it does make it all feel a bit ‘staged’ rather than something occurring in the real world. Some of the editing and pacing was problematic for me, and at times it felt like a first film by a very talented amateur filmmaker. Flashes of brilliance with some technical faults.

Wan and Whannell have gone off to bigger and better things, of course – Wan adding blockbuster super-hero films in between the horror productions and Whannel getting into directing (including 2020’s well received Invisible Man). The Saw franchise has managed to succeed without their involvement, however, with ten films already released and another on the way. (Check out that ScreenAge Wasteland ranking of the current films.)

The Bottom Line

To answer my own rhetorical questions: Yes, I originally misunderstood the film – it’s a much better and more interesting movie than I gave it credit for, and not at all what I think of as “torture porn.” Is it a classic – on par with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Well – no. But it’s not bad! A decent psychological thriller with some moments of sheer terror and one of the best twists in horror movie history. I’m not necessarily looking forward to watching the rest of the films in the franchise, but at least I’m no longer dreading it.