Saw I Saw

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I posted this on my RYM account a few minutes ago, but I think I might get better discussion here.


I avoided watching saw for a long time due to uncertainty of my strength of resisting disturbing imagery and how it would affect my mind. I'm reading so many reviews of this movie and it's hard to find a single objective standpoint. It looks like a lot of people just have different ideas of what makes the movie good or bad.

I noticed the movie is occasionally filmed like a 2000's crime show, which is perfectly fitting considering how much mystery is involved in the background. And one thing I have to say, I have incredibly high standards for modern horror because of how tropy horror can be. Even The Exorcist didn't surprise me (I still gave it a five-star rating, but it played exactly like how I pictured demon possessions happening). Saw was different. It took the strongest tropes of your everyday crime show and applied it to boundaries not yet broken in horror, and with startling affect.

I have a 0-100 scale and I'm seriously considering a 100 rating. I never thought I'd say that the Carey Elwes flick Saw might be better than the freakin' Princess Bride. So I want to know if I'm missing something very important here. I don't want to put this in my top 100 movies if I missed a huge detail worth lowering the rating for.

EDIT: I'm thinking that maybe it heavily appeals to me because it's filmed like an episode for a crime series and I watched a lot of those as a kid, not to mention it's a psychological thriller with a lot of detail and intricacy. Saw is a rare horror film that actually managed to surprise me.



I posted this on my RYM account a few minutes ago, but I think I might get better discussion here.


I avoided watching saw for a long time due to uncertainty of my strength of resisting disturbing imagery and how it would affect my mind. I'm reading so many reviews of this movie and it's hard to find a single objective standpoint. It looks like a lot of people just have different ideas of what makes the movie good or bad.

I noticed the movie is occasionally filmed like a 2000's crime show, which is perfectly fitting considering how much mystery is involved in the background. And one thing I have to say, I have incredibly high standards for modern horror because of how tropy horror can be. Even The Exorcist didn't surprise me (I still gave it a five-star rating, but it played exactly like how I pictured demon possessions happening). Saw was different. It took the strongest tropes of your everyday crime show and applied it to boundaries not yet broken in horror, and with startling affect.

I have a 0-100 scale and I'm seriously considering a 100 rating. I never thought I'd say that the Carey Elwes flick Saw might be better than the freakin' Princess Bride. So I want to know if I'm missing something very important here. I don't want to put this in my top 100 movies if I missed a huge detail worth lowering the rating for.

EDIT: I'm thinking that maybe it heavily appeals to me because it's filmed like an episode for a crime series and I watched a lot of those as a kid, not to mention it's a psychological thriller with a lot of detail and intricacy. Saw is a rare horror film that actually managed to surprise me.
I did not see it but it is well known that it revolutionnize horror genre. In a time where horror movie were just gore with blood everywhere SAW has been able to add real mise en scène and tension to it so no it is probably worth a high note. But then is it 100, depend on who you ask but it is well known thath James wan is a master of tension. (little pun with master of suspens that is Hitchcock LOL. Probably not as funny as i think) But the ovr idea of making list and rating movie is very shallow I do it as well but i dont grade them I just put movie in categories like masterpiece, great movie,good movie, bad movie, etc... because you have movie who have great intentions but the results are disspaointing etc...



Victim of The Night
I liked Saw a good bit when I saw it, which was a pretty long time ago.
But I would never say it was as good as or even in the same league as The Princess Bride, which I consider to be an all-time great film.
And that's really not to diminish Saw, I liked it more than a lot of people did and I also recognize that it was impactful within the genre, not only for what it was on the screen but also for really launching James Wan who in turn launched an entire contemporary horror cottage-industry which in turn fueled the genre-industry in general and seemed to re-ingite public fervor for horror films, which I am all for because more horror films maybe get made or get better funded or get distribution. So it's a big deal.
But it ain't no Princess Bride.



How is it shallow? Homestly I do it all the time, and a lot of people do it.
I trully am sorry if I offended you I rea;;y didn't meant it. I don't know if shallow is the right term (english is my second language) but I encountered really few REAL cinephile. You see I don't want to be the snob that is saying if one is cinephile or not but to comeback to what tarantino once said : << There are 2 types of people; people who like movie they like ( P.S. I am that type) and those who like movies>> and what I realize while grading movies is that I tend to consider one movie better than the other and stick to that thought though it is more complicated. You have nuance and I took, when I started watching movies seriously, the bad habit to grade everything I saw and I found personally 2 problems.

1st, there are SO MANY movies. Like I said earlier I have a little system of my own where I put them in categories rather than grade but there are 6 categories so we can say 6 grades but for the purpose of the example let make it 4. So lets begin the example. For instance, I prefer life of pi to knight and day but I prefer The thing over life of pi. So I put knight and day 1; Life of pi 2 and The thing 3rd. For now, it is manageable. Let's add another movie : Godfather. A nearly perfect movie let put it 4. But now I just saw Hiroshima my love; very intelligent movie but super boring for my taste. WHAT DO I DO. Do I make it a 3-4, grade it deserve because it is a great movie or 1-2 because it bored me to death. Let's add ANOTHER movie : No country for old men. It's a great movie but what do I do it is better than The thing but the godfather is clearly better so I can't make it a 3 nor a 4. Obviously you can go with higher number but in my opinion it is the core of the problem you compare tomatoes with apple ( or whatever the expression may be). There is already debate over which godfather's the best when they are the same genre, same director, same dp, same editor I think, same kind of story. So what happen when you want to compare Godfather with a David Lynch's movie, which is nearly the complete opposite (one is super modern and the other is super classic) or with a 1930's movie or with any other kind of movie. It just become complicated and I really think no one can stay objective while making those sorts of lists.

2nd, As I said I have a system of my own and it forces me to think too binarly (I dont know if it is a word). I'll try to organise my thoughts. Now I often see a movie either as bad OR good or as better OR worst than x movie. Therefore I dont have place for nuance. Because movie can be other thing than bad or good and you can not just compare two movies. There are some movies who will focus on an aspect like cinematography and the rest will be undertreated as oposed to another that will focus on editing and will undertreat the rest. So how do you weigh each areas. I dont think you can. But I think if I never had that bad habit of grading movies, I will as of today be able to appreciate more movies for subtle things but now I only look at the overall aspect of the movie only considering if it is a good OR a bad movie or if it is better OR worst than x movie.

To conclude, do not get me wrong, for the average viewer (and I dont mean that in a bad way) grading movies is important because they will not <<waste>> their time watching every movie so someone as to help them pick movie WORTH watching. But even if I dont consider myself a cinephile ( because I like movie I like and perhaps not movies in general. though I watch on average 3 movies a day) I dont consider myself an average viewer as well so I think I must appreciate movie in an other way and grading everything seems to avoid that purpose.
Please, I will love to debate about it an learn your point of view. I think it very intresting.



I agree in that it was an terrific horror movie that really drew in and scared viewers in a unique way. It still seems to live up to repeat viewings as well. However, the acting is bad enough to keep it from 100/100



Saw doesn't work from any angle I look at it. It undercuts its horror by explicitly showing everything and leaving nothing to the audiences imagination. It doesn't work as grindhouse exploitation, because it refuses to live in the gutter with its violence, preferring Scooby Doo theatrics that distance us from the reality of what is happening to the victims. It endlessly undercuts its sense of suspense by inserting cheap razzmataz cinematic gimmicks instead of letting the audience live with the decisions those in Jigsaw's contraptions are forced to make. It doesn't work as camp, because it has zero sense of humor about itself. It doesn't work as drama, because characters are paper thin and the acting is **** and the logic of the film is nonsense. It doesn't work as surrealism, because it is too desperate to impress with any of its strangeness, forcefeeding its baroque play-pretend sense of horror. .And its sense of atmosphere has almost entirely been lifted from other films, such as Seven, without Wan ever figuring out to inject his own personality into what is on screen (basically something the director has built his entire career on). Bad bad bad bad bad.

For me, this film gets awfully close to a zip out of ten. So I clearly live in an alternate universe to the original post. But that's okay. If someone really loved this, and thought it was perfect, they shouldn't have a moments hesitation in giving it a ten out of ten without needing to consult anyone else.



I trully am sorry if I offended you I rea;;y didn't meant it. I don't know if shallow is the right term (english is my second language) but I encountered really few REAL cinephile. You see I don't want to be the snob that is saying if one is cinephile or not but to comeback to what tarantino once said : << There are 2 types of people; people who like movie they like ( P.S. I am that type) and those who like movies>> and what I realize while grading movies is that I tend to consider one movie better than the other and stick to that thought though it is more complicated. You have nuance and I took, when I started watching movies seriously, the bad habit to grade everything I saw and I found personally 2 problems.

1st, there are SO MANY movies. Like I said earlier I have a little system of my own where I put them in categories rather than grade but there are 6 categories so we can say 6 grades but for the purpose of the example let make it 4. So lets begin the example. For instance, I prefer life of pi to knight and day but I prefer The thing over life of pi. So I put knight and day 1; Life of pi 2 and The thing 3rd. For now, it is manageable. Let's add another movie : Godfather. A nearly perfect movie let put it 4. But now I just saw Hiroshima my love; very intelligent movie but super boring for my taste. WHAT DO I DO. Do I make it a 3-4, grade it deserve because it is a great movie or 1-2 because it bored me to death. Let's add ANOTHER movie : No country for old men. It's a great movie but what do I do it is better than The thing but the godfather is clearly better so I can't make it a 3 nor a 4. Obviously you can go with higher number but in my opinion it is the core of the problem you compare tomatoes with apple ( or whatever the expression may be). There is already debate over which godfather's the best when they are the same genre, same director, same dp, same editor I think, same kind of story. So what happen when you want to compare Godfather with a David Lynch's movie, which is nearly the complete opposite (one is super modern and the other is super classic) or with a 1930's movie or with any other kind of movie. It just become complicated and I really think no one can stay objective while making those sorts of lists.

2nd, As I said I have a system of my own and it forces me to think too binarly (I dont know if it is a word). I'll try to organise my thoughts. Now I often see a movie either as bad OR good or as better OR worst than x movie. Therefore I dont have place for nuance. Because movie can be other thing than bad or good and you can not just compare two movies. There are some movies who will focus on an aspect like cinematography and the rest will be undertreated as oposed to another that will focus on editing and will undertreat the rest. So how do you weigh each areas. I dont think you can. But I think if I never had that bad habit of grading movies, I will as of today be able to appreciate more movies for subtle things but now I only look at the overall aspect of the movie only considering if it is a good OR a bad movie or if it is better OR worst than x movie.

To conclude, do not get me wrong, for the average viewer (and I dont mean that in a bad way) grading movies is important because they will not <<waste>> their time watching every movie so someone as to help them pick movie WORTH watching. But even if I dont consider myself a cinephile ( because I like movie I like and perhaps not movies in general. though I watch on average 3 movies a day) I dont consider myself an average viewer as well so I think I must appreciate movie in an other way and grading everything seems to avoid that purpose.
Please, I will love to debate about it an learn your point of view. I think it very intresting.
This is a lot for me to debate so I'll only tackle the mostimportant thing because much of what you said makes sense.


There is a difference between enjoying the movie and recognizing the talent of it. Some people label this as "subjectivity vs. objectivity " but I believe that's very inaccurate because both statement are still opinions. I think a better term would be "personal opinion vs. professional / educated opinion." Even if you're not a critic, you can still have an opinion educated enough to be professional.


Your rating depends on which opinion you think is more important. Let's take the old French movie The Hole. Excellent filmmaking, but it's not my type of prison movie, so even though I give it a high rating based on its artistic drive, I may never watch it again.



A system of cells interlinked
Saw is a bad movie, full stop.

The editing is lifted directly out of a late 90s nu-metal video, with rapid fire cuts and flashing lights.

The acting is laughably bad from most of the people involved, Leigh Whannell is absolutely awful, and even veteran guys like Elwes and Glover turn in bad performances, with Elwes' histrionics garnering unintentional laughs, and Glover stumbling through the role looking like someone hit him on the head with a ball peen hammer.

The police procedural is tacked on, existing only to fill up run time in order to stretch the proceedings to feature length. It constantly undercuts the building tension of the events in the room, deflating whatever momentum the film has been building. Would also point out that much of the tension is created with the hectic editing and jarring sound design, instead of the film's events. This isn't always the case, but it is much of the time.

The color palette is off-putting. It reminds me off Battlefield Earth, with muted blues and grays.

There are a couple of well done scenes in the film, like the scene in the apartment with the flash bulb, and the final reveal was surprising at the time, but it's not enough to save the film, IMO.
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Personally, I really enjoyed the full attempt to avoid the typical horror tropes while weaving an intricate, character driven story. The acting wasn't as mad as some people say (I watch quite a bit of MST3K) and the cinematography was more like a 2000's police show than some alt-metal video. I love crime shows, myself.



the samoan lawyer's Avatar
Unregistered User
Its an unpopular opinion, that Saw is better than Princess Bride. Unpopular but correct
If you enjoyed it, you enjoyed it, don't look for the bad in it. I prefer most torture porn flicks over Princess Bride.
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