Saw is something of a modern classic (modern in a fairly loose sense; the film is now around 17 years old), having a reputation for being an early precursor of the popular “torture porn” genre, starting one of the most successful horror franchises of all time as well as launching the careers of its two creators, James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Has it earned its reverence?
Saw takes place in an interesting setting, focusing on two characters chained up in a bathroom with a dead body between the two of them. This tight setting is intriguing and exciting, suggesting that the film will be a tightly wound, fairly claustrophobic thriller. Our two characters, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam Stanheight (Leigh Whannell) are seemingly unconnected, each waking with a tape giving them instructions, Adam to escape by any means necessary, and Lawrence to kill Adam before his wife and daughter are killed. Each is also given a hacksaw, which quickly proves ineffective at cutting through their chains. Lawrence realises this is likely the work of the Jigsaw killer, a serial killer in whose case he had been a suspect for a few months prior, and therefore the saw is more likely for their ankles. From here, however, the narrative becomes more convoluted, relying heavily on flashbacks and even some flashbacks within flashbacks, introducing a much larger cast of characters than feels necessary based on the film’s initial premise.
The most notable of the characters, Detective David Tapp (Donald Glover) is the main man on the hunt for Jigsaw and to a degree, the main focus of the film, and it almost seems to shift to being his search to discover the identity of Jigsaw. This aspect of the film shows strong influences from the Italian Giallo films of the 60s and 70s, through its focus on the mystery aspect as well as more specific aspects such as hiding the villain’s identity from the audience by focusing on black-gloved hands and the creepy doll Jigsaw uses which bears a striking similarity to one used in Dario Argento’s masterpiece “Deep Red”. In fact, I’d argue the film plays out as something of an amalgamation of classic Giallo thrillers such as this and David Fincher’s Seven. The trouble is it doesn’t match up to either of these as its own piece, feeling fairly derivative of its influences.
That’s not to say the film is bad; as I said, the initial setup is neat, and indeed if it focussed more on just those two characters locked in a bathroom together for the entire runtime, I can assure you I would be writing an altogether more positive review as the scenes in the bathroom are enthralling (though Cary Elwes does overact a little at times) with enough twists and turns to keep anyone interested, all culminating in a truly great ending. The trouble is that this simple, inspired concept of two people trying to figure out why they’re trapped together and how they might escape becomes bogged down by a deluge of subplots and flashbacks. Sure, some of these give some interesting flavour to Jigsaw by showing off some of his earlier “games” (including such marvels as the “reverse beartrap”) and hinting at his motivations, but when you take the original Saw film as a standalone piece neither of these things feel that significant, only really being important when you consider the franchise as a whole. Altogether this leaves Saw, despite a reasonably lean runtime of 103 minutes, feeling bloated.
A quick word on the violence in the film; Saw is not as explicit as its reputation might have you believe. Yes, it is a violent film, but the more extreme moments of violence are implied rather than shown directly and are spaced out quite a lot. To call this film “Torture Porn” is unfair and would seem to be a tag placed retrospectively after people had seen some of its more sensationalist sequels.
To conclude, Saw is an intense, good-quality thriller with shades of Seven encased in a middling to poor send-up to old Giallo movies. This results in a film that feels messy and confused, perhaps not a surprise coming from a first-time director and writer (both of whom have gone on to make some great movies in the years since) operating on a budget smaller than their ambitions. It’s worth watching just for its now-iconic status, but its ideas weren’t new in 2004, and in 2021 this film feels like it maybe overstayed its welcome as a benchmark for what modern horror should be.
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