Let me start my first review out by saying that I am in no way, shape or tangible form a ‘horror guy’. When I watched Stephen King’s IT at the cinema recently, I scared my friend more than Pennywise did, only because I was jumping the whole time. This also means I’ve never seen a film from the hailed halloween franchise, SAW. The film series revolving around the twisted life mentor cum serial killer, Jigsaw; a mastermind who, despite having no blood on his own hands, is famous for his body count. The first film, the one I’m reviewing, came out in 2004 and was directed by the (then) new talent in the horror genre, James Wan. Wan has of course gone onto become a household name for horror fans, birthing The Conjuring as well as it’s sequels and spin-offs, Lights Out and the Insidious quadrilogy. SAW in the space of fourteen years now has eight films, a horror maze, a theme park ride and some video games to it’s name, with more films likely to be on their way.
The first thing I liked about SAW was just how captivated I was by the film and it’s structure. It spends a lot of time revolving around two of Jigsaw’s ‘students of life’ or, in our case, victims, Adam and Lawrence trapped in a bathroom, with their feet shackled to pipes either side of the room. JIGSAW gives them a way out, but only if they either saw their feet out of these shackles, or Lawrence kills Adam to escape. At first I thought the notion of focusing on two people in a bathroom would be quite boring due to my expectations of the horror genre being so dynamic. However, the singular bathroom setting allows for a much greater focus on character and plot development, as well as keeping you hooked, rooting for both characters to find their way out of the bathroom. As the film progresses, the characters begin to piece together how they ended up in the clutches of Jigsaw. This progression feels natural, being based on the characters own revelations and thinking, as opposed to the film conventionally making it obvious. This unique setting, plot and flow is something I’ve never seen from a film before, SAW doesn’t need to be a multiple-location spanning epic, it’s not focused on scaring you visually, but more psychologically.
This psychology is another thing I loved about the film, birthed from it’s writing. With that being said, I personally think Jigsaw and his sadistic teaching methods make for some of the most intriguing and exciting writing for a villain I’ve ever seen in a film. There’s a moment where he is held at gunpoint by a policeman as he explains he’s “sick of the disease eating away at him, sick of people who don’t appreciate their blessings, sick of those who scoff at others”. For a moment you have a strange sympathy for a man who’s intention is to lure people into suicide to force them to appreciate life. This intention is also why I love the way Jigsaw is written, he isn’t a man looking to kill people for the pleasure of bloodshed or because he needs that bloodshed to stay alive, he’s not even looking to kill people altogether - but to remind them of the importance of life. Doing so with brutal, traumatic traps that often end up with his victims killing themselves and being responsible for their own deaths in a refusal to accept his teachings.
However, as said by CinemaSins, no film is without it’s sin. In this case SAWs negativity is only minimal, but still enough to crack the immersion. As great as the ending was, and one of my favourite twists in a film, I couldn’t help but feel it was a tad rushed. This may have been due to restrictions with the short runtime (1hr 43m) but it also had to do with how much had to be explained, as well as linked to events shown earlier and throughout the film, in a much shorter time at the very end of the film.
Overall, the development, writing and pacing it manages to undertake in just over 100 minutes with a budget of $1.3 million makes SAW a unique, spectacular watch. You’d never guess that a film like this would have a budget so low, especially when being adapted from a short film ’Saw 0.5’ made in 2003. It’s legacy is notable throughout the media with more fleshed out antagonists and the sub-genre of ‘torture porn’ coming to the horror genre.