Written on: 15/03/2005 by WSD (71 reviews written)
Unique, very tense
A bit too gruesome at the end
Saw - This is a magnificently well-made horror/suspense film. Two men wake up in a filthy bathroom chained to the pipes at opposite ends of the room with a dead body in between them. They are each provided a cassette detailing why they are there and what they should do in order to escape. As they talk, they piece together how they got there and who the killer is. In flashback scenes we are told how the "jigsaw killer" conjures unique ways to put people in impossible situations where they must either kill themselves or kill another in order to escape. For example, one woman, a junkie, finds herself with her head strapped in a torture device that will explode, ripping apart her jaw if she doesn't take a penknife and cut open a dead man's chest to find the key to unlock herself, but is he really dead?
While the twist ending is horribly gruesome - it's a movie called Saw about a serial killer - the blood and gore are worth enduring because it's rare these days that a horror film manages to shock, suprise and reveal anything new, but Saw manages this in spades.