Saw opened up a whole new sub genre of horror: the gore genre! Saw is all about getting a reaction from its audience and making them look away in shock at what they are seeing. Of course, that’s more the sequels, the original still had some storyline and a good setup.

Saw follows the story of two men who have been chained into an old, dirty bathroom. A dead body is between them with a tape that tells the men that one has to kill the other in the time limit or one of the men, Dr Gordon’s family will die. They have hacksaws that they try to break through the chains with to no avail. Of course, we all know how this ends, Dr Gordon cuts off his foot with the rusty hacksaw and it is disgusting! But, along the way, we meet other victims of similar ends including Amanda who is stuck in the reverse bear trap. She luckily makes it out but has the scars to remind herself of what she went through. The killer doing all this? Jigsaw. A killer who doesn’t kill people but makes his victims kill themselves or each other. Very eerie if you say the least. Finally, and of course, there is a twist but I’ll leave you to go find that out for yourselves.

It’s quite interesting to note that Saw started out as a short film and became a feature length movie. The movie didn’t have the biggest budget so that’s why a lot of things happen in the same place, i.e, the bathroom. But of course it’s a new type of horror so everyone was going to love it. It’s gory, scary and definitely twisted so it’s going to be a fan favourite especially against all the old and tired slashers or ghost stories.

Saw became a bit of fun for me. The first few movies scared me and then the gore still made me look away but I didn’t find them scary anymore. I couldn’t empathise with the characters and the traps seemed way too elaborate for a man who was dying from cancer. Was it overplayed? Yes definitely but did it make money? Again yes. Even if you couldn’t stand the Saw series you couldn’t not watch them just to see what horrible things they decide to come up with next.

Saw is definitely a horror staple and will be a classic within a few years. It started up a whole new genre of horror and captivated audiences around the world. Just don’t watch too many of the sequels otherwise it will lose its excitement and horror.

What do you think of Saw?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding