Saw (2004)

Directed by James Wan
Written by Leigh Whannel
Starring Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Dina Meyer, Leigh Whannel and Tobin Bell as Jigsaw.
Lion's Gate Films

As it was nearing Halloween and, honestly, to keep up with my daughter's newfound fascination with horror movies, I decided it was high time I see what everyone has called one of the scariest, most original and creative horror flicks in recent years.

I was never a huge fan of the slasher films we grew up on in the eighties, but, since Freddy, Jason and Michael have all but gone away for now (I think I read Rob Zombie is going to bring Jason back-God help us-and the Halloween reboot didn't quite take-again, but for the Grace of God), it seems that at least the first installments of recent fright franchises have, in the least, been creative, and quite conceptually sound. I really 'enjoyed' Final Destination and The Ring downright spooked me. And 28 Days Later blew my mind. More about all of those some other day.

I usually take it as a fairly good sign when there are fairly substanital names involved in a horror picture. It's not always a guarantee that we're in store for a high-minded thriller, but, you have to figure these actors have to look out for their careers while still paying their bills.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
I only mention this in case someone hasn't seen it yet, even though it's four years old. Anyway, you've been warned.

It starts out interestingly enough; two guys (Cary Elwes and screenwriter Leigh Whannel) wake up chained to pipes at opposite corners of an true shit hole. Between them lies a dead body; face down, holding a tape recorder in one hand and a pistol in the other--a pool of blood coming from an apparently self-inflicted shot to the head.

Naturally, they're confused, frightened and more than a bit distrustful. Each of them finds an envelope in their pockets with a microcassete that reads PLAY ME. After wrangling the recorder from the corpse's hand, they each receive their own personal set of ominous instructions from the unseen captor.

We learn through well paced flashbacks that Elwes (Dr. Lawrence Gordon) was once a suspect in a series of serial murders. The FB's are used to good effect to break up and supplant the potentially indulgent, exposition heavy 'this must be what's going on' scenes; especially in the claustrophobic setting these poor bastards are in. It would have been much easier (and much less effective) to turn this into a yell back and forth at each other, bloody version of Waiting for Godot; the FB's keep this from happening.

We see Elwes as a cold, emotionally distant oncologist who is dismissive of patients and hospital staff alike. One orderly, Zep, tries to point out a patient's name during rounds one day. Not that Dr. Gordon cares. The scene serves as a bright red herring (almost too bright...) as the film progresses.

James Wan and Whannel smartly use narration and voice overs sparingly in the flashbacks; choosing show over tell.

Glover is the obsessive detective who is on Dr. Gordon's tail in the FB and whose manic obsessiveness ultimately saves the good doctor's wife (Monica Potter, who finally looks old enough to drive) and child, who Jigsaw had plans for as part of his 'game'.

The horror comes by way of the psychological cat and mouse that is played out by Jigsaw upon his marks and by Wan on the viewers. Jigsaw (whose name holds very little meaning in overall story) is not an indescriminate psychopath. His motivations are not unlike those behind Kevin Spacey's John Doe in Se7en; the victim's have been chosen very specifically. Unlike the Seven Deadly Sinners though, Jigsaw's game pieces aren't necessarily being punished, but given an object lesson (as our parents would have described it to us) to make them appreciate those things taken for granted and to reconsider shallow, cowardly choices made.

There is plenty of blood, but no gore. It's a mix between tension and just enough shown onscreen to make you afraid of what's happening offscreen.

Bottom line is this: Saw pushes and confuses the boundary between horror film and psychological thriller; between morality play and character study; all the while making you ask yourself questions you never want to have to answer.