Saw

May be the best independent horror film to have come out since "The Blair Witch Project." It's certainly better than "Blair Witch", and more fun, more gruesome, and more macabre. In a very delightful way.

The slasher scenes, though relatively few, are amazingly evocative for such a low-budget movie.

Saw is so full of twists it ends up getting snarled. For all of his flashy engineering and inventive torture scenarios, the Jigsaw Killer comes across as an amateur. Hannibal Lecter would have him for lunch.

An efficiently made thriller, cheerfully gruesome, and finally not quite worth the ordeal it puts us through.

A story that's so ridiculous you'll at least be entertained by the outrageous plot contortions to come.

A crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics.

Sicko horror film from Australia, whose sadism is topped only by its absurdity.

Esse filme é um clássico do terror, maravilhoso, bem dirigindo e bem escrito, uma obra prima.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Хороший детективчик на один вечер. Сюжет и его сьёмка заслуживает 7 и выше, но из-за абсурдных моментов, связанных с боёвкой и реализмом фильмец на твердую 6-ку.

En general las películas de terror resultan desagradables, inapropiadas y son un tipo de contenido que debería ser prohibido y eliminado en las películas y bastantes series de televisión, y las de Saw resultan en exceso sangrientas, con escenas que deberían ser prohibidas en todo el mundo (por lo fuertes y desagradables que son), recomiendo nunca ver ni una cosa ni la otra, vean cosas buenas y agradables porque para entretenimiento hay videojuegos, competiciones, deportes, ánime, y caricaturas, de lo bueno hay mucho para elegir así que eviten basuras, nada de Saw, Chucky, etc.

A crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics, “SAW” marks a noisy, nasty feature debut for Aussie helmer James Wan and scenarist-thesp Leigh Whannell. Middle-aged Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes) and young malcontent Adam (Whannell) wake up at opposite ends of a decrepit basement bathroom, ankle-chained to girders, with no idea how they got there — and a corpse on the floor between them. Discovery of an audio cassette explains the doc must snuff Adam within the next few hours, or their unseen captor will murder Gordon’s wife (Monica Potter) and child. Meanwhile, two police **** (Danny Glover, Ken Leung) are on the trail of the mysterious “Jigsaw Killer,” whose prior victims were similarly abducted, then left alone to complete gruesome tasks by deadline. A single, traumatized exception aside, they all failed — and met with grotesquely customized “Seven”-style deaths. Ill-matched two current prisoners wrack their brains and bruise their bodies trying to avoid the same fate. Convoluted screenplay deploys flashbacks within flashbacks, myriad red herrings, false scares and gross-out real ones. But sum effect is less ingenious than desperate, and wholly derivative. Too hyperbolic to be genuinely disturbing, pic nonetheless crosses a line of anything-goes shamelessness by dwelling on the screaming terror of Gordon’s preschool daughter (Makenzie Vega) as she and mom are bound, gagged and handgun-caressed by a masked villain. Elsewhere, there are cheaply effective if unoriginal scares. Filmmakers bring a certain verve to such moments; but building atmosphere and suspense is well beyond them. Ditto handling actors: Left to their own devices amid escalating levels of narrative hysteria, Elwes, Whannell and Potter eventually grow ridiculous. It’s depressing to ponder just what Glover — one of our finest actors — is doing with a routine support part in this slick schlock. One can only hope he was very well paid for the indignity. Tech aspects are pro; loud soundtrack is equivalent of an incessant “Boo!” goosing.