"Congratulations. You are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore."
When I first saw advertisements for Saw, I was intrigued. The concept of the movie looked fascinating from a psychological horror point of view. Two men wake up chained to opposite walls of what seems to be a run-down public restroom, and a dead body is between them holding a gun. They discover that one of them must kill the other or they will both die.
For some reason, I never bothered to watch this movie before tonight. It was on some movie channel, and I decided to watch it to kill time before another movie began. The movie started, and I couldn't stop watching it.
It was much more intelligent of a movie than I expected, though it definitely had its flaws. The serial killer, "Jigsaw," chooses his victims because they (supposedly) are wasting their lives. "Serial killer" may be a misnomer, though, as Jigsaw has never actually killed any of his victims himself. He puts them in situations where most of them kill themselves trying to survive.
While the movie begins with the two men waking up in their strange prison, the viewer learns about them and about Jigsaw's previous exploits through flashbacks. The viewer learns that both of the men have their secrets and that Jigsaw is incredibly sadistic in his creativity.
Saw is definitely gory, but it isn't quite as grisly as I had expected it to be. Considering the concept of both the movie and the serial killer, it would have been very easy to overdo it. However, it stops well before the queasiness would begin.
I'd kind of like to watch the sequel.
Posted by Randy at February 4, 2006 11:34 PM | TrackBack