Saw

Notable for arguably being the first film in the "Torture Porn" subgenre, Saw gained notoriety as one of Bravo's 100 Scariest moments. It was the first outing of the now notorious Jigsaw Killer, who kidnaps his victims and forces them to appreciate life by doing terrible things to themselves and others or die. Saw spawned five sequels, a comic book, a Video Game, and an amusement park ride.

Plot Synopsis

The film opens with two men, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam Faulkner, sitting in an old warehouse bathroom with a dead body sitting between them. They are told by their captor (via audiotape) that they most "play a game" to get out alive. Dr. Gordon must kill Adam before a specified time, or his family will all die. As they get to better know each other, they realize they have been put there for a reason.

Cast

Reviews

"Saw is an efficiently made thriller, cheerfully gruesome, and finally not quite worth the ordeal it puts us through. It's a fictional machine to pair sadistic horrors with merciless choices, and so the question becomes: Do we care enough about the characters to share what they have to endure? I didn't." — Roger Eberthttp://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041028/REVIEWS/40923005/1023

Young Australian filmmakers Leigh Whannell and James Wan made "Saw with limited funds and such borrowed ideas as a moralizing killer straight out of "Seven." But the dread coursing through "Saw" comes from their own perverse imaginations. Director Wan and his co-writer Whannell show a heartlessness essential to a hardcore horror film. The sun never shines in this grisly endeavor, and that's only partly because the filmmakers couldn't afford exterior shots. - San Francisco Chronicle[1]]

Stephen Holden Stephen Holden